What happens when you insert contemporary works of art into
pre-modern, or even prehistoric, collections of art?
grappled with such a project several years
ago, when he was granted free access to explore the storerooms of the
British Museum in search of works of art by unknown artists
throughout history that could respond, so to speak, to Perry’s own work.
Contemporary interventions into historical collections have become almost
commonplace for some institutions seeking to draw younger audiences and inject
some vitality into their inventories, in the form of new connections and
resonances across centuries. Take, for example, the
Asian Art Museum’s 2012 exhibition “Phantoms of Asia:
Contemporary Awakens the Past,” which juxtaposed Asian artworks, ancient and
new, or the recent exhibition “
Ink Art:
Past as Present in Contemporary China” at the
Metropolitan.
This impulse to draw a thread between the artwork of disparate
ages and continents was at the core of the practices of two internationally
renowned collectors, Merton D. Simpson and Allan Stone, whose relationship and
shared concerns are honored in an exhibition at
Merton D. Simpson Gallery, “
Simpson
& Stone: A Special Selection of African & Oceanic Art from the Allan
Stone Collection.”
Alongside African ceremonial masks and Oceanic figures from the extensive
collection of the late Stone—who was as voracious an advocate and
collector of the
artists such as
and
, as he was of tribal art—are works by
contemporary artists
,
,
,
,
,
,
, and
himself.
In the gallery, Igbo masks perch adjacent to Bailey’s detailed
line drawings, which resemble complex networks or cross-sections of sinewy
limbs, contrasting with the simplified forms of the tribal works on view, while
also reinforcing the elongated neck of a wooden figure close by. Swanson’s
materially rich glass, steel, and fabric compositions invoke modernist
abstraction—creating a ground of lines and geometry against which Stone’s
fabulous African and Oceanic sculptures are reconfigured, their curvilinear
shapes announcing themselves more readily, and their smooth wooden finish
drawing the eye. Lahlou’s provocative juxtaposition of photographic images
conjures ideas of sexuality, religion, and taboo—uncomfortable bedfellows by
any standard—inviting viewers to contemplate the belief systems, as well as the
national and gender stereotypes, that so often come into clashing contact when
cultures intersect.
Perhaps most significantly, this melding of artists from
divergent geographies and periods in history, mirrors the inclusive approach of
Simpson and Stone, whose propensity was to look not for divisive binaries, but
for evidence of influence and cultural contact between artworks, in awareness
that it was these that imbue art with one of its greatest sources of vitality.
Installation images courtesy of Merton D.
Simpson Gallery.