Embodying the Sacred in
Yoruba Art
Featuring the Bernard and Patricia Wagner Collection:
A Case Study in Museum Practice
Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi
and Carol Thompson
assisted by Rebekah Mejorado
Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external.
The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art,
literature, morals and religion. The external is that complex
of devices, techniques, mechanisms and instrumentalities by
means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have
allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have
allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for
which we live …. This is the serious predicament, the deep and
haunting problem, confronting modern man. Enlarged mate-
rial powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate
growth of the soul ….
Western civilization is particularly vulnerable at this moment,
for our material abundance has brought us neither peace of
mind nor serenity of spirit ….
This does not mean that we must turn back the clock of scien-
tific progress. No one can overlook the wonders that science has
wrought for our lives …. But our moral and spiritual “lag” must
be redeemed. When scientific power outruns moral power, we
end up with guided missiles and misguided men. When we fool-
ishly minimize the internal of our lives and maximize the exter-
nal, we sign the warrant for our own day of doom.
Our hope for creative living in this world house that we have
inherited lies in our ability to re-establish the moral ends of our
lives in personal character and social justice. Without this spiri-
tual and moral reawakening we shall destroy ourselves in the
misuse of our own instruments.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968:5)
1 Entrance into “Embodying the Sacred in Yoruba Art”
at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, featuring an Epa head-
dress from the collection of Bernard and Patricia Wagner.
Photo: Mike Jensen
32 | african arts summer 2009
T
his quote, from King’s essay “The World House”
was read by a cross-section of the city’s population
at a special event, Atlanta Reads King, at the Rialto
Theatre on March 4, 2008. The reading began at
precisely 6:01 pm, to commemorate King’s assas-
sination at exactly that moment in time, forty
years earlier. King’s words parallel Yoruba ideas regarding ayé and
òrun, this world and beyond, and orí óde and orí inú, the physical
head and the inner head—concepts highlighted in “Embodying
the Sacred in Yoruba Art Featuring the Collection of Bernard and
Patricia Wagner,” which was on view at the High Museum from
December 22, 2007, through April 21, 2008 (Fig. 1).
“Embodying the Sacred” is a collaborative project co-orga-
nized by the High Museum and The Newark Museum. Follow-
ing its presentation at the Newark Museum (June 6–August 24,
2008), the exhibition traveled to Virginia Commonwealth Uni-
versity (January–March 2009) and the Ackland Museum, Chapel
Hill, North Carolina (Fall 2009). The exhibition was co-curated
by Carol Thompson, Fred and Rita Richman Curator of Afri-
can Art, High Museum, and Christa Clarke, Curator, Africa, the
Americas, and the Pacific at the Newark Museum. Babatunde
Lawal, Professor of Art History at Virginia Commonwealth Uni-
versity, used the opportunity to revisit and expand on the theme
of “Art for Life’s Sake: Life for Art’s Sake,” which he first presented
as an inaugural lecture and published by Obafemi Awolowo Uni-
versity in 1987, as the basis for his contribution to the exhibition
catalog there, extending its relevance into the twenty-first cen-
tury. Most importantly, the exhibition provides an opportunity
for the viewing public to encounter works of art in the public
domain for the first time, as it secured important gifts from the
Wagner collection for both museums, in equal portion.
The exhibition is a tribute to the generosity of Bernard and
Patricia Wagner, their long-term commitment to Yoruba art, and
their close collaboration with the African art dealer Eric Rob-
ertson. As Wagner often discussed with Thompson, while he
did occasionally purchase from other African art dealers, such
as Charles Davis, Charles Jones, Norman Hurst, and Jim Willis,
he worked most closely with Eric Robertson to build, over the
course of many decades, an African art collection with a particu-
lar focus on Yoruba art, all the while with an eye to eventually
placing this collection in a museum in a city with a large popula-
tion of peoples of African ancestry, such as Newark and Atlanta.
summer 2009 african arts
| 33
 2 An aerial view of the complete campus at dawn.
From left to right are the Memorial Arts Building,
Table 1280, Anne Cox Chambers Wing, Wieland
Pavilion, and Stent Family Wing, surrounding the
new Sifly Piazza. “House III” by Roy Lichtenstein in
foreground.
Photo: © Timothy Hursley 2005

