Anthropozoomorphic face mask "idiok ekpo" · Nigeria, Ibibio · ID: 3052308
Christie’s, Paris, France, 19 June 2013, lot 65
Zemanek-Münster, Würzburg, Germany, 26 March 2022, lot 202
Description
wood, base
The “ekpo” society regulated all social, political, and economic affairs in precolonial times. The society’s masked performances ensured law and order while also maintaining active communication with the spirits of the ancestors.
The masks show a contrastive aesthetics of beauty and ugliness. Artists use asymmetry and disproportion in their mask-making to recreate and comment upon the incongruities and contradictions of human existance, while symmetry and elegance convey ideas about morality and essential goodness.
The so-called “beauty beast” model served to instil fear and awe in people and to invoke the threat of force and authority necessary to maintain order.
Publications
Roberts, Mary Nooter & F. Allen, A sense of wonder, Phoenix Art Museum, 1997, p. 103, cat. 46 b
AHDRC: 0124065
Exhibition
USA: "A Sense of Wonder. African Art from the Faletti Family Collection", 1997-2000: - Phoenix: Phoenix Art Museum, 13 December 1997 - 8 February 1998 - Chicago: Smart Museum of Art. University of Chicago, 14 May- 28 June 1998 - Urbana-Champaign: Krannert Art Museum. University of Illinois, 18 September - 1 November 1998 - Davenport: Davenport Museum of Art, 18 April -13 June 1999 - Boise: Boise Art Museum, 26 February - 7 May 2000