Il lotto Lotto n° 2588
Titolo : A Kuba/Kete Helmet Mask
Note : Exhibited:Governors State University, IL, 2003Krannert Art Museum, IL, 2003Belger Art Foundation/University of Missouri-Kansas City, MO, 2004Tall Grass Art Association, IL, 2005Published:Bourgeois and Rodolitz, REMNANTS OF RITUAL: SELECTIONS FROM THE GELBARD COLLECTION OF AFRICAN ART, Ethnos, New York, 2003, p.40, fig 90Helmet masks of this kind are known among the Bushoong as “Bwoom”. The Bwoom mask is quite possibly the autochthonous mask of the region, with variants in nearly all of the Kuba sub-groups. Though folk tales exist from the Bushoong to explain its appearance as a pygmy or a hydrocephalic, the mask may have more in common with other large masculine helmet masks dispersed over the wider general area. This fine old mask has been re-beaded on numerous occasions, and displays the more archaic “blindfold” style beading across the eyes, which in more modern examples becomes thin and stylized.
