A Fon (Voodoo) Fetish sculpture, borderdestrict Togo/Benin, numerous padlocks and colourfull, mostly reddish fabrics, rows of colourfullpearls, metal attachments, calebasses etc. The cylindrical head with an open mouth and bulging eyes, sacrification patina all over the figure.

Also of broader interest, are the specific aesthetic issues and the means through which these works come into being. Some artists historically have made a point of hiding the processes of their artistic engagement; others highlight the production processes involved. Bocio artists represent the latter group, providing these works with key attributes of raw energy and visual primacy that add to their larger significance. Bocio at the same time are collaborative arts, the product not only of the carver, but also of other individuals involved in their creation and the user himself. A close bond necessarily develops between the user and the variant artists and “activators” of the objects, reinforced by the acknowledged risk incurred in the very process of creating and empowering these objects...

Suzanne Preston Blier, African Vodun. Art, Psychology, and Power, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1995, p. 39 à 40.- Excerpted from the catalog Vodun: African Voodoo,Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, 2011

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