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Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. Traveling exhibition organized by the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of Califomia at Los Angeles; Donaldj. Cosentino, curator. Seen at the Baltimore Museum ofArt.
PAUL GARDULLO
George Washington University
Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou is a very important exhibition that adds a great deal to the understanding of the religious and cultural achievements of African peoples in the New World. Advancing a project similar to the early 1990s exhibit Face ofthe Gods, curated by Robert Farris Thompson, Sacred Arts explores the deep influence that African religions and spiritual systems have had on African American religions in the Diaspora. Face of the Gods offered a kaleidoscopic view that touched on art and altars in West Africa, the Caribbean, Brazil, and the United States, emphasizing the cultural and spiritual dialogue common among these regions. This exhibit, curated by a team headed by Donald Cosentino, coeditor of African Arts and chair of the Folklore and Mythology Program at the University of California at Los Angeles, hones that overarching view to a penetrating study ofjust one New World religion: Haitian Vodou.
As always, the practice of exhibition to describe, define, and display the most important aspects of a culture is a double-edged sword. just as the museum can offer a legitimizing context for a culture and religion-important in the case of Vodou, a religion long misunderstood, stereotyped, reviled, and even demonized in the U.S. popular imagination as a "dark" and diabolical cult---so, too (as the work of Sally Price, Ivan Karp, and Steven Lavine, among others, has recently shown us), the process of museum exhibition can cut backwards, decontextualizing as it attempts to convey: possessing, redefining, and acting as an arm of neocolonial enterprise. Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou seems aware of its position on this dangerous crossroads and subtly and deftly avoids many of the pitfalls of cultural imperialism inherent in the museum context while maximizing its potential to be a place of educational, even spiritual uplift. As the multiplicity of items in the overflowing gift shop can attest, from artworks to companion CDs, Sacred Arts seems well aware of the role of the museum as a locus for consumption, as well. This awareness and ability to incorporate many seemingly disparate and...