Museum of African Art

Smithsonian Museum of African Art

Late 20^th Century

Samburu Peoples, Kenya

The beaded earrings that the Samburu Tribe in Kenya wears are primarily ‘hawt.’ They are made from wire, beads, and buttons. Captivating my attention through their huge, colorful, and unique form, I further learned that these earrings had a symbolic reason to be worn. Unlike America, Kenya has fashionable materials that are used to “declare your cultural identity and social” class.

The Stylish Briefcase

Made Throughout Africa

The corporate world in Africa has gone silly! When America thinks of a briefcase, we think strictly business. Although Wall Street will make you money, doing business is as boring as sitting in your 10^th grade social studies class. The reinvention of the briefcase was crafted with ousted soda cans, comic pages, and mass-produced grocery containers. Yes, the briefcase is stylish eye candy to the average employee of a U.S. government agency, private company etc., bored out of their minds during their 8 hour tour of duty, even though they may stereotype how serious you take your job!

Toy Sewing Machine and Toy Bicycle

Undetermined Peoples, South Africa

These toys are made with the simplest materials that cost almost nothing. The same plastic bag that you threw away, the wired bra or earrings that you no longer needed, and paint make these toys popular and available for tourist market. The materials that American toys are made with are much more complex unnecessary. The same child that will play with this bicyclist and sewing machine could almost make the toy their self.

The Stylish Briefcase, the huge cell phone, and wooden ladder are three familiar images in my additional selected artwork. The briefcase reminds me of the Greenberg & Bederman, LLP commercial. Although I don’t remember a briefcase physically being in the commercial, the seriousness of their theme just looks like they should be holding one. The huge cell phone reminds me of every competing cell phone company and iCarly. The cell phone in the museum is huge, it’s taller than I am and I’m 5”8”. Today’s use of a cell phone is a huge deal; especially amongst our generation and the upcoming generation. iCarly is a show within a show where technology is everything to these high school students who’ve created web show that unnecessarily crumbles every time some use of technology is unavailable.  The wooden ladder reminds me of the Geico infomercials because it shows a bunch of cavemen still struggling to adapt to today’s way of life.

This artwork gets borrowed back in forth when Sprint is comparing their touch screen cell phone to an ancient AT&T phone that’s still in stores today. They show how far we’ve come in technology and the use of media. The ‘art-ness’ of the images don’t change, it just makes it more and more interesting.

 

Anything that shows some symbolic meaning is art. It’s not the earrings made by the Samburu People that’s art, it’s the fact that they symbolize a social class without verbal communication. Africa has their own way of communicating without their standard word exchange; now that’s art. I look at go-go music that is only played in DC as art. That’s something that only the African American culture and younger generations understand. It’s not just an expression through song; it’s the dirty buckets and the tree branches that they used to bang the pain out on the buckets with that makes it art!

There were many books that can easily be purchased; however, I found that the Exhibition Dialogues would have been great in better interpreting the symbols behind the artwork that many se and fell but don’t understand such as myself. I’m not sure who gets to direct and act on what in the museum; however, I know that I contributed to the museum and there exhibits so I would assume that we, the people pay for these special exhibits. Although short films are great for some down time and learning during the museum visit, yet, they should have had something interactive. There were a lot of painting exhibitions and a small craft exercise that showed how deep some of the artwork was, using our own expressions would have been great, every half hour. I’m not sure what should have been in the gift shop because I enjoyed the many gadgets that they did sell. They sold little music toys that the African culture used during their ceremonies…they actually worked too!