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At last -- an unpatronizing display of African art can be admired. Currently running at the BMA is Meditations on African Art, an exhibition that explores the aesthetics of light and its varying conceptual import. As a three-part installation, the exhibition spans 7,000 years of African art, though the majority of its works date between the 18th and 20th centuries.

Two installations feature sculptures, metal working, and masks that were typically used in spiritual ceremonies. The first, Daylight, is a collection of work that was created with the intention of being displayed in festivals under direct sunlight. Made of extremely lustrous materials, the pieces were intended to dazzle onlookers and evoke awe from either worshipers or civilians. Not only are the array of works aesthetically impressive, but they illuminate various values and marks of their distinctive culture. Take for instance the plate-like anklets that women permanently wear as a sign of their distinctive beauty, or the shirts of hunters that are fashioned with mirrors. Their luminosity affirms their cultural significance.

The second installment, entitled Twilight, displays metal lamps, reliquary figures and masks that were once used in evening rituals or darkened locales. While many pieces were originally illuminated by fire, the lighting of this exhibit provides onlookers a sense of their original mystique. The play of light along the voluptuous curves of figurines and intricate textures makes this a haunting and worthwhile display. This exhibit also features beads as a media, including the bead painting of Jimoh Olatunji Buraimah. The curators have highlighted this art form as revolving around the play and refraction of light. While much of Twilight's art holds spiritual metaphor within its form, I was struck by a semi-transparent bowl used in Egyptian ritual; it was described as "evok[ing] the water divide between this world and that of the dearly departed."

The art within these two portions not only presents the aesthetic of dancing light, but also through form and use, acts as thoughtful representations of the meaning of light in their respective spiritual disciplines -- Islam and native religions to Yoruba, Nigeria. While discussing native ritual and religion, this exhibit successfully keeps its thematic focus on light and avoids exploiting the exotic nature of the art or its context.

The third exhibit contains the most accessible art. In exploring light as a vehicle in photography and video, Yoruba artist Theo Eshetu represents the most contemporary art within the Meditations. A video installation, Brave New World, explores, thematically, the notion of the other, and the existence of both tradition and commercialism in the world. While Eshetu draws from his Nigerian roots, his video includes Bali dancers, Chinese dragons, and monkeys. What's most provocative about his piece, however, is his presentation.

Situated in a dark room, his video plays from within a hole in the wall -- a hole framed in a mirror's borders. Reflected by mirrors, the viewer is first struck by the multiplicity of images. As one nears the piece, the images that at first seemed reflected randomly, are then seen as parts of a sphere of images -- a globe, a brave new world. Eshetu flanks this work with a photograph and another five-screen video installation that meditates on the sundry perspectives of light and color present in an action of craft. He spends minutes exploring the aesthetics of hay throwing before contrasting its soft light with the sparks and glare of blacksmithing. He continually juxtaposes rough and smooth, animate and inanimate, reflected and shadowed surfaces, and in doing so, with the help of zoom angles, recasts familiar objects -- forces them to unfamiliararity so that we viewers notice the beauty of typically unexamined, common objects.

If you are looking for a study of light, shape, and a provocative exploration of illumination in ritual and spirituality, Meditations on African Art is certainly worth a viewing. Meditations will by showing in the BMA until April 1, 2007.

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