82nd & Fifth from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Alisa LaGamma

Photography by

Anna-Marie Kellen

Figure from a Reliquary Ensemble: Seated Female, 19th–early 20th century
Fang peoples, Okak group; Gabon or Equatorial Guinea
Wood, metal
The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Gift of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1965 (1978.412.441)

I see this work as one of the most
powerful artistic representations of woman in the history of art.
She’s completely at ease and
staring down any kind of gaze.
The body is in no way objectified.
In the early twentieth century it was owned by several important artists:
Andre Derain and Jacob Epstein.
And it was a muse to Picasso and Vlaminck. This work provided them with
a new visual language to
depart from classical antiquity.
The artist has distilled
the body into individual units –
the calves, the thighs,
the forearms, the upper arms,
the shoulders – united in this body
that is pulsating with life. This work was a
lifeline for the Fang extended family that commissioned it.
This was positioned at the summit of a family altar that was filled with
relics, physical bodily
matter associated with
distinguished ancestors.
She served as a guardian, a summation,
a distillation of all that was contained within the altar.
The deep, inky black of the wood might at first
glance reference the race of the subject, but is in fact a reflection on
the idea of loss and absence. The work is reflecting on the
importance of remembering one’s forbears and their achievements. The artist
was trying to represent an ideal woman,
a conflation of all the women of an extended family.
To me, this is a celebration of the
supreme confidence and comfort that a woman who’s
at the prime of life feels in her own body.
When I relate to it as a living human being, I am acutely aware of the
brevity of that moment.
It grapples with the thing in life that we’re most familiar with: our own bodily presence.

play pause

02:46

Audio On

Show subtitles Expand

82nd & Fifth

Prime of LifeAlisa LaGamma

Subscribe