blackbirdonline journalSpring 2012  Vol. 11  No. 1
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RICHARD B. WOODWARD | Visions from the Congo
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Goddess of Love and Beauty: Renée Stout’s Erzulie Dreams

Renée Stout’s concept for this work derives from Erzulie, the Haitian goddess of love, procreation, and motherhood, who shares traits with Oshun, the Yoruba orisa (deity) of love, beauty, and wealth. The goddess has different manifestations, and here, as Erzulie Freda, she also appears as a divinity of dreams. Stout transforms the figure into a self-image by placing a cast of her own head and face on the alluring torso with its delicate feathers, beads, and lace. Her softly closed eyes transport us to a world of seductive visions.

Xu Bing Tobacco Project

 Renée Stout (b. 1958)
 Erzulie Dreams (detail), 1992
 Mixed media
 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
 Purchased with funds from the Kathleen Boone Samuels Memorial Fund, 93.10
 Photo by Travis Fullerton © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Erzulie rises from a small cabinet. Does this form an altar? The drawer opens, revealing a red beaded heart; the doors open, revealing a pelvis. This inner core—the locus of fertility, childbearing, and loving emotion—are these powers revealed to those who dream of her?

 Renée Stout (b. 1958)
 Erzulie Dreams, 1992
 Mixed media
 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Purchased with funds
 from the Kathleen Boone Samuels Memorial Fund,  93.10
 Photo by Travis Fullerton
 © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

In Africa’s richly artistic Congo region, sculptures are often made to serve as containers for mystical ingredients that identify and activate powers relevant to the spirit, deity, or ancestor represented. Such sculptures are called minkisi (singular—nkisi). They serve as altars where contact with spirits take place and as instruments of divination in processes that help a person, family, or community understand the issues that confront them, the better to overcome obstacles, meet needs, or fulfill desires. Like them, Erzulie contains forces within, as revealed by the elements inside the open drawer and doors.

I’m attracted to spiritual societies . . . .  [Spirituality] seems like a means of survival in a world that you can’t always understand.
 
  —Renée Stout
   

The art of Congo’s Luba people has been described as a hymn to womanhood, and Stout’s Erzulie Dreams relates in its essence two Luba female figures in the museum’s collection. In one of these “cousins” of Erzulie, a seated woman holds a bowl. Whether it is a bowl of divination implements—women are often diviners—or white clay to rub on the body for rituals, the nurturing role of woman is unmistakably affirmed. The other sculpture, a royal stool, depicts a woman holding aloft the seat for a chief. From her position, planted on the earth, she visually and physically provides the essential link between the ancestors beneath the earth and the living ruler who sits upon the stool.

Female Power Figure, 19th–20th century (front facing)   Female Power Figure, 19th–20th century (angled)

 Royal Stool, 19th–20th century
 Luba culture (Democratic Republic of Congo)
 Wood, glass beads, string
 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
 Purchased from the Robert and Nancy Nooter
 Collection with funds from the Adolph D. and
 Wilkins C. Williams Fund, 2006.18
 Photo by Katherine Wetzel    
 © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

   Kneeling Woman Holding a Bowl, ca. 19th century
 Luba culture (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
 Wood, string, glass beads, button, brass tacks,  Belgian colonial currency
 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
 Purchased with funds from the Adolph D. and
 Wilkins C. Williams Fund    93.50
 Photo by Katherine Wetzel    
 © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts  end of text

Visions from the Congo is organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and curated by Richard B. Woodward, Curator of African Art.


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