3 Yoruba Artist, Nigeria

Janus-faced Water Spirit Headdress, 20th century
Wood and pigment; 44.5cm x 35.6cm x 35.6cm
(17½" x 14" x 14")
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
Gift of Bernard and Patricia Wagner, 2007.278
Photo: Richard Goodbody

(opposite)
4 Installation view of “Embodying the Sacred”
featuring an indigo acquired from Atlanta resident
Louise Willingham through funds from the Fred and
Rita Richman Special Initiatives Endowment Funds
for African Art (2005.187).
Photo: Mike Jensen

5 Yoruba Artist, Òyó, Nigeria

Egúngún Masquerade Costume, early 20th century
Cloth, cowrie shells, and wood; 218.4cm x 127cm
(86" x 50")
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
Purchase through prior acquisitions, 2002.2
Photo: Peter Harholdt

This essay’s purpose is to examine the Atlanta presentation of

this multi-venue project to demonstrate how the exhibition, as
it participated in broad discourses that shape museum practice,
also responded to its local environment.
“Embodying the Sacred in Yoruba Art,” as it was presented
at the High Museum, offers an opportunity for reflections on
the construction of what Steven Lavine refers to as the ideo-
logical character of a museum display by posing what is argu-
ably at the core of contemporary museum practice: how is the
viewer engaged and how does an exhibitionary voice emerge?
(Lavine 1991:151). “Embodying the Sacred” is the third exhibition
of Yoruba art to be presented at the High Museum. In 1980, the
museum mounted “African Artistry: Process and Aesthetics in
Yoruba Art, An Exhibition of Yoruba Art from the Arnett Col-
lection,” curated by Henry Drewal. In 1991 the High presented
“Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought” curated
by Henry Drewal, Jack Pemberton, and Rowland Abiodun, orga-
nized by the Museum for African Art, New York. The “Nine
Centuries” exhibition was much more ambitious than either
“African Artistry” or “Embodying the Sacred,” with important
loans from public and private collections, national and interna-
tional, including antiquities from Nigerian museums. “Embody-
ing the Sacred” is far more modest in scope, presenting works
primarily, though not exclusively, from a single private collection
supplemented with works from the High and Newark Museums’
collections. Still, this most recent project reinforces Fred Myer’s
observation that exhibitions are active processes of cultural pro-
duction that can serve instructive, transformative, and educa-
tional purposes: unique interventions, not simply repetitions.
Presented in the 2,400 square-foot space adjacent to the Fred
and Rita Richman Gallery, located at the 16th Street Level of the

34 | african arts summer 2009

Wieland Pavilion, this was the first special exhibition of African
art to be presented in the High Museum’s newly expanded Renzo
Piano-designed galleries, which opened in November 2005 (Fig.
2). “Embodying the Sacred,” though presented in one of the
Museum’s smaller exhibition spaces, proved to be a great draw,
receiving extensive press coverage—local, regional, national, and
international—and bringing more visitors to the Lower Level
galleries than ever before. The exhibition was presented in con-
junction with two high-profile exhibitions, “Louvre Atlanta” and
“Inspiring Impressionism,” along with other secondary shows.
“Embodying the Sacred” provides an opportunity to consider,
as Myers argues, the “museum process of recontextualization as
a broader activity of cultural or discursive production in which
the representation of culture is significant” (2006:505). It does
this by looking at Yoruba culture through the lens of art and
religious belief. The exhibition is structured around three broad
themes: “Oríladé: The Head is a Crown,” “Àmì Òrìsà: Altar Arts
and Sacred Symbols,” and “Odúndé Odúnjo: Masquerade Fes-
tivals,” to include ritual and ceremonial objects, decorative and
utilitarian objects that highlight vernacular industry, and objects
used to convey social status. Works of art are grouped to con-
textualize original social meanings and uses related to the three
themes: arts that glorify the head, personal and political; altar
arts; and masquerades (Fig. 3). However, reflecting their status
as fine art objects in a Western art museum, here the works are
most highly valued as aesthetic objects.
The seventy-four objects on display include a diverse range
of forms, not only sculpture made of wood, but beadwork, tex-
tiles—including an intricately patterned, indigo-dyed cloth
from the High Museum’s collection (Fig. 4)—ceramics, metal-
work, and even a non-figurative accumulative “shrine sculpture”

