Special Exhibition Review: Coaxing the Spirits to Dance

Stan Parchin has reviewed the special exhibition Coaxing the Spirits to Dance: Art of the Papuan Gulf, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art until September 3, 2007, and it sounds as if it was no small feat to mount. Even by excluding any islands and narrowing mainland Papua New Guinea down to just the Papuan Gulf on its southern coast, we're still talking about the art history of at least seven major cultural groups or "tribes." Each of these had its own particular artistic practices, though each also met the others for shared ceremonies - and specific art had to be created for these, too. Techniques were only taught to males (who lived separately from women and children), this art was religious in nature and some early, less-than-ideal western anthropological observations all combined to add layer upon layer of secrecy and mystery to this art.

Now, couple this scholastic Gordian Knot - minus any Alexandrian solution - with the fact that nearly all of this religious art was created solely to be ceremonially destroyed. Little of it survived, and that which did had to survive the forces of decomposition in near-Equatorial heat and humidity. I'm wildly impressed that this exhibition, containing 60 works of art as it does, has even been staged! You are hereby urged to read the review and see Coaxing the Spirits... in person. It's one of those hidden, uncrowded gems you'll be pleased you discovered. Thanks very much, Stan.

Image credit:

Mask
Papuan Gulf, Elema area, Muru Village
Bark cloth, plant fiber, pigment
16 1/8 x 7 1/2 x 3 1/8 in. (41 x 19 x 8 cm)
Donated by S. G. MacDonnell
© American Museum of Natural History
Photograph provided by The Metropolitan
Museum of Art