Yoruba

Who: Bernard and Patricia Wagner Collection

What: Embodying the Sacred in Yoruba Art & The Breaded Prayer Project

Where: Anderson Gallery

When: February 18, 2009

"This nationally traveling exhibition explores the relationship between art and the spiritual world in Yoruba culture through nearly 70 extraordinary works in diverse media." 

When i first walked into the gallery, the first piece I noticed was the sculpture shown on the left. It is made out of wood and the details on it are amazing. One reason I enjoy looking at sculptures from things like wood or marble or any other medium, is that I appreciate any individual who can take a large chunk of medium and create something so detailed and realistic.  If they mess up once the piece is ruined and I know I wouldn't be able to do it right on the first try. The combinations of these animals interest me. I assume they are the animals that live near the people who created this headdress. 

In addition, I find it interesting how big and heavy the headdresses look. I do not think I would be able to hold a headdress this large on my head. They are all very neat looking with tremendous amounts of detail, but they are very large and look far to heavy to hold on one's head.

In one room on the bottom floor there are panels full of different shaped and styled packets entitled the Beaded Prayers Project.  At first both Rachel and I didn't understand the significants of these packets. However, after reading the provided information, we discovered that they were prayers, wishes, etc. rolled inside each packet. When we looked at them more closely, we were able to see the paper inside in some of the packets. After understanding what the packets were it become much more interesting. Overall, I thought the Yoruba sculptures and headdresses where amazing and well crafted and, though I was not a big fan of the prayers project presentation, I found the idea intriguing.