Friday, March 27, 2009

Another take on Spirits under glass


Recently we went to the de young museum to enjoy the ethnographic collection. Jim is particularly a fan of the New Guinea works. I have come to appreciate them more and more by seeing them through his eyes. I took my Gameboy camera, and he took our "big" digital camera. Photography is allowed, but no flash or tripods.

My de Young flickr photoset is here.

Jim wrote a very thoughtful blog entry about the visit. An excerpt:

"Encased in the sleekly modern architecture of the museum we see organic figurines, made of wood, clay, stone, or feathers, once living spiritual objects, extracted from dying cultures, forever frozen in action in their vitrines."

1 comment:

tulibri said...

How strange: Reading Jim's quote, my first thought was, that's exactly how I felt when I wandered through the exhibition "Art of the South Seas. Death Cult and Ancestral Portraits from New Ireland" two years back in Berlin.

Following the link to Jim's blog, I was very amazed to find that he must be talking about similar objects to the ones I have seen back then, as New Ireland is a part of New Guinea.