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Red Escape II

Viyé Diba

Arts of Africa

ART OF IDEAS
African art is conceptual art. In both form and use, it reveals sophisticated systems of knowledge, but rarely directly. These two seemingly unrelated works express hidden and poignant ideas about security and liberty.

An nkisi nkondi embodies defensive power and was used to protect a community. To complete this sculpture, a ritual expert placed potent ingredients associated with supernatural powers in the cavity carved into the figure’s abdomen. Nails and blades activated the spirit that was now accessible through the figure. This nkisi's pose, with hands on hips, symbolizes its readiness to defend the righteous and to destroy enemies.

In Viyé Diba's work, the piece of painted yellow wood, projecting between the seams of the woven canvas, and the abstract forms that suggest fleeing figures at the top evoke the possibility of liberation—from the literal plane of the canvas, from the strictures of painting and sculpture, or, perhaps, from the history of the city of Dakar itself, the site of a former way station in the trade of human captives. Diba's art is composed entirely of materials he found walking around Dakar.
MEDIUM Cotton strip cloth, pigment, sand, wood, metal
  • Place Made: Dakar, Senegal
  • DATES 1999
    DIMENSIONS 67 x 55 in. (170.2 x 139.7 cm)  (show scale)
    COLLECTIONS Arts of Africa
    ACCESSION NUMBER 2011.30
    CREDIT LINE Gift of Elliot Picket, by exchange and Alfred T. White Fund
    CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION A sculptural work, composed of strips of locally woven cotton cloth sewn together into a canvas, painted a rich red tone, with sand added to paint for textural depth. Six schematic shapes, of a rectangle with a triangle cut from one end, have been cut from cotton fabric and added in a row in the top of the canvas, painted yellow (a seventh shape is attached to the wood framing the work). A sculptural projection punctures the canvas at mid-level (attached to a wood cross-bar concealed in back), composed of cotton fabric and found wood, both painted yellow with sand texturing. The entire work is framed by pieces of found, weathered wood that have been assembled around the contour of the work. Condition: good.
    MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
    CAPTION Viyé Diba (Senegalese, born 1954). Red Escape II, 1999. Cotton strip cloth, pigment, sand, wood, metal , 67 x 55 in. (170.2 x 139.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Elliot Picket, by exchange and Alfred T. White Fund, 2011.30. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: , 2011.30_PS9.jpg)
    IMAGE overall, 2011.30_PS9.jpg., 2019
    "CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
    RIGHTS STATEMENT © Viyé Diba
    The Brooklyn Museum holds a non-exclusive license to reproduce images of this work of art from the rights holder named here. The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org. If you wish to contact the rights holder for this work, please email copyright@brooklynmuseum.org and we will assist if we can.
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    Viyé Diba (Senegalese, born 1954). <em>Red Escape II</em>, 1999. Cotton strip cloth, pigment, sand, wood, metal
, 67 x 55 in. (170.2 x 139.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Elliot Picket, by exchange and Alfred T. White Fund, 2011.30. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: , 2011.30_PS9.jpg)

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