Milan | “Africa. The Land of the Spirits” at MUDEC

Africa. The Land of the Spirits.
MUDEC museum inaugural exhibition
by Federica Lusiardi, Inexhibit

Africa. The Land of the Spirits is, together with “Worlds in Milan”, one of the two opening exhibitions of the new Mudec – Museum of Cultures, organized on the occasion of the EXPO 2015.

The exhibition is arranged into a sequence of 6 rooms, where African art is narrated from two different points of view. On one hand, the exhibition tells us how much our vision of a work of art is deeply influenced by the inspiration African art provided to some of the most important artists of the 20th century, from Picasso to Giacometti. On the other hand, it describes why an artwork, in many African cultures, goes further than a formal expression but actually embodies the person it depicts, so making content and representation coincide.

The exhibition design is based on the contrast between the darkened rooms and the spots of light, highlighting masks, reliquaries, ebony objects, and woodcarvings in an almost theatrical way.
In some cases, like in the opening room, the artifacts seem to float in the air, housed in transparent cylinders supported by a forest of thin wood stakes; while in other rooms, the objects are placed on top of dark boxes, piled on one another, and emerge from the darkness as mysterious figures.

Africa. The Land of the Spirits
27 March – 30 August 2015
MUDEC – Museo delle Culture
via Tortona 56, Milan.

Photos © Inexhibit, 2015