{
"data": {
"id": 308820,
"accession_number": "2018.5",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Totem 01/01\u201318 (Baga-Batcham-Alunga-Kota), 2018. Herv\u00e9 Youmbi (Cameroonian, b. Central African Republic, 1973). Wood, glass beads, thread, glue, and silicone adhesive; overall: 188 x 53 x 38 cm (74 x 20 7/8 x 14 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the Karl B. Goldfield Trust, 2018.5",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Totem 01/01\u201318 (Baga-Batcham-Alunga-Kota)",
"creation_date": "2018",
"creation_date_earliest": 2018,
"creation_date_latest": 2018,
"artists_tags": [
"male",
"African (from 1900 to present)"
],
"culture": [
"Africa, Central Africa, Cameroon"
],
"technique": "Wood, glass beads, thread, glue, and silicone adhesive",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "African Art",
"collection": "African Art",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 188 x 53 x 38 cm (74 x 20 7/8 x 14 15/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 1.88,
"width": 0.53,
"depth": 0.38
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(Axis Gallery, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "2018",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "2018-",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "The towering hybrid sculpture consists of contemporary carvings of four canonical African masks and sculptures.",
"description": "Totem 01/01-18 is a brilliant work plays off the conventional codes of historic African arts to present subversive arguments around issues of taxonomy, commodification, identity, and the system of value that underpins African arts in the market and museums. It is a contemporary carving that combines four canonical African mask and sculptural forms\u2014Kota-Mahongwe guardian figures sit atop a tsesah mask from Batcham in the Cameroon Grassfields whose back bears a Bembe Alunga society mask, which surmounts a Baga d\u2019mba headdress from Guinea or Guinea-Bissau at the base\u2014into a soaring superstructure.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60781274"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Malaquais, Dominique. \u201cImag(IN)ing Racial France, Take 3 \u2013 Herve Youmbi.\u201d In Public Culture 23:1 (2011).",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. \u201cIn the Long Shadows of Euro-America, or, What is Global Contemporary,\u201d African Arts 48, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 10-11.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Malaquais, Dominique. \u201cPlaying (in) the Marketfield: Herve Youmbi and the Art World Maze,\u201d In Cahiers d\u2019etudes africaines, no. 223 (2016): 559-579.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Forni, Silvia. \u201cMasks on the Move: Defying Genres, Styles, and Traditions in the Cameroonian Grassfields.\u201d In African Arts 49, no. 2 (Summer 2016)",
"page_number": "Pg. 38-53",
"url": "https://ingallslibrary.on.worldcat.org/oclc/6034992827"
},
{
"citation": "K\u00f6nig, Kasper, Britta Peters, and Marianne Wagner. Skulptur Projekte Munster 2017. Leipzig: Spector Books, June 10 \u2013 October 1, 2017.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Forni, Silvia and Dominique Malaquais. \"Village Matters, City Works: Ideas, Technologies, and Dialogues in the Work of Herve Youmbi.\" Critical Interventions, 12, issue 3 (2018): 294-305.",
"page_number": "Reproduced and mentioned; p. 303, fig. 15",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. \"Contemporary African Art.\" Cleveland Art (September/October 2018): 8-9.",
"page_number": "Reproduced and mentioned: P. 9.",
"url": "https://www.clevelandart.org/print/magazine/cleveland-art-septemberoctober-2018/contemporary-african-art"
},
{
"citation": "Ugochukwu-Smooth, C. Nzewi. \u201cContemporary African Art: Two new works add a twist to canonical forms.\u201d Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 58, no. 5 (September/October 2018): 8-9.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 9; Mentioned: P. 8, 9",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2018-05/page/n3/mode/2up"
},
{
"citation": "Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Second Careers : Two Tributaries in African Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2019",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 20, fig. 5 (foreground), p. 21, fig. 6, p. 24, fig. 12 (right); mentioned: p. 20.",
"url": "https://ingallslibrary.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1090438741"
},
{
"citation": "Nzewi, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Second Careers : Two Tributaries in African Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2019",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 20, fig. 5 (foreground), p. 21, fig. 6, p. 24, fig. 12 (right); mentioned: p. 20.",
"url": "https://ingallslibrary.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1090438741"
},
{
"citation": "Forni, Silvia and Dominque Malaquais. \"Village Matters, City Works: Ideas, Technologies, and Dialogues in the Work of Herv\u00e9 Youmbi,\" In Critical Interventions 12, issue 3, (2018): 294-305.",
"page_number": "Reproduced and mentioned: p. 303, fig. 15",
"url": "https://ingallslibrary.on.worldcat.org/oclc/8586017039"
},
{
"citation": "Griswold, William M. \u201cRecent Acquisitions (2013-20) at the Cleveland Museum of Art.\u201d Burlington Magazine 163, no. 1414 (January 2021): 93-104.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: P. 104, no. 23; mentioned: P. 93",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2018.5",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Purchase from the Karl B. Goldfield Trust",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": "1d2ce704763944abb18bb519fd57f511",
"sketchfab_url": "https://sketchfab.com/models/1d2ce704763944abb18bb519fd57f511",
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 308820,
"creators": [
{
"id": 308819,
"description": "Herv\u00e9 Youmbi (Cameroonian, b. Central African Republic, 1973)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1973",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "2018-02-26T00:00:00-05:00",
"sortable_date": 2018,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "2018",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": true,
"updated_at": "2026-04-08 19:01:44.427000"
}
}