Dani Gagnon
A&E Editor
Last night, The College of Wooster Art Museum held the opening of the gallery exhibit, “The Performative in African Art.” The exhibit is an event associated with the Wooster Forum 2013: Facing RACE. The 13 students that are enrolled in Assistant Professor of Art History Kara Morrow’s class African Art curated the show and presented a gallery speech on Thursday at 7 p.m. The exhibit, “The Performative in African Art,” will continue to be open to the public through Dec. 6.
Each student was responsible for researching and presenting on various objects. As the CWAM poster summarized, students will be presenting African art as “fundamentally performative because efficacy completed through enactment.” Although there have been many art history classes in the past that have curated shows, there have been none in recent history that have done so in association with the Forum series.
Morrow explained the value in integrating the Forum into the class: “There are opportunities offered [from the Forum] that enrich class material, and by curating a show to support the Forum, students see that the relationship is reciprocal. Students enrich and inform the campus environment while contributing to the Forum events as more than attendees.”
Through students’ participation in curating the exhibit, they take on an active role in their education, further giving students an opportunity to utilize campus resources. The role of the objects as the center of students’ education disrupts the traditional class style and redirects attention to primary sources.
According to Morrow, in focusing directly on the artifacts within the show, institutionalized assumptions of African art are fundamentally challenged. Sarah Van Oss ’16 reflected on the favorite elements that she takes away from class, “Attempting to categorize or explain African culture has been something that Western societies have been doing (often incorrectly) for a long time.”
Van Oss further notes that “the reconstructing of my pre-conceived ideas of African Art and culture is what has been my favorite part of this class. I have been forced to think critically of my own biases and prejudices and admire African artworks for what they are and the cultures they represent”.
In leaving assumed understandings of the culture and working with actual objects that were made and used by people within the culture whose use defines the artifacts’ meaning, student learning moves to an experiential realm.
The class allowed students to take a more hands on role in their learning. Morrow notes the class offers an opportunity of insight in potential careers in art history fields: “When curating an exhibition, students are doing the work of museum professionals. They are building their professional skill sets and sharing their expertise.”
Although the majority of the students enrolled in the class are not art history majors, they benefit tremendously as they apply their theoretical learning to the real world in this situation exemplifying the kind of critical reasoning that Wooster is always pushing for.
Morrow and her class attempt to disrupt the pre-conceived notions of African culture through an examination of their art. Through their close and deconstructive analysis of the many sub-cultures and groups within the massive, all-encompassing category of Africa, they expose the oversights and assumptions made about cultures in general.