June 24, 2011 || “FERTILE, FRIGHTFUL, DIVINE!”
Exhibition duration: June 24 – July 22, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, June 24 @ 6:30-10:30pm
LIVE Jazz Music: New World Order
Open Studio/Lecture: Friday, July 8th @ 6:30pm
The Alfa Art Gallery proudly presents “FERTILE, FRIGHTFUL, DIVINE!” – African tribal masks and sculptures from the Raskin Collection.
The collection was assembled over 30 years by the late tribal art collector and dealer Yuri Raskin and his son, Ilya Raskin, who is a professor at Rutgers University and a wildlife photographer. It is his dramatic photographs of African wildlife that accent the displayed works of African art. Art pieces from the Raskin collection have been sought for art installations, interior decoration, private collections, TV and theater production, as well as inspiration, reflection and research.
The Raskins’ educational site www.zyama.com is one of the largest and well used on-line information sources on African art assembled over the past 15 years. Their gallery www.arttribal.com is a successful family owned business. Its clients represent more that 20 countries on five continents and include artists, anthropologists, collectors, architects, art teachers, decorators, films studios as well as practitioners of African religions.
Feel the passion and magic emanating from fertility statues, nail studded fetishes, awesome ceremonial masks, power staffs, decorated shields and chiseled wooden doors replete with symbols of beauty, strength, healing and divination.
The Exhibit will focus on the following
- statues and masks used in fertility, healing and divination rites mostly in Sub Saharan and West African tribes;
- bronze Benin style sculptures and other objects of power and beauty;
- photographs of people, landscapes and wild life in Africa.
Goal of the Exhibit
To highlight various aspects of African tribal masks and sculptures which – in ways similar to and yet distinctly different from western art – are both ritual objects for practitioners – and objects of decoration, research, or artistic inspiration for others.
