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by Valentina Vitols

There are only three more days to peruse the wonders of Yoruba Art at the High Museum. Although it has a strong visual impact and drives viewers to a contemplative state, this is not just a risk-free, pretty show. Delivering the art of such a complex and foreign faith to the general public is venturesome. In Embodying the Sacred in Yoruba Art: Featuring the Bernard and Patricia Wagner Collection, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta brings to art audiences a charming sample of how the unique Yoruba ethnic groups embodied symbolization and strong spiritual beliefs. The exhibition is divided into three well-described sections: the glorification of the head, the deities, and the masquerades. Each represents an aspect of a crucial triad for this culture.

The first section features the astounding art for the head. It somehow pushes the desire of wearing or owning some of these magnificent head pieces into the viewer. The ones created in softer materials—like the august Epa headdress, a manifestation of the concept of onà, Yoruba word for “unique form” or “embodiment of creative skill,” used for danced celebrations and performances— combine leather, cowrie shells, glass beads and natural dyed fabrics in different colors. The use of this last element is central to the Yoruba art. It has both an aesthetic and a ritual value, as the veneration factor is pivotal for the culture. In this category, the viewers will also find examples of different types of beaded sacred crowns.

In the case of the pieces made in carved wood or polished metal, these intricate figures —crown-shaped containers— represent scenes of humans or animals surfacing from the top of another human being, in what seems an analogy with the womb and the act of giving birth. For the Yoruba culture, the head’s importance is fundamentally based on the fact that they consider it the home of intelligence, communication and identity.

The second section consists on a compendium of pieces related to the worship of Yoruba deities, or òrìsà. Representations of nature, form motifs, animals, and gods, like —among many other— Sàngó —the deity of thunder and lightning and arbiter of divine justice— convey in the use of noble materials as ivory, shells, brass, wood, peltry, fibers and seeds, some of them colored enhanced by pigments. Traditional Yoruba religion is multi-layered with a perplexing and complex devotion for a supreme creator, Olòdúmarè, and more than 400 other gods. The influence of Yoruba creeds has gone ahead of temporal and geographical barriers; Voodoo and Santería are rooted in this religion.

This part of the exhibition also includes altar images and artifacts for rituals related to the three most important classifications of deities: primordial beings, deified ancestors and nature spirits, centering on eight deities in Yoruba culture, including Èsù/Elégba, the mediator; Òsanyìn, patron deity of healing and herbalists; Òrìsà Oko, deity of agriculture; and Sàngó.

The third section gathers several genres of Yoruba masquerade and costumes. Art becomes a rich ensemble of fabrics and bead, shells and bird heads. Indigo and bermellion serve as a sumptuous background to lines of perfectly aligned, cream-colored cowried shells. This clothing is shown with wooden masks and are works of art that celebrate the human body, considered the visible part of spirit. These pieces were used by the Yorubas for several celebrations, and as a complement for praying ceremonies and cleansing rituals.

The same materials seem to be all over the exhibition, but one never gets tired of this repetition.

Two negative things are glaringly apparent and prevent the show from being impeccable. The first is the poor quality of the photo banners that recreate the life and environments of current Yorubas. These aides look like an almost forgotten, last minute task that doesn’t honor the exhibition and even distracts. The second is the curious choice to display of this exhibition and the compelling Street Photography of the 60s and the 70s in the same area. It’s hard to understand why these two exhibitions crash into each other instead of coexisting close but separately. It is understandable that the black and white photography show is close to the area where Julian Cox puts together his exhibitions, but it doesn’t make much sense that the viewer is looking at a captivating Yoruba cotton and indigo blue cloth (Aso Ofi), and his eyes still can catch the borders of black frames that have nothing to do with the first one. With such a topical exhibition, having another extremely focused one “in the middle” of it doesn’t have much logic.

The High Museum’s effort to put together this fascinating exhibition is praiseworthy. In the end, this an exhibition that represents something that will definitely take the viewer to a remote place where wondrous pieces were and still are created.

Embodying the Sacred in Yoruba Art: Featuring the Bernard and Patricia Wagner Collection be on view will through April 20, 2008, at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, 1280 Peachtree Street, N.E., Atlanta, Georgia 30309.

Valentina Vitols is an MFA candidate in photography at SCAD-Atlanta.

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