This Mumuye sculpture from northeastern Nigeria, collected in the région Taraba State, derives its force from a charged interplay between linearity and volume. The characteristic zigzagging legs introduce a rhythmic instability that seems to set the figure in perpetual motion, while the protruding navel serves as a plastic fulcrum, centering the body and evoking notions of vitality and generative power. The arms, elongated like fins and articulated in openwork, combine a sense of lightness with structural intricacy; by allowing surrounding space to penetrate the form, they foreground a dynamic exchange between mass and void. The rounded shoulders mediate between the torso’s strict verticality and the expressive विस्तार of the limbs.

Particular attention is drawn to the head, whose helmet-like configuration, with bun-shaped lateral projections, creates a striking and idiosyncratic silhouette. This abstraction resists naturalistic reading and points instead to the conceptual dimension of Mumuye sculpture, in which individual presence and idealized form converge. The reductive yet highly articulated formal language positions the figure as a bearer of social and spiritual significance, without fixing it to a single, determinate function. Rather, it opens a field of associations that oscillates between ancestral evocation, status display, and aesthetic experimentation.

Within art historical discourse, Mumuye sculpture may be understood as exemplifying an African modernity avant la lettre, whose formal audacity and abstraction resonate far beyond their regional context and found echoes in the visual vocabulary of the European avant-gardes.

Selected literature:
Arnold, Marion: Mumuye: Sculpture from Nigeria. Zurich, 1989.
Fagg, William: African Tribal Images. London, 1968.
Rubin, William (ed.): “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art. New York, 1984.
Visona, Monica Blackmun et al.: A History of Art in Africa. London, 2001.

Informant: Wassiu

CAB46446

sold

Height: 73 cm
Weight: 1,5 kg incl. stand