The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

Twilight of the Idols (Fetish) 3

Twilight of the Idols (Fetish) 3

2005
(South African, b. 1968)
South Africa
Wood, plastic tape (polyethylene, polypropylene, nylon, or vinyl), and iron
Overall: 140 x 43 x 39 cm (55 1/8 x 16 15/16 x 15 3/8 in.)
Purchased with funds donated by Scott Mueller 2018.4
© Kendell Geers
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

The underlying figure is much larger than minkisi figures were in the past; its "supersize" reflects that it is an object made for the tourist market, not for ritual use.

Description

To create this sculpture, Kendell Geers appropriates a nkisi nkondi (singular) sculpture of the Kongo people that was mass-produced for the tourist market. Minkisi (plural) figures were typically used as protective relics; the nails on it represent the many times the object would have been ritually activated. Geers wraps the object with white and red chevron tape—the South African equivalent of yellow and black caution tape used in the US to mark off the scene of a crime—simultaneously signaling danger and acting as a shield. The artist’s deliberate use of the term fetish recalls African ritual objects’ fetishization as art and global commodities by the West since the turn of the 20th century. While once used in scholarship to describe African religious objects like nkisi, the word 'fetish' is now understood as both inaccurate and inappropriate.
  • 2018
    (Studio Kendell Geers, Brussels, Belgium, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    2018-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Geers, Kendell and Jerome Sans. “Kendell Geers: A TerroRealist in the house of Love.” In Looking both ways: Art of the contemporary African diaspora. (New York: Museum for African Art; Gent: Snoeck, 2003), 84-97, 179.
    Kendell Geers: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 34 and 37. Exh. Cat. Blandy-les-Tours: Galleria Continua, June 30-July 10, 2012. p. 34, 37 kendellgeers.com
    Kellner, Clive, et al. Kendell Geers 1988-2012, 159. Exh. Cat. Munich; London; New York: Prestel, February 1-May 12, 2013. p. 159
    Geers, Kendell, Jens Hoffman, and Z. S. Strother. AniMystikAKtivist: Between Traditional and the Contemporary in African Art. Brussels: Mercatorfonds, 2018.
    Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. "Contemporary African Art." Cleveland Art (September/October 2018): 8-9. Reproduced and Mentioned: P. 8. www.clevelandart.org
    Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Second Careers : Two Tributaries in African Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2019 Mentioned: p. 20; reproduced: p. 21, fig. 7.
  • AfroPunk. Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium. (September 7-October 28, 2017)
    Kendell Geers, 1988-2012. Haus der Kunst, Munich, DE (February 1-May 12, 2013)
    The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Blandy-les-Tours Castle, in collaboration with Galleria Continua, Blandy-les-Tours, France (June 30-July 10, 2012)
    Fin de Partie. Galleria Continua, Beijing, China (March 19-August 27, 2011)
  • {{cite web|title=Twilight of the Idols (Fetish) 3|url=false|author=Kendell Geers|year=2005|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2018.4