id: 308829 accession number: 2018.4 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2018.4 updated: 2022-10-29 17:53:46.190000 Twilight of the Idols (Fetish) 3, 2005. Kendell Geers (South African, b. 1968). Wood, plastic tape (polyethylene, polypropylene, nylon, or vinyl), and iron; overall: 140 x 43 x 39 cm (55 1/8 x 16 15/16 x 15 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchased with funds donated by Scott Mueller 2018.4 © Kendell Geers title: Twilight of the Idols (Fetish) 3 title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 2005 creation date earliest: 2005 creation date latest: 2005 current location: creditline: Purchased with funds donated by Scott Mueller copyright: © Kendell Geers --- culture: South Africa technique: Wood, plastic tape (polyethylene, polypropylene, nylon, or vinyl), and iron department: African Art collection: African Art type: Sculpture find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Kendell Geers (South African, b. 1968) - artist --- measurements: Overall: 140 x 43 x 39 cm (55 1/8 x 16 15/16 x 15 3/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * AfroPunk. Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium. (September 7-October 28, 2017) * Kendell Geers, 1988-2012. Haus der Kunst, Munich, DE (February 1-May 12, 2013) * The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Blandy-les-Tours Castle, in collaboration with Galleria Continua, Blandy-les-Tours, France (June 30-July 10, 2012) * Fin de Partie. Galleria Continua, Beijing, China (March 19-August 27, 2011) --- PROVENANCE (Studio Kendell Geers, Brussels, Belgium, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art date: 2018 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 2018- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: The underlying figure is much larger than minkisi figures were in the past; its "supersize" reflects that it is an object made for the tourist market, not for ritual use. digital description: wall description: To create this sculpture, Kendell Geers appropriates a nkisi nkondi (singular) sculpture of the Kongo people that was mass-produced for the tourist market. Minkisi (plural) figures were typically used as protective relics; the nails on it represent the many times the object would have been ritually activated. Geers wraps the object with white and red chevron tape—the South African equivalent of yellow and black caution tape used in the US to mark off the scene of a crime—simultaneously signaling danger and acting as a shield. The artist’s deliberate use of the term fetish recalls African ritual objects’ fetishization as art and global commodities by the West since the turn of the 20th century. While once used in scholarship to describe African religious objects like nkisi, the word 'fetish' is now understood as both inaccurate and inappropriate. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Geers, Kendell and Jerome Sans. “Kendell Geers: A TerroRealist in the house of Love.” In Looking both ways: Art of the contemporary African diaspora. (New York: Museum for African Art; Gent: Snoeck, 2003), 84-97, 179. page number: url: Kendell Geers: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 34 and 37. Exh. Cat. Blandy-les-Tours: Galleria Continua, June 30-July 10, 2012. page number: p. 34, 37 url: http://kendellgeers.com/dbfiles/news/5booklet_final_version.pdf Kellner, Clive, et al. Kendell Geers 1988-2012, 159. Exh. Cat. Munich; London; New York: Prestel, February 1-May 12, 2013. page number: p. 159 url: Geers, Kendell, Jens Hoffman, and Z. S. Strother. AniMystikAKtivist: Between Traditional and the Contemporary in African Art. Brussels: Mercatorfonds, 2018. page number: url: Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. "Contemporary African Art." Cleveland Art (September/October 2018): 8-9. page number: Reproduced and mentioned: P. 8. url: https://www.clevelandart.org/print/magazine/cleveland-art-septemberoctober-2018/contemporary-african-art Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Second Careers : Two Tributaries in African Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2019 page number: Mentioned: p. 20; reproduced: p. 21, fig. 7. url: https://ingallslibrary.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1090438741 Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Second Careers : Two Tributaries in African Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2019 page number: Mentioned: p. 20; reproduced: p. 21, fig. 7. url: https://ingallslibrary.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1090438741 --- IMAGES