New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press [distributor], 2014. 176 pp. (Coloured illustrations, maps.) US$24.95, paper. ISBN 978-0-300-20429-2.
How to Read Oceanic Art is the third volume of a collection devoted to the detailed analysis of specific collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The first two volumes were devoted to Greek vases and Chinese paintings, two domains in which scholarly attention has been considerable. The present volume is an original contribution to the analysis of Pacific art and unlike the two previous volumes of the same collection that focus on a very specific aspect of their curatorial department, the third volume encompasses the whole curatorial department of Pacific art. It is written by Eric Kjellgren, curator of Oceanic art at the Metropolitan Museum. The selection features a large variety of material (wood, textile, whale ivory, shell, bark, tortoise shell, etc.), techniques (carving, painting, plaiting, weaving, dying, gold work, etc.), cultural areas (Pacific Islands including Micronesia, Melanesia, New Guinea, Australia, and Polynesia and quite surprisingly Southeast Asian islands).
The book is composed of six sections devoted to regions of the Pacific, then subdivided into forty-two chapters, each dedicated to a specific artefact. The great originality of the book, and its most attractive contribution, lies in its emphasis on individual artefacts. In this regard, it resembles previous publications devoted to the famous collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: in 1978, Douglas Newton published an immensely popular selection of artworks from the Nelson A. Rockefeller collection (New Guinea Art in the Collection of the Museum of Primitive Art, Knopf, 1978). This book greatly contributed to the diffusion of Pacific artworks beyond the narrow sphere of amateurs of “primitive art” and specialists of the cultures of this area. Some of the same artworks are present in both Newton’s and Kjellgren’s publications.
In 2007 Eric Kjellgren published a remarkable and comprehensive publication on the collections of this department (Oceania: Art of the Pacific Islands in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007). It was conceived on the model of fine art museum catalogues, where each selected artefact is analyzed in a broad and detailed notice. The 2007 publication presented an extended version of the Douglas Newton catalogue, offering to amateurs and scholars a richly detailed and academically sound contribution on Pacific art. This current publication seems to be an abbreviated version of his last book, aimed at a slightly different audience. Both publications offer a selection of artworks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection in order to feature a global panorama on art and culture of the Pacific and Southeast Asia. This publication contrasts with other recent publications devoted to Pacific artefacts, such as those in the Tropenmuseum (David van Duuren, Oceania at the Tropenmuseum, KIT Publishers, 2011) or the British Museum (Lissant Bolton et al., eds., Melanesia: Art and Encounter, British Museum, 2013) that propose a rather reflexive attitude towards the history of ethnographic collections and displaying exoticism in the West. Kjellgren’s small book is in this regard a rather standard publication on Pacific art although it fails to mention the museum’s collection history.
The book is introduced with a few words on Pacific Islands migrations—in which the history of Southeast Asian migrations and settlement history is strangely omitted—the utilitarian and ritual/religious functions of artefacts, and a brief discussion on Pacific art iconography (decorative patterns, animal representations, and human iconography). The second half of the introduction gives insight on the roles of Pacific artists, Western influence, and the impact of the Pacific cultures on Western art and literature—themes that are not developed further in the catalogue but that are intended to assist Western readers in understanding Pacific artistry within a Western cultural environment. The catalogue itself consists of a selection of forty-two artefacts illustrating the diverse cultural and artistic traditions of this immense region. Although the selection is rather limited, Kjellgren deserves praise for including material expressions that are often neglected in the general literature on Pacific art. In particular, the catalogue includes an interesting choice of Micronesian artefacts, including a famous Marshall Island navigational chart, a Yapese meteorological charm, and a Wuvulu coconut milk container. Each artefact is thoroughly analyzed and complementary illustrations assist the readers in understanding the significance of a pattern or an iconographic configuration. Except in the introduction, there is no ethnographic photograph to illustrate the artefacts in their original context so the text alone gives an account of the ethnographic or historical conditions of production and exchange, or their daily or ritual use. Numerous references to personal fieldwork by the author and a concise general bibliography substantiate the author’s explanations and demonstrations. Some notices offer striking visual confrontations, as for example the particularly enlightening series of sitting figures from Borneo, Luzon, Cenderavasih Bay, and the Moluccas to illustrate the prevalence of a particular iconographic theme in a broad region.
How to Read Oceanic Art is a pleasant companion for a first visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art collections. It will be particularly useful to those who have only a limited knowledge of the region. Its rich iconography and its detailed notices are both engaging and attractive. However, Pacific art specialists will prefer Eric Kjellgren’s previous more scholarly volume on the same topic.
Nicolas Garnier
University of Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea