Show L Masterpieces of the Head and Heart Blake The Washington Post The images of JD J.D. are wonderful For decades he has documented the amazing sculptural hairstyles hairstyles hairstyles hair hair- styles worn by women in his native Nigeria His white black-and-white photo photo- graphic prints have an almost clinical detachment The Thc snaking braids and flying buttresses buttresses buttresses but but- tresses of each hairdo are silhouetted silhouetted silhouetted sil sil- sil- sil against a white background background background back back- ground then often shot from several different points of view His pictures feel entirely respectful of their subject mat mat- ter Its It's almost as though the women's hairdos and the stylists stylists stylists who came up with them 3 rr f J 0 r- r f w a Q C Q r. r 8 I 0 U r r q t p pr 0 CI r r a C Cro Q ro C u J f 0 J oJ ti ii m t U u c a aC C aw aa w C Cro a I roo ro o roCo Co Coper E r Q per If t o matter more than their He gives us a window onto a genuinely foreign art form and aesthetic without feeling any need to throw in his own more obviously artsy touches Its It's worth a trip to African Art Now Masterpieces From the Jean Collection the show that opened last week at National Museum of African Art to see the in it Few of the other works are such a straightforward delight A lot of the exhibition is made up of what you might call outsider art funky masks made from old gas cans a coffin coffin coffin cof cof- fin in the shape of an onion fantastical science-fiction science doodles This work is not in inthe inthe inthe the thick of things in terms of Western art but its it's also not always part of any strong local tradition Its It's made by former office clerks or laborers or carpenters apparently making art in aesthetic isolation Each piece is the idiosyncratic outpouring outpouring outpouring out out- pouring of a single makers maker's artistic urges urges sometimes sometimes influenced it seems by mental mental mental men men- tal rather illness than the latest latest latest lat lat- lat lat- est deliberate contribution to toan toan toan an exciting conversation already underway in Africa or elsewhere If you like that kind of funky stuff you'll like much of this funky show But it may also make you uncomfortable It gives a sense that were we're using someone else's work to tomake tomake tomake make found art that happens happens happens hap hap- pens to appeal to our modern Western taste for way-out way imagery Its It's as though weve we've come across a pile of foreign objects understand in in inthis we dont don't really this case they happen to be works of art but hut they could as easily be peculiar household implements implements and and used them for our own aesthetic ends When we admire work by untrained African artists that thatis is were we're not really that far from Picasso and his peers who incorporated elements of foreign and outsider art into their own work without caring caring caring car car- ing at all about the arts art's original original original nal meanings Except that Picasso at least used his appropriation to make radically radical radical- ly new things If he was guilty of unfeeling theft at least all Western art could profit from it In the case of the collection I feel as though Ive I've seen its brand of lively colorful primitivism a thousand thousand thousand thou thou- sand times before I use the naughty word primitivism deliberately because Swiss collector Jean son of a famous industrialist seems to buy into a kind of noble savage view of the recent African art arthe he el has amassed in k such i vast j 11 i r r n I 1 r f s c m mf f m to c 0 r j o 9 v. v f. f 8 Q U 3 rw c ro roc roo o I. I r c cI p L o oCo E Co CoL CoE C o J h Ny U Malick of Mali pictures a Dancer from 1964 in a gelatin silver print Included in African Art Now Masterpieces From the Jean Collection at National Museum of African Art through 0 Feb 26 quantity This show presents about objects of the plus works he owns According to the exhibition catalog particularly values the non education as he puts it of the artists he collects Hes He's even quoted as assaying assaying assaying saying that this gives them a kind of pure self sion He only needs to insert the adjective childlike to sound like p our nl Bi Q vu u Y Jv J 1 l f L g 6 Bwana colle collector circa 1920 Theres There's something kind of creepy about the notion of and his curator Frenchman Andre Magnin venturing into the deepest dampest heart of Africa x Eie fg Pl b Rg n oj eSs pr 11 Hoar Muff I r 1 made by untutored natives so that Americans can gawk at them At least many African experts seem out by their approach A Nigerian scholar who teaches at Indiana State has written that in amassing the collection collection collection tion Magnin went on an African safari in search of the the ultra primitive Another Nia is w te sa s t hat it t 6 lUil rt J y O H about time we did away with the idea that Africa is a place of naive creativity just creativity just the view that seems alive and well wellin wellin wellin in the show But theres there's none of that condescension condescension con condescension con con- in hair hai shots dJ d its u w wr r 1 fr 1 frat 1 f. f 1 7 J 1 rt at I 0 |