—David Hine, “Strange Embrace”
MANDINGOHOOD
__________________
“I saw the whole thing
as a movie in my head.”
—David Hine
“My writing is a picture
of the mind moving”
—Philip Whalen,
Disembodied Poetics
I’ve always been aware of strange embracing malevolent psychic forces inside me—somehow connected with my becoming obsessed ever since I was a young man into collecting ancient African mask carvings.
I’ve gone for long searches thru my father’s papers, records, letters and ledgers—trying to find something in the old man’s memories that would suggest why I got detoured so rudely & deviously into collecting Africana. And why this avid connoisseurship for African artifacts—favored Phallus worship and HooDoo VooDoo eroticism.
Gradually uncovering the story of an alienated and hopelessly damaged individual—whose wife was driven to commit suicide back in the early years of my boyhood. It became a kind of detective story tracing my father’s history first from his own perspective—then from the journal of his wife with the reasons for her suicide not becoming apparent. It was a story of madness, murder and self-harm.
This sordid family story continued with me—as I delved ever deeper into my own troubling reclusive life. I’d always wanted to be an auteur collector. To not have to depend on collaborating with someone else—who might misinterpret my collection repertoire or specialized expertise. Most of the work I admired the most—was actually done by Picasso and Robert Crumb.
Especially Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon”—with his combining cartoonish flattening of his portraits. Along with the pasting of various tribal African masks on the faces of his various young sailor-prostitute models. It attracted a great deal of attention when Demoiselles first happened—and I felt attracted to African masks ever since then.
African masks seemed to achieve the seamless combination of feelings and images that I’d experienced in my dreams and hookah fantasies. These various African masks—had their own way of disciplined storytelling, plots and exquisite characterization that appealed to me. For me masks were like novels—like graphic novels.
Picasso it seemed to me—mainstreamed African masks into the avant garde art & literary movement. But of course I’m just an amateur collector—there’s much more to the craft of African masks and mask-making then just that. They are or used to be almost like cultural comic books—created by superhero comics artists to tell stories.
Perhaps modern screenwriters, novelists, poets and playwrights—could learn something outside of their own genres by studying various African masks as well as those of other cultures. The masks—and their mask performances.
__________________
“I saw the whole thing
as a movie in my head.”
—David Hine
“My writing is a picture
of the mind moving”
—Philip Whalen,
Disembodied Poetics
I’ve always been aware of strange embracing malevolent psychic forces inside me—somehow connected with my becoming obsessed ever since I was a young man into collecting ancient African mask carvings.
I’ve gone for long searches thru my father’s papers, records, letters and ledgers—trying to find something in the old man’s memories that would suggest why I got detoured so rudely & deviously into collecting Africana. And why this avid connoisseurship for African artifacts—favored Phallus worship and HooDoo VooDoo eroticism.
Gradually uncovering the story of an alienated and hopelessly damaged individual—whose wife was driven to commit suicide back in the early years of my boyhood. It became a kind of detective story tracing my father’s history first from his own perspective—then from the journal of his wife with the reasons for her suicide not becoming apparent. It was a story of madness, murder and self-harm.
This sordid family story continued with me—as I delved ever deeper into my own troubling reclusive life. I’d always wanted to be an auteur collector. To not have to depend on collaborating with someone else—who might misinterpret my collection repertoire or specialized expertise. Most of the work I admired the most—was actually done by Picasso and Robert Crumb.
Especially Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon”—with his combining cartoonish flattening of his portraits. Along with the pasting of various tribal African masks on the faces of his various young sailor-prostitute models. It attracted a great deal of attention when Demoiselles first happened—and I felt attracted to African masks ever since then.
African masks seemed to achieve the seamless combination of feelings and images that I’d experienced in my dreams and hookah fantasies. These various African masks—had their own way of disciplined storytelling, plots and exquisite characterization that appealed to me. For me masks were like novels—like graphic novels.
Picasso it seemed to me—mainstreamed African masks into the avant garde art & literary movement. But of course I’m just an amateur collector—there’s much more to the craft of African masks and mask-making then just that. They are or used to be almost like cultural comic books—created by superhero comics artists to tell stories.
Perhaps modern screenwriters, novelists, poets and playwrights—could learn something outside of their own genres by studying various African masks as well as those of other cultures. The masks—and their mask performances.
No comments:
Post a Comment