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For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection.

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For Hearth and Altar African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection The Art Institute of Chicago December 3, 2005-February 20, 2006

"For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection" was an outstanding exhibition that introduced viewers to the aesthetic richness and diversity of its subject. At the same time, it taught about the production, uses, and meanings of pottery vessels for peoples living across the continent. Kathleen Bickford Berzock, the exhibition's curator and curator of African art at The Art Institute of Chicago, opened the installation with the simple but striking juxtaposition of a Jen ritual container from northeastern Nigeria and a Lobi water pot from Burkina Faso to establish her essential premise--that ceramics in Africa are made for both domestic and ritual purposes, with the same vessels sometimes moving from one category to another. Moreover, clay's great capacity to be elaborately modeled and adorned has led to remarkable diversity in the formal, functional, and symbolic aspects of pottery containers.

This was a very smart exhibition, organized around a clear set of ideas and themes, which allowed audiences to understand the integration of ceramics into life and thought across Africa, from north to south and east to west. It was loosely related to the exhibition catalogue of the same name, which presents the Achepohl collection geographically (along with short, thematic "interleaves"). "For Hearth and Altar" was also one of the most elegant installations I have seen in a long time. Entering the vast main gallery after the simple, spare introductory space produced the kind of breath-stopping moment of aesthetic...

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