World Arts at the BRAFA ART FAIR
ABOVE:
Group of 'Iagalagana' ritual figures. Mumuye ; Nigeria
Early 20th century
Carved wood and pigments
To be presented by Galerie Flak on the occasion of BRAFA ART FAIR, 26 Jan - 2 Feb, 2025
BRAFA BRUSSELS—The Brussels Art Fair (BRAFA) is a leading annual event in the world of antiquities, and it will be held from January 26 to February 2, 2025, at the Brussels Expo complex. This year’s show will mark seventy years of unwavering commitment to promoting the arts in an atmosphere of excellence, elegance, and conviviality. This international show has long given pride of place to the traditional arts of Africa, Oceania, Asia, and the Americas, and a number of renowned galleries with specialties in these areas have been faithful exhibitors for many years.
Among these for the first time in 2025 will be Galerie Montagut, which will present a group of five masks from the Bekom chiefdom in Cameroon that are representations of ngon princesses. This focus will be complemented by the presentation of fifteen works in gold from Côte d’Ivoire, as well as of a varied selection of objects that attest to this gallery’s eclectic offerings.
Galerie Flak’s participation at BRAFA will be marked by an exhibition devoted to sculptures by the Mumuye of Nigeria, a subject the gallery took on nearly twenty years ago with a dedicated exhibition. This was accompanied by the publication of the 2006 book by François Neyt titled simply Mumuye, which remains a standard reference for the subject. This year, the gallery will again celebrate the talents of this northeastern Nigerian agrarian people, who live in an area not far from the border with Cameroon, with some twenty of their startlingly conceived anthropomorphic figures that play so effectively with the use of positive and negative space.
Milan’s Dalton Somaré gallery will welcome visitors with a carefully selected and eclectic display. The twenty or so choice artworks it will show express the wealth of sculptural innovations pioneered by artists from Africa and Oceania. The works range from idealized naturalism, illustrated by a superb Dan mask from Côte d’Ivoire, to figuration verging on abstraction, highlighted, for example, by an anthropomorphic figure from the Upper Sepik River area of Papua New Guinea, which was exhibited in 1969 at the Museum of Primitive Art in New York in the Ritual Art of the Upper Sepik River, New Guinea exhibition.
Long-time exhibitor and show participant Serge Schoffel plans to offer a diverse selection of objects, with archaic artworks from Nigeria taking pride of place. Among these will be figurative sculptors from the Mumuye and Jukun, to name but two of the groups he will represent.
Another loyal exhibitor, Didier Claes, is preparing an extremely elegant presentation for his visitors with, among the many pieces to be displayed, two objects that stand out for their purity of form: a Guro heddle pulley with unusually delicate lines and a Mangbetu slit drum from the Democratic Republic of Congo with the profile of a tulip, which was used as much as a status symbol for high dignitaries as it was as a musical instrument.
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BRAFA ART FAIR
26 janvier - 2 février 2025
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ABOVE:
Ngon mask. Bekom people Cameroon
19th century
Wood and ritual patina
H 44 cm
Provenance:
- Martial Bronsin collection, Brussels
- Didier Claes, Brussels
- Rachel Montagut collection, Barcelona
To be presented by Galeria Montagut on the occasion of BRAFA ART FAIR, 26 Jan - 2 Feb, 2025
ABOVE:
Pair of Headdresses, tchi–wara. Bamana, Mali
Early 20th century
Wood
H 85.5 cm and H 74 cm
Provenance:
- Christian Duponcheel collection, Paris
- private collection, Brussels, 1969
- private collection, Belgium
To be presented by Dalton Somaré on the occasion of BRAFA ART FAIR, 26 Jan - 2 Feb, 2025
ABOVE:
Male figure. Jukun ; Nigeria
17th-18th century (C14 test n° 145448A by Re.S.Artes)
Wood, brass
H 72.5 cm
Provenance:
- Edouard Klejman and Jean-Michel Huguenin, Paris, circa 1968
- Pierre Parrat, Paris, France
To be presented by Serge Schoffel on the occasion of BRAFA ART FAIR, 26 Jan - 2 Feb, 2025
ABOVE:
Slit drum. Mangbetu ; Uele region, Democratic Republic of Congo.
Presumed period: late 19th-early 20th century
Wood
H 77 cm
Provenance:
- Edith Hafter (1911-2001), Solothurn, acquired before 1970
- transmitted by descent
To be presented by Didier Claes on the occasion of BRAFA ART FAIR, 26 Jan - 2 Feb, 2025