#texts — leopold fowler.

[oculiaperticlausi]

Sawyer📱 Leo

sawyer: you still awake?

[lcofowler]

under the wire | self

“You just get whatever you want, okay? Didn’t you say you were craving pickles? Go get some pickles – maybe you’re pregnant!”

Apparently, Marj knew him so well that even when Leo was cackling over a shirt Steve had bought him that was about ten sizes too small, she could still tell he wasn’t in the best of moods. With an unexpected breakup from Lana and his dad’s nonstop calling, it felt like his own personal black cloud hung somewhat heavy over his head. Marj and Steve never let him come grocery shopping with them; “You want everything, and then you go back to school and never finish anything! You run us out of house and home!” Steve complained, almost every time, but Marj must’ve sweet talked him into letting Leo come.

“Yeah, maybe. Fingers crossed. Gotta go onto Maury after to figure out who the dad is, though. Just so many options -,”

“Enough, Leo. Go!”

Standing in front of the pickles section, Leo gazed at the different brand options like there were 500 instead of a measly five. His phone was a quick rescue, though – usually his volume was turned off, but he’d kept it on after texting Philly to ask what her favourite flower was. It’d been a nice thought, but now he was somewhat regretting it, glancing at his chiming phone only to see the name Mother Fucker blinking back at him for the fourth time that day.

“Oh my god,” he mumbled under his breath, scrubbing a hand over his face. He’d just finished a RedBull less than an hour ago, but somehow, he was suddenly exhausted, “Hello, Fowler’s Sex Line, how can we help you?”

“Very funny,” Archie Fowler sounded anything but amused – if Leo had the same sort of disdainful relationship with his dad that he had with his mouth and had decided to call him by his first name, he imagined his dad would insist on being called Archibald in that moment, “No service in Connecticut, I’m assuming?”

“Nope, just ignoring you. What’s so fucking urgent? Did Auggie die or something? Mickey? If it was Mickey you gotta let me step outside, I really don’t wanna bust in the middle of a grocery store.”

“Your brothers are fine. You’re being disgusting -,”

“Just a joke. Jee-sus, who do you think I am? The devil?” Rolling his eyes and pointing to his phone, Leo and Steve made matching faces of distaste when he mouthed that he was talking with his dad.

“If you’re done? I’d like you to be back in Manhattan by next weekend. For good. That’s more than enough time to pack everything up, I assume?”

“What?”

“Please, Leo, not now. Don’t act so stupid now. I don’t have time for this – I’ve heard about what’s going on at your school, what you get up to. You need to be set straight; you need to come back to Manhattan. We’ll set you up with something here, where I can watch you.”

Hand freezing as it gripped over the pickle jars, Leo’s eyes all but bugged out of his head. That’d been the last thing he was expecting – it was the last thing in the entire world he wanted, too. Turning back towards where Marj and Steve were waiting for him at the end of the aisle, Leo merely held his phone out towards them. He could hear Archie blabbing away on the other line; Hello? Leo? Leopold? Really, Leo? This is hardly mature.

“What? What’s wrong?” Leo thinks Marj might’ve asked him, sure that his face was twisted with permanent confusion, while Steve took the phone – it was his brother after all.

He’d wished, now, that he listened to Marj when she insisted they speak only Dutch around the house so that Leo could keep up with the language. Steve spoke so fast, he missed bits and pieces, but got the general gist.

You can’t just stop paying for his schooling.

Arch, we want him here.

Who told you that?

Leo thinks the word boyfriend might have been tossed into the mix. That made him flinch – it’d been funny, the first time he’d told his dad he’d spent the night with a boy. His dad had spat while he was yelling, Bible flying so fast at Leo’s head that it was comical, even when he had to get stitches along the frail skin beside his right eye.

“It’s so fucking awful being around you when you get like this,” his mom had said to him once after a fit, two knuckles broken and the rest wrapped up after he’d gotten so angry with his brother he’d punched at the side of their bricked up house until the pain had been enough for him to nearly pass out, “It’s disgusting. You don’t even seem human.”

“Leo!”

