Sean Kelly Gallery is delighted to announce Primitivism Revisited: After the End of an Idea, the first significant exhibition in over twenty years to re-examine the idea of Primitivism. Classical African art from Mali, the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria, amongst other regions, will be juxtaposed with a broad range of influential contemporary artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Felix Gonzales-Torres, Marina Abramović, Carolee Schneeman, Los Carpinteros, Alfredo Jaar, and Thomas Ruff. This unique exhibition is curated by eighteen Columbia University graduate students of Susan Vogel, Professor of African Art, and founding Director of the Museum for African Art in New York. The opening of Primitivism Revisited: After the End of an Idea will take place on Friday, December 15th from 6pm-8pm and the exhibition will be on view through January 27, 2007.
Primitivism Revisited: After the End of an Idea provides a 21st century view of the notion of Primitivism, which, in the 20th century, traced formal relationships between modern western art and the “primitive” (not only African art but Pre-Columbian, Native American and Oceanic art). Historical connections between the two, commonly ascribed to the work of such artists as Gaugin and Picasso, were extensively studied in 1938 by Robert Goldwater, and were the subject of a 1984 exhibition curated by William Rubin at the Museum of Modern Art, entitled “Primitivism” in Modern Art. Whilst highly critiqued, Rubin’s point of view has not subsequently been directly addressed in an exhibition setting.
Primitivism Revisited: After the End of an Idea considers Primitivism in light of art and attitudes formed since Rubin’s 1984 exhibition. It is now apparent that Primitivism belongs to a historical period of modern art that was already ending in 1984. Since that time, post-colonial thinking, globalization, and an awareness of our own cultural hybridity have deepened ideas about African culture; the exoticizing and demeaning implications of Primitivism have made it untenable. Artists of the 21st century are engaged in a different kind of dialogue with the arts of Africa.