summer 2009 african arts

| 35
36 | african arts summer 2009
made of horns, cowries, and leather. In addition, the exhibition
includes an unusually lavish profusion of cowrie shells, a cultur-
ally loaded signifier throughout Africa and the African Dias-
pora, on the front panels of both egúngún masquerades (Figs.
5–6), adorning the Èsù staff (Fig. 7) and vestment pictured on
the catalog cover, covering the house of the head shrines (Figs.
8–9), and on the Òrìsà Oko sheath. At the same time, as a display
of primarily sacred arts, the exhibition reproduces an ambiguity
of transposed sites, old and new cultural contexts, and the reflex-
ive philosophical underpinnings that art critic Arthur Danto
discusses in his essay “Artifact and Art” (1988:18–32). By present-
ing such a broad range of richly textured forms, the exhibition
gently challenges art/artifact distinctions while it re-presents the
recurring question regarding universal aesthetic values.
At the High, as everywhere, institutional constraints impact
exhibitions. The High’s exhibition philosophy adheres to a “less
is more” aesthetic. With a ratio of seventy-four objects to a 2,400
square-foot space within this exhibition, each work is given
plenty of room to breathe, thereby expanding the “aura” of each
work exponentially. The overall effect is of buoyant lightness.
Similarly, in keeping with Piano’s architectural style, the didac-
tic information supporting the exhibition is spare. This accords
with the High Museum’s institutional policy that limits text pan-
els to 150 words and extended labels to 75 words, with the lat-
ter allowed for a maximum of approximately thirty percent of
all objects on display (others get identification labels only). Key
didactic information is translated into Yoruba, including tonal
accents, to offer further insights into art and aesthetics from a
(opposite, l–r, top–bottom)
6 Yoruba Artist, Òyó/Ogbomoso, Nigeria
Egúngún Masquerade Costume, 20th century
Cloth, metal, and wood; 175.3cm x 162.6cm x 33cm
(69" x 64" x 13")
The Newark Museum
Purchase 1991 Sophronia Anderson Bequest Fund,
91.35
Photo: Armen Shamlian
7 Yoruba Artist, Nigeria
Dance Staff for Èsù/Elégba, 20th century
Wood, cowrie shells, leather, seed pods, gourds,
metal bells, and iron; Mounted: 45.7cm x 12.7cm
12.7cm (18" x 5" x 5")
Collection of Bernard and Patricia Wagner, promised
gift to High Museum of Art, Atlanta
Photo: Richard Goodbody
8 Yoruba Artist, Nigeria
Container (ilé orí) for ibori (Shrine for the Head),
19th–20th century
Cowrie shells, fiber, cloth, leather, mirror, metal, and
wood; 57.2cm x 25.4cm x 25.4cm (22½" x 10" x 10")
The Newark Museum, gift of Bernard and Patricia
Wagner, 2007
Photo: Richard Goodbody
9 Yoruba Artist, Nigeria
Shrine for the Head (ibori) inside its container (ilé
orí), 20th century
Cowrie shells, fiber, cloth, and leather; 35.6cm x
22.9cm x 22.9xm (14" x 9" x 9")
Collection of Bernard and Patricia Wagner, promised
gift to High Museum of Art, Atlanta
Photo: Richard Goodbody
Yoruba point-of-view. At the High, the richly illustrated cata-
logue was also available for gallery reading.
Within the High’s presentation of “Embodying the Sacred,”
the concise didactics were supplemented by a large photomural
of an Ifá diviner, made from a 1975 image provided by Marilyn
Houlberg (Fig. 10). The photomural, which helped humanize the
space, was flanked by a divination board on one side and house
of the head shrines on the other, to point to how such objects
function at the intersection of ayé and òrun (this world and
beyond). The central positioning of the image of a larger-than-
life-size person makes concrete the idea that human interven-
tion is required to activate these material objects. It is through
the spoken word, music, dance, and songs of diviners, priests,
priestesses, and ordinary people, that the performative aspects of
these objects art are enlivened.
Within the exhibition, the formality and “white cubeness” that
tall, white museum walls suggest might be alienating or inhib-
iting to uninitiated museum visitors, narrowly circumscribing
their experiences. The use of a cool, lavender blue as an accent
color helped mitigate against this possibility, adding an air
of serenity to the space. As described in the introductory wall
text, in Yoruba terms, art has the power to fa ojú móra (‘mag-
netize the eyes’) becoming àwòwò-tún-wò (‘that which compels
repeated gaze’). The rich diversity of color, scale, shape, pattern,
and texture of works of art included in the exhibition pulled
people in, indeed, magnetizing visitors’ eyes. People stayed in
the exhibition space, sometimes for several hours, and often
returned repeatedly. Highly decorated works such as the Crown
of Òbàtálá (adé Òbàtálá), the Leadership Sword and Sheath
(udàmalore), and the Figure of a Bàtá Drummer (alubàtá; Fig. 11)
