Artists in Dialogue

Yesterday afternoon, I made my way to the Mall (the national one). I went to the National Museum of African Art. I saw the Artists in Dialogue Exhibit, which had an excellent review in the Washington Post (and I always trust the Post rightly or wrongly). The exhibit is works by two modern artists from Africa: Ole from Angola and Mpane from the DRC. It features their works and had a few pieces in which one artist reponded to the work of another. It is a moving display of the difficulties of African life and the contradictions modernity can bring. I enjoyed many of the pieces, and a few that I particularly liked were:

• Anonymous photographic portraits by Ole of Angolans he encountered while travelling around the country. The one that struck me is the man with the cracked glasses, who asked Ole to have his portrait taken. The cracked glasses seemed to me a bit of an embarassment, but the man looks so proud to have his picture taken.
• Sculpture of a man made entirely out of matchsticks illuminated from behind to create a haunting shadow on the wall (Mpane). This one was breathtaking and sad, but at the same time very intriguing in that it had been built completely out of matchsticks and was such an accurate replica of the human form.
  
• A series of carved drawings by Mpane which represent the troubles of Africans. Some of them were things or words, while others were faces and bodies. Though from a distance, they were cheerful in their bright colors, they were also haunting and moving. In many of these, the persons eyes or face was carved through to reveal an empty space.
  

Sadly, the exhibit was very limited, and featured only 2 rooms. I went to look around the museum at some of the other artwork and exhibitions but I found that I wasn't as moved by these.