It felt like the entire grocery store had gone silent after Leo had tossed the jar in hand onto the ground, too angry to even appreciate the satisfying noise the glass had made as it shattered.

“What the hell was that?” he heard his dad ask once Leo’d snatched his phone back – he didn’t sound concerned, or even angry. More put out, expectant. Probably knew this reaction was coming.

“Fuck! You!”

His phone went crashing next – across the aisle, knocking over beans on the opposite side of where they stood. People had started to stare now, even going so far as to rounding the corner so they could catch a view of the show. A teenager, who obviously wanted to be anywhere but at his job, had sighed heavily when he saw the mess. He hadn’t clued in yet to what was going on.

“Leo, please, please don’t do this here.” Marj, who was already crying.

“Okay, we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go -,” Steve.

With one sweeping gesture, almost the entirety of the pickle section came down with a large crash landing.

“Please, he didn’t mean it!” Marj, who was trying to fix his rampage when it wasn’t even over yet.

“We’re going, c’mon, we’re going -,” Steve, to security, who grabbed onto Leo’s arms seconds after he’d tossed something else – he didn’t even see what, this time around, down the aisle again.

“Get off me! Get off me!”

It happened a bit quickly after that, probably. Like when Philly had been taken away to the hospital, things flashed in pictures from then on. He vaguely remembers a 911 call after he’d kicked wildly at the security that wasn’t restraining him, going limp so that his full weight pulled against whoever was holding him in an attempt to escape. A bit of pain after that, really exerting themselves to hold him back, hold him down. It hurt more to hear Marj cry hysterically, though, practically screaming until the door of a police car was shutting and drowning her out.

By the time he was in a holding cell, he’d calmed down enough that the time passed more like a handful of rapid snapshots than one, long attempt at a picture.

“Fowler? Your brother’s here, paid your bail.”

Sitting up on the one bench in the cell he’d been strewn across, Leo flashed the officer that’d come to grab him a confused look, “Uh, don’t think so,” his voice was scratchy and it hurt to talk – it’d been the first time he’d done it since the grocery store. Maybe he’d been screaming. Or crying, though he’d prefer the former.

“Look, someone’s here for you, so you gotta get out. So – get out.”

It’d been a shock when Leo found out it really had been one of his brothers there for him. Augustus stood, firm as usual, in the middle of the police department, looking like he couldn’t decide over whether he wanted to hug Leo or hit him.

“You’re in Connecticut.”

“It’s only a two-hour drive. Do you even know what time it is?” Leo looked out the window – it was pitch black out, but it’d been barely noon when they’d first gotten to the store, “Whatever. Get in the fucking car.”

Leo sulked, then. For the first fifteen minutes of their drive, they sat in silence, and Leo sulked. A habit, after being yelled at by his oldest brother, who hadn’t even yelled so much as sternly talked to him. Which, frankly, was worse.

“Just take me to my dorm. I don’t wanna see them right now, they probably don’t wanna fuckin’ see me, either.”

“To your dorm?” Leo watched Auggie flash him an incredulous look out of the corner of his eye, but refused to meet his gaze, “Are you an idiot? Do you not know how bad this is?”

That caused his blood pressure to spike slightly, “What do you mean? What’re you talking about? We’ve been through this before -,”

“Yeah. A lot. You damaged public property and assaulted staff and cops. That doesn’t look all that fucking great alongside your multiple other fucking arrests. Did you not listen to a single thing anyone was saying to you while you were having your little tantrum? Again?”

Leo finally looked at his brother then. He sounded exactly like their dad when he got like this, but the only reason Leo let him get away with it was because he knew the anger came from concern instead of exasperation.

“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I didn’t know,” he finally settled on, swallowing thickly past the panic in his throat, “You’re not taking me back to Manhattan are you? I’m not staying at dad’s, I’m not going -,”

“You can’t leave the state,” Pulling into Marj and Steve’s driveway felt more like pulling up to a funeral, “I’m gonna move in for a bit. Figure out a lawyer for you -,”

“Oh my god, come on -,”

“Take this fucking seriously!” Leo actually flinched when Augustus slammed the palm of his hand against the wheel, “It’s bad! You’ve got a real honest to god trial coming up – your luck has obviously run out, Leo. They’re saying you have to pay for everything you fucking broke, too. How do you think you’re gonna do that, huh?”

