Wanda's Picks

Art and Power opened this weekend at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Curator, Constantine Petridis's exhibition looks at the linguistic and aesthetic and cultural linkages between the four distinct African civilizations stemming from Bantu origins: Luba, Songye, Chokwe, and Luluwa. In the exhibit featuring rare work from throughout the country and the world he proposes that the connection between art and spirit are often invisible, that there is no separation, that the power inherent in the nkisi or bearer of potions used to invoke or call the spirit into being to help or assist the community or person is more the rule rather than the exception. These 59 sculptures from the Central African Savanna show us images of the people who lived then, who centuries later, despite colonial enslavement, reflect us now in the dress, the perception of beauty and in the powerful spirit these art pieces, even robbed or emptied of their potions, still possess. Also joining us this morning is Muisi-kongo Malonga, Arti