attracted close scrutiny. As a security officer noted, “People could
see they were made with love.” Large-scale, dramatically spectac-
ular works such as the Epa Headdress (Olóko) and the Egúngún
Masquerade Costumes, among others, were strategically placed
to lead viewers deeper into the exhibition. To provide a more
direct, immediate experience to the viewer, Plexiglass vitrines
were kept to a minimum.
One might argue that, in its broad strokes, the exhibition
presented a totalizing narrative that failed to account for par-
ticularities and differences among Yoruba peoples, closer exami-
nation reveals otherwise. With its stated goal being “to explore
relationships between art and the spiritual world,” the exhibition
was conceived as an introductory survey and its catalog a basic
primer on Yoruba art. As the introductory text panel states,
Today, there are over 25 million Yoruba, united by religious beliefs,
language, and a common tradition of origin rooted in the institu-
tion of divine kingship. The city of Ile-Ife, the ancient capital where
the ruler’s palace is still located today, was urbanized as early as the
8th century and became a major center of artistic production by the
11th century. An estimated one-sixth of all African-Americans are of
Yoruba ancestry. Atlanta has one of the largest Yoruba communities
in the United States, part of a burgeoning diaspora of Nigerian immi-
grants to the United States.
Similarly, the exhibition’s timeframe is also broad, as this intro-
ductory text concludes, “Unless otherwise noted, all works were
made by Yoruba artists of Nigeria or the Republic of Benin
between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth century.”
summer 2009 african arts
| 37
 Further, while one might argue that more might have been done
to contextualize syncretism as a congruent aspect of cultural dyna-
mism in Yoruba societies, one work, in particular, belies this con-
clusion. The white-beaded crown in the form of a white-powdered
wig (oríkògbòfó) calls attention to issues of historical specificity
and to the colonial encounter. As described in the object label,
Some crowns reflect the personal taste of a king. Oríkògbófo (casual
headgear), normally worn indoors, does not have a beaded veil. These
crowns take diverse forms, some resembling white-powdered wigs
worn by African judges during the colonial era. Such innovative new
designs were developed during the twentieth century, when many
monarchs converted to Islam and Christianity and began to appear in
public without the beaded veil.
Likewise, while the exhibition might be critiqued for being
essentialist in its seeking of “authenticity,” the inclusion of this
crown complicates this conundrum, consciously engaging these
eternal debates. Undeniably, the many visually stunning, finely
crafted works of art included within the exhibition exude Ste-
phen Greenblatt’s idea of “resonance and wonder” (1991).
Also, importantly, the exhibition embraced the contemporary
pulse of Yoruba societies through the programming that took
place within the exhibition space. On Saturday, March 29, when
the Erintunde Youth Institute visited the Museum, the memo-
38 | african arts summer 2009
rial complex Greenblatt proposes as a framework for museum
practice was fully enacted. This day recalled interactions with
the “live” altars presented in “Face of the Gods: Art and Altars
of Africa and the African Americas,” the most popular exhibit
the Museum for African Art ever organized, curated by Rob-
ert Farris Thompson, as it was presented in New York City and
throughout its extensive tour.
The word erintunde means “laughter returns.” This newly
founded institute, a coalition of African American families that
practice Yoruba religion in Atlanta, is named after a 10-year old
boy recently killed crossing the street on his way home from
school. He was the son of the Babaláwo Ralph Cheo Thurman,
who presided over the Saturday afternoon program organized by
Charmaine Minniefield, Oya priest, and attended by more than
twenty-five Atlanta priests, elders, and their families (many of
whom had traveled to Nigeria to participate in the annual Òsun
festival). The deceased boy’s òrìsà was Obàtálá, embodied in
the white beaded crown that served as a signature image for the
exhibition (Fig. 12). Among the Yoruba deities, Obàtálá signifies
wisdom, purity, clarity, reason, and calm inner strength. Obà-
tálá is the oldest of the òrìsà and the creator of human beings,
revered as a judge, wise elder, and leader.
To commemorate his short life, Erintunde’s name has been
added to the credit line for the white beaded crown, now in the
(opposite)
10 “Embodying the Sacred” title wall. Photo mural of
male diviner (babaláwo) with divination tray (opón ifá),
Ijebu Remo, Nigeria. Photo by Marilyn Houlberg (center)
Installation photo: Mike Jensen

