Encompassing a third of the earth’s surface and more than a quarter of all human languages and cultures, the vast expanse of the Pacific is home to an astonishing richness of artistic traditions.  While the forms vary dramatically from one culture to the next, one of the central themes that unifies the diverse artistic traditions of the Pacific is the universality of the human image.  Ranging from relatively naturalistic depictions to highly stylized renderings verging on abstraction, the human form in Pacific art is at once immediately recognizable and infinitely flexible.  Through a selection of approximately eighty masterworks drawn primarily from American museum collections, Divine Forms: The Human Image in Pacific Art will be the first exhibition to explore the human image—arguably the single most important theme in Pacific art—across the region as a whole.

Divine Forms will explore the tremendous plasticity with which Pacific artists approach the human form in relation to the theme of communication and communion with the divine—a theme that underlies and unifies what at first appears to be an almost overwhelming diversity of artistic traditions.  In order to orient the viewer to the region as a whole, the objects in the exhibition will be organized geographically, presenting anthropomorphic images from each of the major artistic regions of the Pacific—Australia, Melanesia, Island Southeast Asia, Polynesia, and Micronesia.  However, in contrast to earlier scholarly approaches on Pacific art, which tend to view these geographic divisions as discrete cultural and artistic regions, the exhibition will instead emphasize the universal themes (such as ancestor worship or belief in spirits that are associated with particular sites), which transcend the Pacific’s numerous, and often externally imposed, cultural boundaries.  While celebrating the rich variety of Pacific artistic expression, the exhibition will at the same time seek to reveal an underlying unity.

The guest curator is Eric Kjellgren, the Evelyn A. J. Hall and John A. Friede Associate Curator for Oceanic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Kjellgren will author the exhibition catalogue, together with other leading scholars of Pacific art, a number of whom are Pacific Islanders themselves.

Divine Forms: The Human Image in Pacific Art will travel to three venues.

*This is when the tour is expected to begin. The exact date will depend upon the needs of the participating institutions. 

For more information contact Curator of Exhibitions Lisa Small at 212.988.7700 ext. 225 or lsmall@afaweb.org.  You may also contact Brianne Jacobs, Executive Assistant, Exhibitions, at 212.988.7700 ext. 267 or bjacobs@afaweb.org.