Twin sculptures of the Yoruba people from the Pavlich collection
December 2015 – June 2016
Exhibition curator: Aleksandra Prodanović Bojović
The Museum of African Art presents the topic of twins in African art and culture with an exhibition of twin statues of the Yoruba people from the Pavlich art collection. These sculptures belong to the twin cult of the Yoruba people, who have the highest twin birth rate in the world. At this multimedia exhibition visitors can learn about the Yoruba beliefs and customs concerning twins, listen to a praise song dedicated to twins, and see an interview with a priest of the Yoruba traditional religion on the importance of twins for the Yoruba.
Read the opening speeches given by H. E. Mr. Harold Augustus Koko, Ambassador of Nigeria, and Professor Senka Kovač, Ph.D, Department of Ethnology and Anthropology – Belgrade University.
An above average number of twins is born on the African continent, compared to other parts of the world. The Yoruba people, who live in southwest Nigeria, have the highest rate of multiple births in the world. The Yoruba people, as well as other African cultures, attribute supernatural origins and spiritual power to twins. According to their beliefs, every person has a double in the heavens. Twins are children who are born along with their heavenly counterpart. The name for twins in yoruba is ibeji, meaning “born two times”, which also the name of the divinity that protects them. Twin children are regarded as divine blessings which bring happiness to their family if they are cared for and treated with respect. The cult dedicated to twins is based on these beliefs.
Anthropomorphic wooden sculptures called ere ibeji, were made in the case of death of twin children, which was a frequent occurrence in traditional communities, before the arrival of modern medicine. These figures served as substitutes for the child, as a consolation, a “vessel” in which the child’s soul dwelled. Treating the sculpture as they would a real child, the family expressed their love and tenderness for the child gone too soon. The sculpture “participated” in numerous rituals and ceremonies dedicated to twins and the Ibeji deity. It was believed that the sculpture protects the family, especially children, from sickness and death.
The diversity, as well as the artistic and emotional value of twin sculptures, sparked an interest of numerous collectors of African art from around the world. Today, these objects are featured in many museum and gallery collections around the world.
The contemporary age brought about the decline of twin rituals, but traces of older beliefs still exist. The outlines of the cult are still recognizable in the special, “heavenly” names given to twins, praise songs dedicated to them, and in the joy with which the birth of these fragile “double deities” is anticipated.
The preserved sculptures offer insight into an extraordinary ritual and artistic practice, whose values are inscribed into the culture and memory of the Yoruba people. It is an exceptional pleasure to display the sculptures of twins, which were collected at the end of the 1970s in Nigeria with dedication and patience which attest to the passion and the artistic gift of their owners and keepers, Ljiljana and Boris Pavlić.
The exhibition also showcases black and white photographs – double portraits from West Africa, which illustrate the preservation of beliefs and notions regarding twins which are transposed into a new medium. These photographs are the courtesy of French historian of African art and curator, Angelo Micheli, who has done research on twins and photography in Africa.
At this multimedia exhibition visitors can learn about the Yoruba beliefs and customs concerning twins, listen to a praise song dedicated to twins, and see an interview with a priest of the Yoruba traditional religion on the importance of twins for the Yoruba.
Thematic art workshops are organized along with the exhibition, for pre-schoolers and school children (see calendar of events).
