Siegmann, who served as a curator at the Brooklyn Museum, died in 2011, but his collection lives on through a traveling art exhibit organized by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
“Visions of the Forests,” an exhibition of art from Liberia and Sierra Leone, begins its Bloomington run March 7 and continues until May 10.
Diane Pelrine, curator of African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian art, said the pieces in this exhibit somewhat resemble existing artwork on display in the museum’s third-floor gallery.
“There are a couple of pieces that are similar to the ones that will be displayed in the special exhibition galleries,” Pelrine said. “In the ‘Visions of the Forests’ part of the exhibition, there are about 75 objects, and I’ve added another maybe 15 or 20 in our hexagon gallery of objects that are usually in storage.”
Most of the pieces in the show come from major donors such as the Minneapolis Institute and the Brooklyn Museum, though smaller venues such as IU Art Museum have also donated key artifacts for the purpose of the show.
“We have one piece in the show that we lent,” Pelrine said. “It is a beautiful ivory trumpet and, for example, there’s a beautiful hunter’s shirt from the Saint Louis Art Museum.”
Pelrine said not many students know IU is lauded as a hub for Liberian studies. This was one of the motivating factors behind the decision to host this exhibit, she said.
The other was a familiarity with the donor himself.
“We decided to take it here in part because Bill was an alumnus,” Pelrine said. “There were some people who knew him when he was a student when he was still here.”
Verlon Stone, special adviser in IU Liberian Collections/African Studies Collection, said he and wife Ruth met Siegmann during their time as graduate students at IU.
Stone said Siegmann was “always a great guy, interesting, helpful and amusing.”
Stone said he visited this exhibition when it opened at the National Museum of African Art last April.
“It was stunning, but I spent so much time talking to old friends from Liberia and the African studies world that I didn’t have enough time to look at it properly,” Stone said. “I will revisit the exhibit at the IU Museum as well as the photo exhibit in the Mathers Museum multiple times to take it all in better.”
In conjunction with this exhibit honoring Siegmann, Mathers Museum of World Cultures will host a symposium at 10 a.m March 7.
The symposium, Stone said, will include a display of photographs and a video conference with three of Siegmann’s former students in Monrovia, Liberia.
Stone said anyone who sees the exhibit and attends the symposium will know exactly what Siegmann’s legacy is.
“Bill was a world-renowned expert on West African art and performance, museums, curation and connoisseurship,” Stone said. “Many of these pieces are the best of the best of West African art.”
In terms of takeaways, Stone said there is much to be gained from examining Siegmann’s extensive work.
“For instance, the masks are not just wooden sculptures to be admired for their beauty and craftsmanship,” Stone said. “When danced in a performance, the masked dancer, musicians and music are part of a larger cultural performance with cosmological and spiritual meaning.”
Pelrine said the amount of negative coverage allotted to Liberia and Sierra Leone is misleading. She said she hopes this exhibit can change some of the perceptions about that part of Africa.
“Both Liberia and Sierra Leone have had pretty dreadful news lately,” Pelrine said. “The center of Ebola problems, and before that there have been various civil wars. This exhibition shows a totally different side of the cultures in this area, a side that is creative and inventive and a people who have made some very beautiful things.”
