four countries art and anthropology

Exploring their visual arts and artifacts helps improve understanding about Myanmar, Iran, Central African Republic, and Cuba. The ancient art and artifacts from these countries predate their modern statehood, making it challenging to find, for example, art that can be definitively located within what is now the Central African Republic. However, Iran has remained relatively contiguous since its heyday as the Persian Empire, and Cuba has boasted a vibrant modern art scene. That, and the city’s substantial Cuban population makes it easier locate items of visual culture easily around New York.

Central African Republic

The museums tend to curate collections of sub-Saharan African art together. African art is displayed in the Museum of Natural History, as if African people can be more readily situated in the context of plant and animal life, hearkening to outmoded racist and colonial beliefs and primitivism. Moreover, the displays in the Museum of Natural History do not single out any items from the Central African Republic specifically. The Central African Republic is not mentioned except in relation to the Dzanga-Sangha Rain Forest exhibition, whereas some of its neighbors like the Democratic Republic of Congo are mentioned in the sections on visual culture. A visitor can only talk in a general way, assuming that the art of neighboring groups will be similar to that of the Baya, Banda, and other Central African Republic ethnic groups. The Brooklyn Museum has a more extensive and humanized collection of African art and ritual objects than the Museum of Natural History. Even here, however, no object was labeled as being from the Central African Republic specifically and the vast majority of objects are from West Africa.

The displays of art from the central regions of Africa do share several elements in common that indicate the worldviews and cosmologies of these animistic cultures. Most objects are made from wood, enhanced with animal parts like bones, teeth, shells, and features. There are also some metal sculptures such as from bronze, but none from the Central African Republic. The art displays show the importance of ritual, and also that art itself was less decorative and more about symbolic and spiritual functions including the donning of ritual masks. There is no way to know from looking at objects whether the society is matriarchal or patriarchal, but the art does reflect the level of economic development in the society.

Cuba

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has on display one of Wifredo Lam’s paintings. One of the most famous of all Cuban artists, Lam’s work bears the stamp of cubism and thus anchors it in a specific point in time. This work of art says nothing necessarily about the anthropology of Cuba: whether the culture is matriarchal or patriarchal, whether the society is socially stratified or egalitarian, whether it is more secular or religious, economically developed or not. What the work does indicate is that Cubans have an appreciation for art for art’s sake. As non-representational art, the work of Lam is provocative and abstract. This one painting entitled, “Goddess with Foliage,” if taken out of context could be misinterpreted to suggest that Cuban religion was goddess-based and that the climate was temperate. As it is, Cuban society has been heavily influenced by Spanish Catholicism and later, Communist secularism as well as the art of the Yoruba. In fact, Cuba is mentioned in the Africa art section of the museum because of the way Yoruba art and culture had disseminated in the Caribbean due to the proliferation of slavery. There is no special section of the museum devoted to Cuban art in the Met, or even at the Hispanic Society museum, which was surprising. The latter did have a few works interspersed on display, speaking to the class stratification that existed in Cuba prior to the Communist Revolution.

Iran

With its rich cultural legacy and thousands of years of visual culture, Iran does have a strong artistic legacy on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Most of the art on display at the Met from Iran is ancient, but there are a select few items from the past several centuries and the Islamic period. The diversity of materials and artistic styles on display belies the complexity of Persian civilization, and also indicates how the society has changed in response to technological advancements, political and military changes, and cultural changes. Moreover, the art of ancient Iran shows how the pre-Achaemenid and Achaemenid periods were characterized by regional dominance as well as interconnectedness with neighboring regions including what is now Turkey and Iraq. For example, the silver gilt bowl on display dates to the first several centuries BCE, and is considered Parthian. Its rich construction and material denotes the wealth of the civilization, and may also imply the great degree of social stratification therein. Ornate gold jewelry conveys similar messages about the vast stores of wealth and natural resources, as well as the inherent social stratification required to amass labor forces to extract raw materials.

The Achaemenid period of art is the most compelling of all in the collection, revealing what is clearly a patriarchal society that is highly evolved, developed, politically complex, and socially stratified. For example, the relief figures for which the Achaemenid period is known show male bearded figures, quintessential patriarchs, marching in procession. There are a few paintings by modern Iranian artists like Ardeshir Mohassess, but these live in diaspora. This shows the extent of restraint on freedom of expression in modern-day Iran, as any other object in the Islamic period is non-repesentational, calligraphic, and traditional like the works by Faramarz Pilaram.

Myanmar

Few museums in New York have even a modicum of Myanmar art. Whereas neighboring nations like Thailand are well represented in displays, the Asia Society has only one bronze Buddha from Myanmar: from the 14th-15th centuries CE. This bronze statue is a seated Shakyamuni Buddha with kneeling worshippers. It is small, designed to be a devotional object but not necessarily used in a ritual setting as would a mask or wearable art. This statue does say a lot about the historical evolution of the Buddhist state, and how the Buddhist kingdoms of Myanmar amassed wealth and power through the use of a state religion as a means of social control. However, the statue tells the viewer nothing about any other dimension of the society including whether it was matriarchal or patriarchal. It can only be assumed that the society was patriarchal as well as socially stratified but the artwork itself does not speak to these issues.