(this page)
11 Yoruba Artist, Nigeria
Figure of a Bàtá Drummer, 20th century
Wood and pigment; 35.6cm x 8.9cm (14" x 3½")
The Newark Museum, gift of Bernard and Patricia Wag-
ner, 2006.39.1
Photo: Richard Goodbody

12 The widely distributed rack card used to promote

the exhibition featured the crown for Òbàtálá, a signa-
ture image of the exhibition.
Image © High Museum of Art, Atlanta. Photo of Crown of
Obàtálá by Peter Harholdt

High Museum’s collection, along with the names of the donors,

Bernard and Patricia Wagner. In addition, his family is creating
a headstone for his grave inspired by the Memory Jar in the Fred
and Rita Richman Gallery, with a white elephant at its center,
another of Obàtálá’s attributes (Fig. 13). On the day of the Erin-
tunde Youth Institute’s visit to the Museum, Erintunde’s photo
was displayed on an easel next to the auditorium where the pro-
gram began. Then, as members of the Institute toured “Embody-
ing the Sacred” and the Richman Gallery, they spontaneously
sang songs to the various deities, including Òsun, Yemoja, Sàngó,
Egúngún, and Èsù, consecrating the High Museum’s African art
galleries as never before (Fig. 14). The majority of the approxi-
mately seventy-five people who participated in the program, all
from Atlanta, had never before visited the Museum (Fig. 15). The
day’s activities countered what Susan Vogel describes as “the
purity of the aetheticizing museum presentation of African art as
increasingly vitiated, sterile, and false” (1994:115).
From another perspective, “Embodying the Sacred” as pre-
sented at the High was distinctive in the way that it highlighted
gender balance through its object selection. The exhibition
included abundant bird imagery, representative of the impor-
tant role of women in Yoruba spirituality, with birds perched at
the pinnacle of the Epa mask, atop the crown for Obàtálá, sur-
mounting the egúngún from the High’s collection, at the center
of the egúngún from Newark’s collection, atop the edan Ògbóni
gifted to the High, adorning the Òsun fan, on the finial of the
brass staff gifted to the High, on the blacksmith’s staff, and of
course, on the iron staffs for Osanyìn.
The Yoruba beaded vessel recently gifted to the High (Fig. 16),
surmounted by birds, solidly decorated with glass beads, prob-
ably once belonged to a member of the Yoruba royalty or a high-
ranking priest or priestess. Its bird imagery points to the role of
the king as intermediary between his subjects and the òrìsà, in
the same way that a bird moves between earth and sky. At the
same time, the bird imagery also alludes to the mystical power
that the supreme deity, Olòdúmarè, gave to the first woman in
the form of a bird enclosed in a calabash, to enable her to coun-
ter the chauvinism and muscular advantage of men. Likewise,
Olòdúmarè’s breath is described as taking the form of a bird
when entering the human body inside the womb or leaving it
after death. In this vessel, one bird stands atop two hemispheres

