Gelle mask, We / Guere, Ivory Coast - Lot 58

Lot n° 58
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Estimation :
1800 - 2200 EUR
Gelle mask, We / Guere, Ivory Coast - Lot 58
Gelle mask, We / Guere, Ivory Coast Early 20th century Horns, wood, iron, organic matter H. 35 cm - L. 33 cm Formal testimony to the bold, striking plastic design and expressionist power of Wè and Guéré war masks. Common to all the peoples of southwestern Côte d'Ivoire, the institution of the war mask was part of a war phenomenon that, "beyond its real stakes, covered a vast cultural field" (Dozon, 1985, p. 172). The various societies governing the community claim a history of warlike practice and ideology, and the powerful mask institution to which this phenomenon gave rise originated with the Wè/Guéré peoples, whose masks with their deliberately terrifying figures are the archetype. The mask imposes itself by bringing the aesthetics of strength to a climax, through the modernity and inventiveness of its form, through the interplay of dimensions and projections in space of the undulating, tentacular facial elements sprouting from its surface. The uncertain, disordered, intertwined movement accentuates the contrast of proportions and the remarkable dynamics of volumes. The concentration of rhythm and the free interpretation of forms "bring out the unknown rather than ordering the known" (Georges Meurant, 2008, p. 141).
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