Exhibition curator/exhibition design: Aleksandra Prodanović Bojović
Photographs: Vlada Popović, Angelo Micheli, David Howard, Anthony Hart Fisher, the Museum photo archive
Interview by: Aleksandra Prodanović Bojović
Video material: Aaron Carter-Cohn, Aleksandar Maričić
Archival photograph of the entrance to the Museum of African Art, Belgrade, featuring a Ghanaian fishing boat given as a gift to Dr Zdravko Pečar in 1975 by the leader of Mankoadze, the village where it was constructed and used. Courtesy the Museum of African ArtOne: The Image-Object-Body If pure recollection is already spirit, and if pure perception is still in some sense matter, we ought to be able, by placing ourselves at their meeting place, to throw some light on the reciprocal action of spirit and matter. ‘Pure’, that is to say, instantaneous perception is, in fact, only an ideal, an extreme. Every perception fills a certain depth of duration, prolongs the past into the present, and thereby partakes of memory. So that if we take perception, in its concrete form, as a synthesis of pure memory and pure perception, that is to say, of mind and matter, we compress within its narrowest limits the problem of the union of soul and body. — Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory1
This understanding of perception as something always alloyed with memory, laid out by Bergson in Matter and Memory, rests on a cunning refusal to specify the differences between image, object and body in common-sense terms: ‘I call matter the aggregate of images, and perception of matter these same images referred to
Footnotes
Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory (1896, trans. Nancy Margaret Paul and W. Scott Palmer), New York: Zone Books, 1988, p.244. ↑
See H. Bergson, ‘Memory of the Present and False Recognition’, in Mind–Energy (1908, trans. H. Wildon Carr), New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920, pp.165—67. ↑
Clarice Lispector, A Breath of Life (1978, trans. Johnny Lorenz), New York: New Directions, 2012, p.43. ↑
Živorad Kovačević, ‘Ouverture du Musée d’Art Africain — événement culturel et politique’, in Musée d’Art Africain, Collection Veda et Dr Zdravko Pečar, Belgrade: Beograd-Publik, 1977, p.4. Translation the author’s. ↑
See the museum’s website: www.museumofafricanart.org (last accessed on 4 August 2014). ↑
See Ana Sladojević, ‘Museum as the Image of the World: The Space of Representations of Identity and Ideology', unpublished doctoral thesis, Belgrade: University of Arts in Belgrade, Interdisciplinary Studies, Group for Theory of Art and Media, 2008—12. ↑
A. Sladojević, ‘The Museum of African Art in Belgrade and Its Anti-Colonial Discourse', unpublished and undated research paper, Belgrade: University of Arts in Belgrade, p.5. ↑
Biographical data adapted from Muzej afričke umetnosti: Zbirka Vede i Dr Zdravka Pečara/Musée d’Art Africain: Collection Veda et Dr Zdravko Pečar/Museum of African Art: The Veda and Dr Zdravko Pečar Collection, Belgrade and Gornji Milanovac: Museum of African Art/Dečje novine, 1989, p.569. ↑
A. Sladojević, ‘The Museum of African Art in Belgrade and Its Anti-Colonial Discourse', op. cit., p.1. ↑
No one appears to have known Tito’s exact birthdate. It was officially celebrated as if he had been born on 25 May 1892, although 7 May has been proposed as the ‘more authentic’ birthday. ↑
Jelena Aranđelović-Lazić, ‘Le Musée d’Art Africain à Belgrade’, in Musée d’Art Africain, Collection Veda et Dr Zdravko Pečar, Belgrade: Beograd-Publik, 1977, p.52. Translation the author’s. In the 1989 catalogue, published on the occasion of the second Belgrade conference of the Non-Aligned Movement, more than 1,200 objects are listed and illustrated. ↑
English transcript of the speech made available through the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library, Washington DC, on http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKPOF-104-004.aspx (last accessed on 16 July 2014). ↑
‘Unedited History: Iran 1960—2014’, co-curated by Odile Burluraux, Catherine David, Morad Montazami, Narmine Sadeg and Vali Mahlouji, at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (16 May—24 August 2014) includes a rather comprehensive section on the Persepolis Festival and MACBA in Barcelona is planning a project about the ‘Art for Palestine’ exhibition, while Chimurenga presented their research on FESTAC77, held in Lagos, at the San Francisco Public Library from 24 May until 29 June 2014. ↑
See http://www.mij.rs/en/exhibitions/197/travelling-communique.html (last accessed on 4 August 2014). ‘Travelling Communiqué’, Museum of Yugoslav History, Belgrade, 10 June—14 August 2014. ↑
Translated from the Serbo-Croat by Ana Sladojević. ↑
See Dejan Sretenović, Crno telo, bele maske (exh. cat.), Belgrade: Museum of African Art, Collection of Veda and Dr Zdravko Pečar, 2004. ↑
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