summer 2009 african arts

| 39
 (counterclockwise from top left)
13 Unknown Maker
Memory Jar, early 20th century
Hand-built clay with encrusted ceramic
shards and found objects; 33cm x 27.9cm x
22.9cm (13" x 11" x 9")
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
Purchase with funds from the Decorative
Arts Acquisition Trust, 1997.37
Photo: Peter Harholdt

14 Yoruba priestess from the Erintunde

Institute singing a song for Òsun with a fan
for Òsun in background (see Fig. 15).
Photo: Carol Thompson

15 Yoruba Artist, Nigeria

Fan for Òsun, 20th century
Brass; 35.6cm x 22.2cm x 4.4cm (14" x 8¾"
x 1¼")
Collection of Bernard and Patricia Wagner,
promised gift to High Museum of Art,
Atlanta
Photo: Richard Goodbody

40 | african arts summer 2009

16 Yoruba Artist, Nigeria
Vessel, 20th century
Glass beads, cloth, fiber, and leather; 24.1cm (9½")
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
Purchase with funds from Susan and Carl Cofer in
honor of Karol and Kevin Mason, 2007.117
Photo: Peter Harholdt
supported by a central shaft encircled by two birds, as though
relaying metaphysical powers from the celestial to the terres-
trial realm. Susan and Carl Cofer gifted this work to the High
in honor of Karol and Kevin Mason, in gratitude for providing
inspiration to Susan Cofer as she was working on the portrait of
the Mason twins commissioned to celebrate their fiftieth birth-
day in August, 2007.
The portrait of Karol and Kevin Mason commissioned from
Susan Cofer was inspired by the Yoruba ibeji from the Rich-
man collection included in “Embodying the Sacred” (Figs.
17–18). In the catalog for an exhibition of her work at the Uni-
versity of Georgia, Cofer describes how, while visiting the
High Museum with several friends, when she first learned
about the Yoruba tradition of ibeji,
the hair on my arms stood up … the twin sculptures were the scale of
my own work. They were male and female. They radiated enormous
power. This museum experience seemed a fortuitous gift, coming
from somewhere outside normal channels. Those twin figures were
calling out to me …. I knew I had to learn more about this art and
about Africa (Thompson 2008:19–20).
As emphasized in “Embodying the Sacred,” in Yoruba cul-
ture a person’s head is valued as a seat of intelligence and site of
perception. Emphasis on the head in Yoruba art has both theo-
logical and political importance. The Yoruba word oríladé (‘the
head is a crown’) is a metaphor for this relationship. The head
is to an individual what Olòdúmarè (the supreme being) is to
the cosmos—a crown and a source of power. As suggested in the
quote by Martin Luther King, Jr., at the beginning of this essay,
summer 2009 african arts
| 41
17 Yoruba Artist, Nigeria
Pair of Twin Figures (ère ìbejì), ca. 1875–1925
Wood, pigment, beads, and cowrie shells; 34.9cm x
35.6cm (13¾" x 14")
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
Fred and Rita Richman Collection, 2002.287.1-2
Photo: Peter Harholdt

