Two-Faced / Double Visage: Bamiléké Yegué Atwenkang Scream Mask, from Visages de Masques III Series
Artist
Hervé Youmbi
(Cameroonian, born 1973)
CultureCameroonian
Date2015-2017
MediumWood, hair, beads, cowries, pigment, cloth, metal, plastic string, Video, pigment print on paper, labels, and documents
DimensionsVariable
PortfolioVisages de masques (III)
Credit LineMuseum purchase
Object number2021.33
Not on view
DescriptionMultimedia installation comprised of five components: a Bamiléké Yegué Atwenkang Scream Mask, a single-channel video, a field photograph , a wooden shipping crate covered with transit stickers, and shipping documents. The mask is a Ghostface mask (character from Wes Craven’s 1996 film Scream) attached to an open wooden box covered with tiny, sewn beads with eight black, white, and red horn-like protrusions on the top. Locked hair strips are woven to the bottom and back of the box.The color photograph shows the mask being worn by a semi-nude male in a procession with other men wearing similar masks, thought made almost completely of beads.The video shows a large group of men walking and dancing in a large circle outdoors with drums playing and people singing. Some men hold staffs, others do not, but they are in a processional and the camera zooms in as the figure wearing the Ghostface masks moves closer to it. Label TextHervé Youmbi Cameroonian, born 1973, produced in the workshops of Alassane Mfouapon (carver), Frédéric Feudjeueck (coiffure), and Marie Kouam (beader) West region, Cameroon Bamiléké Yegué Atwenkang Scream Mask, 2015 - 2017 wood, hair, beads, cowries, pigment and cloth Hervé Youmbi commissioned this mask to be used in the Ku’ngang Society. Society elders approved the mask, although it deviates from the stylistic conventions of a Bamiléké yégué mask insofar as it adopts the crate-like form of the Bamiléké atwenkang mask and it integrates the popular Halloween mask of Ghostface, a character in Wes Craven’s 1996 film Scream, inspired by Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream. After an exhibition during 2015 at Bandjoun Station, opened by Cameroon’s Minister of Culture, Mrs. Ama Tutu Muna, the mask was ritually activated and performed by Alain Yiewou at a Kun’ngang Society ceremony at Bakoven-meka village on March 5, 2016, which Hervé Youmbi filmed. In October 2016, the activated mask was exhibited in “Visages de Masques” at Doual’art, Douala, Cameroon, after which it was returned to the West region. Hervé Youmbi Cameroonian, born 1973 Two-Faced / Double Visage: Bamiléké Yegué Atwenkang Scream Mask, 2015-2017 multi-media Hervé Youmbi commissioned this mask as a component of his series Two-Faced Mask / Double Visage, a part of his ongoing project Visages de masques, which explores the reception and commodification of African art forms both within African ritual communities and by outsiders. In the West, African art is generally classified according to a “one tribe, one style” formula. However, in Youmbi’s native Cameroon, sculptors often draw inspiration from other cultures. In this project, Youmbi probes the limits of what is ritually acceptable as a Bamiléké mask. The status of the “Two-Faced Mask / Double Visage” as art object changes according to the display contexts of the ceremonial dance or the art gallery, unsettling the supposed stable identity of the artwork. Similarly, Hervé Youmbi’s role as contemporary artist involved commissioning the artwork from several specialists for another person to perform, while Youmbi adopted the ethnographer’s role of “participant observer” to record “his” object being performed by a Ku’ngang Society member.ProvenanceArtist to Axis Gallery to Chrysler Museum of ArtPublished ReferencesThe Visages de masques III series has been published in the following: Gavoty, Jean-Françoise & Cyrille Bret. Hervé Youmbi and beyond. Haute école des arts du Rhin, France. 2019 Bondaz, Julien. “Ghostface in the Grassfields: Les masques hantés d’Hervé Youmbi. Hervé Youmbi and beyond. Haute école des arts du Rhin, France. 2019 Forni, Silvia. “Masks on the Move: Defying Genres. Styles and Traditions on the Cameroonian Grassfileds”. African Arts, Vol. 49, No.2, Summer 2016. Pg. 38-43 Malaquais, Dominique. “Playing (in) the Market: Hervé Youmbi and the Art World Maze”. Cahiers D’Etudes Africaines, 2016/3 (No. 223) p 364.
