Inside the new Seattle Art Museum: African art

The African galleries include these masked figures from Nigeria, dressed for a village masquerade
(May 04, 2007). Photo Credit: Paul Joseph Brown/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Spirit and flesh fuse through art in Africa. That means a group of guys sitting around in a dirt circle might well have the ceremonial weight of the pope at High Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

Seattle Art Museum

By REGINA HACKETT found at P-I ART

You know their force field through their masks, clothing and postures. African art curator Pam McClusky brings home the message that ceremonial art is alive and well through a group of figures carved and danced by the Afikpo village group in Nigeria.

Collected by Seattle art historian and anthropologist Simon Ottenberg, each mask defines a position. It's a male universe with one unattainable female, and all the ploys frozen in place mark efforts to win her favor.

The Afikpo people chose the clothing to go with Ottenberg's masks. The footwear could be found on the feet of young urban males around the globe.

The figures are frozen, but McClusky surrounds them in videos. As Robert Farris Thompson noted in his book on SAM's Katherine White collection, "Africa Art in Motion," static art in Africa is inherently contradictory.

In 1981, SAM became a major player in African art when White gave her collection, the finest in private hands, as a partial gift. She chose SAM because she knew McClusky, who in turn had studied with Thompson.

It's a brave world with brilliant people in it, and SAM wouldn't have a place on its map without its internationally celebrated curator.

Because McClusky's galleries are in the new northern wing of the expansion, known as the chilly side, her challenge was to warm them up with art. You know you're entering a new world as you emerge from the escalator on the fourth floor. The frosted glass wall under the handrails is a video screen. Music comes in centralized wave baths, which you move into and out of.

Against a high wall against the escalator is William Kentridge's haunting "Shadow Procession," with a sound bath of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."

Other highlights in the African galleries include Seydou Keita's and Malick Sidibe's photos, especially Sidibe's "Roadside Picnic" from 1976, with Malian teenagers holding up American rock 'n' roll records. Say it loud, James Brown. Kane Quaye's deluxe car coffin is the answer to Janis Joplin's prayer: Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz. Heaven, here we come.

DON'T MISS: Marita Dingus' "400 Men and 200 Women of African Descent," from 1997, examines the slave trade through trashed memorials. Every single figure is unique.