18 Susan Seydel Cofer

Karol and Kevin Mason, Twins, 2006–2007
Wood, papier-mâché, pigment, glass beads, cowrie
shells, photographs; 41.9cm x 63.5cm x 11.4cm
(16½" x 25" x 4½")
Private collection, Atlanta
Photo: Jerry Siegel

42 | african arts summer 2009

“every man lives in two realms.” According to Yoruba religious
belief system, those realms refer to the two aspects of the head,
the outer and the inner. The outer aspect refers to orí óde (the
physical head) molded by the artist-deity Obàtálá, and identifies
the visible self. The inner aspect refers to orí inú (a spiritual core)
that generates the life-giving èmí (the vital spirit, or the power to
make things happen) in an individual.
Seen against the backdrop of this rich cultural history, Cofer’s
portraits of Karol and Kevin Mason, inspired in part by Yoruba
ibeji, almost become altars. Loaded with multiple signifiers, these
twin portraits, despite the fact that they were made by a “white”
woman artist, function as “head praise” to Karol and Kevin Mason
(Thompson 2008:19). Susan Cofer’s portraits of Karol and Kevin
Mason, like all her portraits, capture the subject’s spirit in a most
uncanny way, suggesting that, from a Yoruba point of view, Cofer
has moved beyond this world to tap superhuman or supernatural
powers. She has become Atlanta’s high priestess of portraiture.
On April 21, the High celebrated the closing of “Embody-
ing the Sacred” on the occasion of the forth annual dinner of
The David C. Driskell Prize in African American Art and Art
History. At the reception preceding dinner, guests including a
diverse cross-section of Atlanta’s social and political elite, with
Mayor Shirley Franklin and Stephanie Hughley, Executive Pro-
ducer of the National Black Arts Festival, in attendance. On that
evening, Hughley told Thompson that for her and her grandchil-
dren, seeing this exhibition was especially gratifying, since, like
approximately one-sixth of all African Americans, her grand-
mother was of Yoruba ancestry. She learned this when NBAF
partnered with African Ancestry, Inc. to offer people of African
descent the opportunity to trace their lineage through The DNA
Project: Find Your Roots, during the 2007 Festival (although the
accuracy of such DNA tests has been contested).
As these anecdotes suggest, in the end, “Embodying the Sacred”
achieved its emphasis on the poetics of museum display by mirror-
ing what Elaine Heumann Gurian has described as the theatrical-
ity of exhibition production (1991:176–90). The viewing audience
is not only empowered to look at the displayed objects in an aes-
theticizing way and to be inspired by them but also to form inde-
pendent opinions to make the works of art relevant to their own
lives. In this way, the exhibition became exemplar as a collabora-
tive project reflecting the contributions of a broad constituency.
Finally, the exhibition reinforces Shelley Ruth Butler’s opti-
mistic accounts of exhibiting culture in its focus on the role of
the museum as a site of public education and dialogue between
diverse and multicultural citizens, each sensitive to the other’s
viewpoints, while at once recognizing and embracing our shared
humanity (2000:74). The exhibitionary voice therefore emerges
in the collaboration between exhibition producers and con-
cerned constituencies, and in the encounter between the dis-
played objects and the multiple gazes of multiple publics.
Carol Thompson is Fred and Rita Richman Curator of African Art, High
Museum, Atlanta. carol.thompson@woodruffcenter.org
Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi is a graduate student sof African art history
at Emory University.
Rebekah Mejorado is Curatorial Assistant to the African Art Department,
High Museum.

References cited
Butler, Shelley Ruth. 2000. “The Politics of Exhibiting
Culture: Legacies and Possibilities,” Museum Anthropol-
ogy 23 (3):74.
Danto, Arthur C. 1988. “Artifact and Art.” In ART/arti-
fact: African Art in Anthropology Collections, pp. 18–32.
New York: The Center for African Art.
Drewal, Henry John. 1980. African Artistry: Technique
and Aesthetics in Yoruba Sculpture. Atlanta: High
Museum of Art.
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