Joel Elgin. The influence of the artwork of Oceania.
Asmat ancestral spirit poles
Before we begin I hope you had a chance to check out the brand spanking new Athraigh Print Studio YouTube page at:
Oceania
Time for a little geography to begin as we explore the influence of the artwork of Oceania.
We are going to be looking at artwork created across the continent of Australia, the largest of all islands, New Guinea, and the island of New Zealand, maybe even a few smaller islands...
We will roughly organize our Oceania journey by looking at the artwork of Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia.
But wait, geography again… there is more then one definition of Oceania. Some define Oceania as encompassing “…ALL landmasses between Asia and America…”
We will leave that debate to the geographers but the definition impacts us because technically, the definition of Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia splits the island of New Guinea in the middle and calls its western half part of Indonesia.
The hell with that!
We need that part of Indonesia/New Guinea to appreciate the complete influence.
As an introduction to this fascinating area and to kick this off well, lets focus on poor Michael Rockefeller who was lost in western New Guinea. As you read please remember the Benin Massacre that I wrote about in an earlier post (Feb. 11, 2020). Yes, I am ranting again. The incorrect way to study art and its influence is to loot.
Michael Rockefeller.
Michael Clark Rockefeller, born May 18, 1938. Declared legally dead in 1964 (aged 25) following his disappearance on November 19, 1961 in the Asmat region of southwestern New Guinea.
In “Savage Harvest,” Carl Hoffman, makes the case that the men of the Asmats, tortured, beheaded and ate Rockefeller in a ritualistic cannibal killing.
Governor Nelson Rockefeller, grandson of Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller, one of the richest men in the world, opened the Museum of Primitive Art at 15 W. 54th St.
Michael, who had just graduated from Harvard, was put on the new museums board. He wanted to gather artwork for his father’s museum and as an athlete, an adventurer; he wanted to go directly to the source.
A colleague, Adrian Gerbrands, deputy director of the Dutch National Museum of Ethnology, was doing fieldwork in Asmat, so Michael decided that he would begin his collecting in New Guinea.
In his initial journey he gathered hundreds of items, among bowls, shields, spears and the most prized possession, four sacred bisj poles, spiritual artifacts that are often dedicated to the deceased, 20-foot-high sculptures of stacked men interwoven with crocodiles and praying mantises and other symbols of headhunting. These are now kept in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rockefeller’s Museum of Primitive Art opened in 1957 and closed in 1976, its collections were transferred to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In October 1961, Michael traveled to Asmat with anthropologist Rene Wassing, loaded with bartering goods, steel and tobacco.
He disappeared after a trading canoe that he was traveling in down the cannibal coast of New Guinea capsized several miles off shore. After a night clinging to ruined canoe, Rockefeller strapped empty gas cans to his body and set out to swim for the distant shore leaving René Wessing with the canoe.
Rockefeller’s death was eventually ruled a drowning, but there have long been questions and numerous inquiries to discover an official version of events.
In “Savage Harvest,” Carl Hoffman, claims Rockefeller was the victim of a horrific revenge killing.
When Michael Rockefeller arrived, times were changing. The Dutch, who had taken over the United East India Company, hired Max Lapré, known for his “firm hand,” to oversee the colony. Under Lapré’s command, five elite were gunned down.
The Asmats believe that revenge is vital to placating the spirits; the natural order had been upset. This was a “complex spiritual world balanced by ceremonies, ritual and reciprocal violence,” writes Hoffman. “This spirit world centered around the practice of headhunting and its outgrowth, cannibalism.”
“Headhunting and cannibalism were as right to them as taking communion or kneeling on the carpet facing Mecca,” he writes.
Hoffman interviewed Dutch Catholic Priest Hubertus von Peij, who had spent years living among the Asmats, who stated that four Asmats revealed to him that they had killed and eaten Rockefeller and that his head was being kept.
The Priest notified the governor of Dutch New Guinea who sent a “secret” cable to the minister of the interior. The information was “covered up” according to Hoffman because it was a bad time politically for this type of news. The Dutch were fighting the UN for their half of New Guinea, which was in the process of being given to Indonesia.
More:
(Links to an external site.)http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hestons-search-for-michael-rockefeller-to-premiere-on-netflix-300014126.html
So do you think Rockefeller was a collector or a looter, and while you are figuring this out perhaps you can decide if you believe if he was eaten or drowned?
Either way tune in next time to explore the influence of the artwork of Oceania.
