Z.S. Strother. Inventing
Masks: Agency and History in the Art of the Central Pende.
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press 1998.©
Inventing Masks is
a nuanced art history of masquerades among the Central Pende of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). Strother has divided the book
into two interrelated parts. In the first half of the study, she concentrates
on an analysis of the form and style of the masquerade's dance, costume,
music, and masks. The emphasis in these sections is on the processes of
invention, circulation, and interpretation of expressive forms in the
contemporary setting. She devotes the second half of the book to a reconstruction
of the art history of Pende masking in the precolonial and colonial eras.
Strother defines Pende
masquerade as a performance, process and a set of cultural practices
that are open to invention and negotiation over time and space. Her
attention to agency, practice, and process situates her work within
a growing body of studies of African expressive forms which have appeared
over the last several decades. These studies have taken a similar performance
approach. Few of these works are cited in the text, although they do
appear in the bibliography. More surpisingly is the absence of the seminal
theoretical works on agency, practice, and performance in her text and
bibliography, although they have clearly influenced her approach and
her analysis of Pende masquerades.
In the first three chapters
Strother examines the Pende definition of masking where dance is seen
as the critical expressive form. According to the Pende, dance sets
the masquerade characterization. Strother first analyzes the basic structure
and movements of masquerade dances, and then examines the ways in which
music, song and masquerade costume build upon and illuminate dance characterizations.
Throughout these sections she gives specific examples for the movement
of expressive forms --individually or in tandem-- in time and space,
underscoring the processes of invention and change. While this is neither
an ethnography of dance nor of music, her insights on these expressive
forms and their interrelationships in performance are compelling and
suggest further avenues for research.
While attention to the
masquerade performance is woven throughout the book, the focus of the
core of her study remains an analysis and interpretation of the wooden
masks that are created for these events. In chapter four, which is dedicated
to sculptors' ateliers, she explores the dynamics of production and
examines the innovations and inventions in mask forms and styles attributable
to known individuals within the recent past. This section also addresses
the mobility of sculptors and their entrepreneurial capacities in promoting
their styles. Drawing upon specific cases studies of ateliers and artists'
biographies, Strother briefly examines artistic apprenticeship and relates
it to Pende notions of pedagogy.
In the following chapter,
Strother's discussion of Pende theories of physiognomy is an original
contribution to African art studies. She first examines how Pende define
maleness and femaleness in terms of physiognomic features. These definitions
are closely linked to beliefs and values that constitute a Pende moral
universe. She then discusses how individual artists abstract the same
to create distinctively male and female masked representations. Strother
argues that the awareness of the Pende visual vocabulary is critical
for understanding how artists and audience read the physical characteristics
of male and female in the wooden masks.
The subsequent chapter
on "Learning to Read Faces" presents an excellent analysis
of different readings of the Mbangu mask. This mask is identifiable
by its half black and half white face. Strother analyzes two local Pende
interpretations of the mask which are different, but stand as complementary
dimensions of Pende beliefs about illness and sorcery. These two interpretations
demonstrate the possibilities for variations in the reading of masks
within the local setting. She then examines several misreadings of these
masks by Western scholars. Her analysis of masks in Chapter Six reinforces
her argument that while Pende theories of physiognomy constitute a coda
which organizes the reading of faces, this coda does not constitute
a fixed iconography in any art historical sense, but rather a set of
formal attributes that allows for individual artistic expression within
and across genres of masks.
The second part of the
book is an original and important contribution to the field of African
art history. Few Africanist art historians have yet attempted to write
an art history of an African masquerade in the precolonial period. Strother
clearly articulates her methodology and addresses the limitations of
any precolonial reconstruction. Although many of her conclusions must
remain tentative, she does develop a persuasive narrative by comparing
sets of related masquerades over time and space and by drawing upon
common principles which Pende themselves use to discuss the age of their
masquerade.
The colonial era reconstruction
is supported by published ethnographies, detailed field testimonies,
and other documentary evidence. Strother discusses several of the major
political and economic events of the colonial era in terms of what changes
they wrought in Pende society. She then discusses how these changes
affected the masquerades, themselves. In the last section of the book
she moves beyond the colonial era to address the role of the audience
in the processes of invention and reinvention of masquerade today. As
part of this discussion, she locates the dialogue between sculptors,
performers, and audience within the larger field of Congolese popular
culture. While this section is not fully developed, it does suggest
areas for further investigation.
This is an ambitious
work. It is innovative in its approach and in its narrative style which
includes extended testimonies from Pende, themselves. It is also rich
in ethnographic detail and the sections on a precolonial and colonial
art history of masquerades are valuable and should provoke more discussions
of the nature of evidence, memory and of art historical methodology.
While the book clearly holds a special interest for art historians,
many of her insights will appeal to a broader interdisciplinary audience
interested in the study of material and expressive culture.
Mary Jo Arnoldi, Curator
Department of Anthropology
Smithsonian Institution
|
