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African Art
Exhibition: Beyond Compare: Art from Africa Date: October 27, 2017 – December 31, 2019 Venue: Bode Museum, Berlin. Origin of the Negro Peoples of Africa It seems that the actual state of our knowledge does not permit us, as yet, to answer this question in a definitive or even a satisfactory manner. Undoubtedly, one would not have even asked the question if Africa were the only part of the world to possess Negroes. But such is not the case and without speaking, of course, of the countries where the advent of the Negro race has taken place only at a recent epoch, as the result of migrations which were generally…
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KLEE AND AGUÉLI: FRIENDS OF LIGHT
Klee and Aguéli are two names you would not normally write in the same sentence. However, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm has just opened an exhibition where these two painters are looked at in the same light. And this is precisely the element of affinity the museum has found between the German and the Swedish. Their travels in the north of Africa, their shocking encounters with the light of this continent, and the spirituality which ensued the life-changing experience: in the form of colour adoption and realisation of the self for the former, and in the shape of religious conversion and language acquisition for the latter. Obsessed by colour. This…
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Learning from Africa
Africa has long been a source of fascination for people from the West. From Cy Endfield’s 1964 classic film Zulu starring Michael Caine and Stanley Baker, to Disney’s The Lion King, from Elton John crooning The Circle of Life, to Shakira’s foot-tapping World Cup anthem This Time for Africa*, the land of our origins still maintains a deep hold over our thoughts and is firmly embedded into our culture. When we look at Africa, we see a myriad of possibilities, destinations, languages, cultures, politics, wildlife, levels of wealth and poverty, violence and peace, landscapes, and geography.
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El chamanismo y la Teoría del caos
De acuerdo con la Teoría del caos existen tres tipos de sistemas: Estables, inestables y caóticos. La vida, obviamente, pertenece a la tercera categoría si atendemos a la afirmación de Edward Lorenz: «cualquier sistema no periódico es impredecible». Es en esto en lo que se basan todas las religiones a la hora de atraer a sus fieles, prometen un mundo ordenado y explicado, y es mucho más evidente en las religiones primitivas como el chamanismo. El chamán es la persona encargada de lidiar con los espíritus y la naturaleza, lo caótico y sobrenatural, y ofrecer una explicación «lógica» que tranquilice al hombre. Gracias a este trato con el más allá…
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Masters of Disorder: the Shamans or the French?
MASTERS OF DISORDER, the forces at work in the world around us (especially my bedroom), unseen and unheard by all except those few who can divine their want and will. These are the ‘shamans’, or other spiritual leaders, who mediate between the real and spirit worlds, trying to make sense of the ‘disorder’ around us, mystically communicating with the ethereal and “negotiating with the forces of chaos”. The musée du quai Branly has put on an impressive multisensory display of these religious men from a number of tribes around the world that are still in existence today, with many anthropological ‘finds’ (or plunders) accompanied with work by current artists. It…
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