At the Palatine Chapel of the Maschio Angioino the largest exhibition on the «fetishes» of the Songye people
NoonOctober 28, 2022 – 9:44 pm
At the Palatine Chapel of the Maschio Angioino the largest exhibition on the «fetishes» of the Songye people
from Natasha Festa
H.horns on the head, pointed and curved, shells instead of eyes, animal fur hair, long and ringed necks. They are male but have pregnant female bellies and young breasts; perhaps they are androgynous, old and young at the same time: in front of the Sacred Spirits of the Songye people it is natural to lower one’s voice. And so, whispering, you cross the single nave of the Palatine Chapel of the Maschio Angioino where display cases and pedestals show the largest collection in the world of sacred art of this African ethnic group settled in a large territory of the central region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. 130 works gathered by ConselliArt for the exhibition Sacred spirits. The Songye in the Palatine Chapel which is presented this morning at the Mann (see information on the left), opens tomorrow and can be visited for free from Monday to Saturday from 10 to 17 until January 15 2023.
Apotropaic fetishes
Gigi Pezzoli, curator of the exhibition with Bernard de Grunne, immediately highlights some traits d’union between the host culture, the Neapolitan one, and the hosted one. Starting from the horns so present in these sacred fetishes that guard the desires, fears and vows of an African people; the chronological period included goes from the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century, a period in which contemporaneity bursts into these tribes and the westernization process makes them lose their attachment to ancient rituals as Pezzoli specifies: “We can talk about evidence of art and archeology that stop at a precise time but obviously their value is universal. One cannot fail to grasp the analogy with the apotropaic object par excellence, namely the horn. Well the function that it has in the Songye culture is identical to that it has in the Neapolitan tradition: protection from evil. The horns of the statuettes are mostly of animals empty inside: well, herbs and substances were often inserted into their cavities to which a magical value was attributed. Drive out the negative and propitiate the good ».
Neapolitan analogies
Nor is it the only common root. “This ritual and magical aspect – he continues – finds its mirroring in the pagan practices absorbed in the Neapolitan Christian spirituality and tolerated by the official church: I am thinking of the cult of the souls in Purgatory, capuzzelle which is attributed a function of intermediation with the divinity ».
Yet there is an irreducible difference between them Sacred Spirits African and Christian-Neapolitan ones. «Christianity completely separates good and evil, while African spirituality contemplates both aspects in a single ambivalent figure. Intentionality belongs only to the man who activates the fetish through the rite ».
130 figures of power
It may also be for this reason that the sculptures grafted under the light cuts of the Gothic windows naturally lead to a journey through time, the one in the many lives that have entrusted to them between desire for salvation and invocations. In addition to spirituality, the statues of various sizes are above all artefacts of art: «The art of the Songye – says Pezzoli – has never been presented in Italy and even in the world the exhibitions expressly dedicated to this population have been very rare. Yet few sculptures like these embody the imagery of African creativity. They are what we once called “fetishes” and today, in less negative terms, “power figures” or “cult effigies”. These are magical-protective objects resulting from the joint intervention of sculptors, blacksmiths and ritual specialists who activated them through songs, prayers and the addition of animal and natural elements ».
African artists
Various levels of reading and perception: «The first is of an aesthetic nature and refers to the human representation reworked with a limited dose of abstraction. Identity canons are captured but also variations. It is evident that the sculptors, real masters with very recognizable personal figures, had rules, codes and models to respect because their creations had to be understood and accepted by the community for which they performed ritual functions ». It is about Spirits community: «Their collective function – concludes the curator – was to ensure social cohesion and, at the same time, justify institutions and power». Spirit, therefore, art certainly, but also politics. As always.
28 October 2022 | 21:44
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Charm and cult of the “Sacred Spirits” Mysterious African sculptures between art and rituals