Disguise: Masks And Global African Art Analysis

A looped black and white video of two interchangeable, yet unidentifiable bodies dancing at different times in what appears to be the same room, their faces, bodies and clothing blurring and flickering as each figure moves to a silent rhythm, is the opening piece to the Fowler Museum’s Winter 2016 exhibit “Disguise: Masks and Global African Art.” Titled “Double Quadruple Etcetera Etcetera I and II,” the video is the work of artist Sonra R. Perry, a Black woman, New Jersey native, and current Harlem resident. To the side of the video is a plaque displaying a quote from Perry: “I make performances, videos and digital imagery to investigate slippages of identity through manifesting ‘paraspaces.’” This notion of ‘paraspace’ — a term coined by
In this installation six large fiber-glass deers are placed throughout the room. The room is painted “safari green.” Strapped to the head of each deer are identical white resin masks. Fernades notes in his artist statement that he bought the masks on Canal Street in New York City, the same street known for selling fake designer handbags. Ironically, these masks are meant to connote African authenticity; but as Fernades points out, in Kenya they don’t wear masks. Thus, Fernades argues that the white masks were not only conceived and created to suggest a Western idea about African authenticity, but these masks are fabricated depictions that carry their own Western identity. Referring to his own experiences of slippages of identity, Fernades comments that having grown up in both Kenya and Canada he refuses to engage in fixed notions of identity and authenticity. Because of this the white masks inspired him to toy with the intersection of African ‘authenticity’ with Western fantasy. This tongue-in-cheek approach to notions of authenticity is at the core of his installation. For instance, this combination of three “inauthentic” objects — the fake deer, fake mask and fake “safari green” room — “just doesn’t work,” says Fernades, “except to show how we
A video that is part of the installation shows a group of women uncovering the species’ bones in the ground. The women soon learn that these bones release unordinary fumes that enable them to transform their identities and bodies into a state of post-humanness similar to The Empathics. In this post-human realm, the video points out, racism, ethncocentrism and sexism do not exist. “I construct objects, bodies and landscapes to immerse us in the logic of another place,” Woolfalk explains in her artist statement. To add to this “logic of another place,” Woolfalk crafts several physical Empathic bodies — all of which repeatedly take on new colors, shapes and lighting while on display. This constant state of flux, the video explains, is due to the species’ ability to absorb its cultural influences and physical mutate as a result. This morphing process not only alludes to identity’s constant state of flux and change, but also connects back to Perry’s “slippages of