Personal Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Unknown Artists: Senufo
19th-century, 20th-century
Urbana, IL: Spurlock Museum
53%
Door. 19th-20th century. Wood
If I can get away with being a little wrong and reductive here, I'll say that this piece seems like low or folk art when compared to the classicism of the work of, say, Olowe of Ise or other named West African door carvers. (Again, wrong and reductive: I know little about this stuff's actual context or making.) Of course, "low vs. classical" isn't itself a value judgement, but the more refined doors I know of do happen to outperform this rougher-hewn object by leaps, aesthetically. There's a corpulence — a fullness and a finish — to what they depict that's missing here; this Senufo hatch is instead essentially planar, pictorial. This leaves the ground which its figures have been placed upon somewhat unactivated, whereas in the best of these carved doors ground is something from which forms burst, dignified, and against which they're always desperately working. That said, the figures here have been placed with a nice sense of broken rhythm, and their ineptitude and irregularity is tough not to respond to if you've enjoyed enough outsider art. (2025)