Africa
Art
Archive

As part of the collection intervention Hidden Treasures: A Glimpse into the Photographic Archives, in 2015/16 a selection of documents from Hans Himmelheber’s photographic and film archive was for the first time juxtaposed with objects from West and Central Africa in Museum Rietberg’s permanent exhibition on Africa. At three locations within the collection, this served as a field test for one of the basic ideas behind the research project on Hans Himmelheber, namely to link objects with photographs and texts from the archive.
The station “Die Maske tanzt wieder: Film zur Belebung der Kunst” (“The Mask Dances Again: A Film to Bring Art to Life”)A showed the acrobatic dance of a stilt dancer in the village of Banneu in Côte d'Ivoire, which Himmelheber’s companion on this trip, Werner Schaufler, had filmed in 1955/56.

The film was framed by wooden masks, which were installed on the wall as museum objects. The juxtaposition impressively showed the difference between a mask in its original context, which included garb, performance, music, and the audience, and what is now perceived as a mask in the museum context – namely, just the carved face of a masked figure. The second station, “Von der getanzten Maske zum Kunstwerk: Fotografien vom Kunsterwerb” (“From Dance Mask to Work of Art: Photographs of Art Acquisition”)^B explored the potential of photographs when researching provenance.

Himmelheber took a series of photographs in Gabon in 1938, first showing the virtuoso stilt dance with a Mukudj mask^C and then documenting two wooden masks, fastened to a carrying device and ready for transportation.^D

Mukudj masks from Gabon were in great demand on the Western art market in the early 20th century. But how such masks became marketable works of art in the first place, and how they found their way from Gabon to Europe, has been the subject of little research. Photographs such as those by Himmelheber can offer a starting point for finding answers to these questions.