Alain-Michel Boyer

This book is put together like a jewel and contains a carefully chosen selection of around 100 West African combs from one of the world’s largest and finest private collections of sub-Saharan African art. Featuring a hitherto unseen assortment of pieces assembled over a period of more than 60 years, the book also includes an authoritative analysis by Alain-Michel Boyer, who approached this rarely addressed theme in what was his final work, begun almost ten years ago. As well as offering us valuable insights into the cultures that produced these miniature sculptures (Ivory Coast, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria), he explores the way the form itself is approached. These creations transform what is in principle a plain accessory and in the effort to attain pure beauty, they display an aesthetic awareness that raises the adornment of the body to the level of fine art.

Exploring the masks of an African culture that were one of Picasso's primary influences. The We, whose name means 'men who easily forgive', live in the forests along the western border of the Ivory Coast. Theirs is regarded as a mask culture, as opposed to other societies that have none (such as the Ashanti in Ghana). The bold, striking sculpture on these masks ensured they would be among the first examples of African art to captivate Cubist artists in the West. These eye-opening, exuberant, phantasmagorical masks are astonishingly diverse and display a dazzling compositional inventiveness. They clearly also influenced the art of neighbouring peoples, to the extent that, far from being isolated in a remote corner of the jungle, this art has been identified as the keystone, the pivot around which all the art of the area revolves giving the lie to the notion that the lines drawn on maps by colonisers have any effect on the process of artistic creation. To which should be added a further crucial point: it is no exaggeration to speak of a mask culture, so abundant are they in each village, with a part to play in all community activities (legal, mystical, agricultural . . . ) and a role in all the stages of life. The nature of this dynamic, mobile art is completely different from the art of other peoples, where form suggests meaning and reveals the impact and the type of ceremony it is associated with; in the case of the We masks, form is never an indicator of category.

Kulango Figurines is designed to introduce various miniature works created by the Kulango in northeastern Côte d'Ivoire, who were formerly vassals of the two kingdoms that inhabited the country (Bouna and Gyaman). Their extraordinarily varied art, which can be both intriguing and disconcerting, is relatively unknown. Their metal sculptures in particular display a strikingly free expressiveness, breaking as they do with the iconographic codes that govern their works in wood. Doing away with immobile remoteness, bodies seem to reinvent movement, sometimes adopting almost choreographic gestures, an airy grace, sinuous lines. Or, in trembling tension, some display unexpected twists and provocative curves, while others stretch out impossibly or offer a chance for virtuoso foreshortening and stylised bodies. Still others are even stranger, like Siamese twins, inseparable triplets, headless figures or figures with one head on two torsos, with one leg or four, webbed feet, outsize arms and hooped bodies. Who are these enigmatic beings whose bulging eyes peer at the invisible? Is the sculpture confined to just these specimens? The range of styles is simply astonishing, the forms beyond imagination. The collection includes over 100 figurines, none of which is over 10cm tall: pendants, amulets, fortune tellers' statuettes or weights for gold. Introduced into our world through the metamorphosis of photography, transfigured by lighting and framing effects, these resurrected works have been revitalised, like apparitions from another world. Text in English and French.