Sculpture - Wood - Fon - Benin

A Fon Voodoo maternity, holding a sucking child in its arms, the head with a horn-like coiffure, an aluminum earring in the left ear; the whole sculpture is covered with a thick sacrification patina of many layers. Wolfgang Jaenicke: Maternities West African Art. In Africa, sculpture is a symbolic writing intended for ritual use. The artist who makes a fetish has been commissioned to do so, usually by a fetisher. The artist makes the fetish accessible to the Vodun user through the things that the object expresses; there is no functional quest for beauty. Everything is pared down to the essential, dedicated to the purpose of the object, which is primarily mystical, magical. Patrick Vilaire: Les Objets du Vaudou/Vodun Objects. In: Vaudou/Vodun. In: Kat. Ausst. Photographies des oeuvres/Works photographed by Yuji Ono, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 4. 5-9. 25, Paris, 2011, p. 220 (218-227) .