The exhibition I will spatter the sky utterly: Romauld Hazoume, curated by Kymberly S. Newberry (Visiting Lecturer in Art History at Mt. Holyoke College in 2023–2024), was an intimate, deeply moving, transformative exhibition (Fig. 1). While it focused on one inventive mask made of a repurposed plastic jerry can, wire, and artificial braids by the renowned Béninois artist Romauld Hazoumè (Fig. 2), the exhibition took us to a world of complex issues of violence, both slow and sudden—environmental destruction, human rights crimes, and social justice fights. The curator brilliantly linked Hazoumè's stunning artistry of imaginative resilience with the concerns of global climate derangement, specifically the devastating disaster caused by Big Oil in the Niger River Delta of Nigeria and the human rights travesty in the unjust execution of the Ogoni writer, poet, and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995. This seemingly simple exhibition thus brought together the tragedies of history and the power of art to move us to revelations about a world of troubles and challenges that call for action.Kymberly S. Newberry first encountered the work of Hazoumè while visiting Africa Remix at the Centre Pompidou, Paris in 2005. She recalled that his massive sculpture Bidon Armé (2004) was “braided” in her memory “like a glorious African hairstyle” (Newberry 2023a: 9). Hazoumè is noted for his creative transformation of recycled, recovered materials embodying crucial, complex roles and histories in his contemporary world. These plastic jerry cans (bidon) are used to transport illicit petroleum across the treacherous border between oil-“rich” Nigeria and oil-poor Republic of Bénin. Young Béninois men and women risk their lives daily while transporting as many of these gas-filled containers as they can—on bikes and motorcycles and on foot—in order to survive and support their families. These are the precarious lives of those who suffer the injustices and inequities caused by corporate greed, government corruption and complicity.Hazoumè evokes these dire economic and environmental conditions with these ubiquitous containers and simultaneously transforms and elevates them into stunningly imaginative human heads that celebrate beauty, culture, status, and identity. Kawessi—the name of the bidon mask selected by Newberry for purchase and displayed by the Mt. Holyoke College Art Museum (mhcam) has an intriguing history. When Newberry asked Hazoumè the meaning of Kawessi, he revealed the Béninois tradition of linguistic playfulness: transforming the name of a Japanese-made bicycle sold in Bénin (and used to haul bidon containers) into the name of a sacred Béninois entity—Ka (a Vodun serpent deity), wé/wéwé (“white”), and assi (“wife of”) (Newberry 2023b). Thus, this impressive female head depicts a powerful Vodun goddess, her head crowned with a towering cone of coiled hair and curling braids at the sides.The gallery that held Hazoumè's Kawessi was small and inviting. Newberry wanted to create a transformative, sacred space—to give visitors the sense of an altered, altar-like domain to set it apart from the brightly lit white-walled galleries in other parts of the museum. To accomplish this, she employed several strategies. One, inspired by Russian Constructivists, was to change the shape of the gallery with a triangular platform in the corner to alter a person's “orientation” in space, and thus encourage a rethinking of “positionality” (Fig. 2). Another was to choose two Yorùbá sacred colors: the hot and energized red of Ògún, God of Iron, protector of those who live and work with metal vehicles (bikes, motorcycles, etc.), and the soothing cool of blue for Yemọja, Goddess of the Sea, Mother of Abundance (Fig. 3), the former chosen to invoke those bidon transporters, the latter to invoke the memory of Ken Saro-Wiwa.These intense colors made the gallery vibrate, for, as Yorùbá people understand, colors/hues engage three of our senses simultaneously—sight, motion, and touch. Added to this multisensory immersive experience, a moving, wall-filled film by Hazoumè (Fig. 4) captured the perilous journeys of courageous Béninois women and men risking their lives on a daily basis as they transport massive amounts of gas-filled jerry cans across a porous international border. In addition to the vibrating sacred colors and a wall of moving images under floating white jerry cans, Newberry added the power of sound: music and spoken words of defiance by the Nigerian singer Wisdom Miidom, who dedicated the song, “Spirit of Ogoni,” to the continuing fight of Ogoni people and to the memory of Ken Saro-Wiwa.The title for the exhibition is taken from an English translation of one of Black Francophone Caribbean poet and political activist Aimé Césaire's most evocative and surrealist poems, “Lost Body”:The “cries” and actions that filled Césaire's life were dedicated to the fight for freedom and justice, as they were for Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Ogoni writer and activist executed by the Nigerian government for his tireless efforts to stop the environmental destruction of his Niger River Delta homeland by Big Oil and the political corruption that permeated the Nigerian military regime. The curator's brilliant idea brought together these two literary activist giants (Césaire and Saro-Wiwa) with the visual activism of Hazoumè's evocative jerry can masks. These objects embody and evoke struggle, resilience, and rebirth as they recall the fraught lives of young Béninois men and women who risk their lives navigating the border between Bénin and Nigeria as part of the illicit fuel trade. As Newberry wrote (2023b: 9): “Hazoumè, using the ubiquitous plastic jerry can, reminds us that art and awe are born from struggle …” Steeped in the Francophone literature of the Caribbean and Africa, Newberry sought to transform the gallery into a forum, a “think-tank, and a place for imaginative ‘art-worlding'” where we ask questions about important moments in African (art) history, the long-term effects of colonialism, neocolonialism, corporate greed, and the social and political forces confronting not only Africa, but everywhere. She wanted visitors to experience the power of art to provoke wonder, reflection, thinking, learning, and action about “where we live and how we live where we live” (Newberry 2023b). I believe she accomplished her goal.As part of the exhibition, The Museum organized an evening program entitled The Tragedies of History and the Triumphs of Art—a conversation between this reviewer and curator Kymberly S. Newberry together with an engaged audience of faculty, students and community. During the exchanges, the curator discussed the sources and inspirations for the concepts behind her exhibition and her hopes and expectations for it. She was committed to expanding the visual and cultural horizons of the Mt. Holyoke College community with an example of contemporary African creativity in the context of powerful global forces and the larger cultural, historical, and environmental crises affecting us all.
Henry John Drewal (Thu,) studied this question.