Leo couldn’t do anything but stare blankly. If he showed emotion in that moment, he was pretty sure he’d burst into hysterical tears.

“Jesus Christ. Right – Look, I’m – I’m not trying to sound like an asshole, but. It’s bad. And you’re gonna need people in your corner. A good handful of people who can be character witnesses, so… if there’s anyone at that fucking school of yours that you trust, I’d give them a call. Now.”

[altphilcmena]

𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐊 𝟎𝟎𝟑 ;; a collection of writings.

implications of trauma, death, murder, gun violence, mental illness / rehabilitation, general violence. 

𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒊 𝒔𝒂𝒘 𝒕𝒐𝒅𝒂𝒚 ;; dated october 23rd, 2013. written in a moleskin journal.

the birds chirping

a broken wind chime

daisies in the windowsill

lysander and his boyfriend

elektra and her guitar

juno, alone

the setting sun

𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒐𝒐𝒏 ;; dated september 29th, 2015. written on yellow notepad paper, lost behind the vanity.

     mother, father, lysander, juno, orion, valora, and whoever else it may concern -

this is not goodbye, and it is not forever. explicitly, i am leaving home for an undetermined amount of time. i have respectfully decided to follow elektra in her pursuits - they are of passion, and of yearning, and i have felt this way for quite some time now. this is not a life of fulfillment, at least not one for me. i wish to experience more. i want to know more. i want to feel cultured beyond the texts of ancient greek and latin. i want to feel what elektra feels, and if she goes, i will be void of it. i have to go, but it is not forever. this is not goodbye. to lysander, i send my best regards. he will say yes. juno, i’m sorry. i am forever sorry. orion, valora - i will think of you both, everyday, and the people you become. mother, father - our intelligence is not yet aligned, but one day it will be. you will be proud, as you always are. you are admirable, and so will i. water the garden, take care of the stable, stay out of the woods.

                                                       evermore,                                                                            𝒑𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒂

𝒇𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒂 ;; dated may 6th, 2019. written on a napkin, and burnt with a lighter.

i have potentially done something terrible, today. we’re leaving in the morning, and i doubt we’ll ever return. some laws are stupid. i did not hurt anyone. i will never hurt anyone. i simply gave a warning shot.

𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒍 ;; dated may 30th, 2019. written on stationery, adorned with mushrooms. sent to the carmichael residence at woodside, california.

florence broke down in connecticut today. the sign says lovell. the streets are busy, in that small town way. it’s a small town - mostly college students. we are fine, please do not send money. it is always burned. i believe i may enroll at the university here, radcliffe. there is a floral shop that always smells sweet, and the boy behind the register always smiles at me. there are rumors of ghosts and misfortune that haunt radcliffe - but do not fret, i will not open unearthed boxes. i have learnt my lesson. i’m careful, now. more careful than i had been before. i’m smarter, too. i suppose i have you to thank for that. so, thank you. i am running out of space to write. with best wishes, philo

𝒕𝒐𝒅𝒂𝒚'𝒔 𝒉𝒊𝒌𝒆 ;; dated july 12th, 2010. written on construction paper, later torn and folded to make paper stars for a fancy paper stars jar.

i don’t like the police, they ask very many questions. they came to our house and asked us about our hike today. juno’s and i’s, to be very specific. it was only the two of us. but we are very smart. they asked what we saw. i saw many birds. blackbirds and bluebirds and a cardinal, too - those are red. sparrows and wrens. finches. i saw poison oak, but because i am very smart i did not touch the poison oak. i saw wildflowers. i saw a red scarf, and it was very odd. we went down a different path than usual, but there are no scarves in the woods besides on this path. it was a very dirty scarf, but my eyes are very good and i can see color very well. juno didn’t like the scarf, though. she hated the scarf. she liked it at first, but then she hated it after she touched it. the fabric must not be very nice. i don’t blame the scarf, however, for how it was made. it is just a scarf. but she screamed and screamed and screamed and the park ranger was called. he’s very nice, the park ranger. he called mom and dad. juno couldn’t, but i don’t know why. we’re home now, and the cops are gone, but juno has been very quiet. i hope she is okay. it was just a scarf. i hope we go on another hike soon. i miss the trees. they have things to tell me.

𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒄𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 ;; dated november 5th, 2019. written in a tiny notebook with crayon.

brown sugar

almond milk

cat litter

bleach

bedazzling kit

eggs, brown

oranges

strawberries

blackberries

earl grey tea

hair ties

get well soon card

bandaids

𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒐 𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 ;; dated april 17th, 2018. written on the window in dry erase.

dive for scraps at junkyard

weld

fast food breakfast

hang upside down to test blood flow

fish

fast food lunch

library

class :o(

meet elektra at bridge

diner dinner

moonlit walk across town

stargaze

𝒅𝒓𝒂𝒇𝒕𝒔 ;; dated april 28th, 2020. written in a notebook, later discarded.

leopold is a good person. leopold kristoff fowler is a good person. leopold fowler is a good person. leo fowler is a good person. i can testify this, because he is kind to me because i see him everyday, and he does not have a history of unwarranted violence. i believe that what you saw on that day was a fluke, a lapse in judgement power thought (come back to this) leo fowler is of noble character. i know this for fact. it is not disputable. i would trust my life in his hands. i do trust my life in his hands. trust holds more value above all else. my life has been in his hands before, matter of fact. i believe leo fowler saved my life, in fact (repetitive), after a very terrible accident in which i fell from several heights. it was one of the scariest things i have ever experienced. he was there as it happened, and took immediate action to insure i was properly taken care of. i fear that if it hadn’t been for him, i would be under very different circumstances. (handwriting becomes illegible, as if the rest had been scribbled away)

𝒕𝒐 𝒋𝒖𝒏𝒐 ;; dated feburary 1st, 2017. written on floral stationary and sent in an envelope (lost in the mail and never delivered).

     to juno, my dearly estranged sister,

it’s been some years now since we’ve last spoke, and i hope you are well. truly well. elektra and i are fine, as we always are. we are surviving, and i hope you are too. you’re one of the bravest people i know, maybe even more so than elektra (do not tell her that i said this, please) and i know i have hurt you in more ways than can be said, or imagined. i will not excuse my selfishness, but i urge you to see from my perspective. i am not dumb, nor have i ever. i have ears and eyes and very keen senses. i knew you were being sent away, and so did elektra. come to think of it, you are the only one who was left unaware. i can’t tell you if it was selfish, or if it was in their best interest for you. i’m afraid i’m biased, and i still cannot yet see from your perspective. clearly, at least. i wish i can, someday, and i wish to hear from you soon. i’m sorry that we left as we did. i’m sorry i didn’t tell you my plans. i’m sorry for abandoning you. i know we both don’t care for empty homes, that’s why i left when i did. i thought you’d be gone, longer, too. sometimes i have very poor judgment and i’m not ashamed to admit it. i am, however, ashamed to admit that i have misjudged you. you’re far more complex than i knew of, and i can only blame the ignorance of youth. it’s only been two years, but i’m far wiser now. please believe me. i wouldn’t leave you now, if i were the age i am now than i was then. one day when the cycle repeats, i hope i remember to do better by you. congratulations on your acceptance to columbia.

                                                      evermore,                                                                          𝒑𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒂

𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒊 𝒔𝒂𝒘 𝒕𝒐𝒅𝒂𝒚 ;; dated may 12th, 2020. written in a moleskin journal.

the rising sun

pail sleeping on a pile of blankets

rosemary and basil and mint and thyme

my reflection

elektra, and her guitar

leo :o)

a murder of crows

my favorite tree

songbirds

the stars, far earlier than night

[caveartfair]

How Auction Houses Can Improve the Ways They Describe Non-Western Art

Attributed to a Songye master artist, The Walschot-Schoffel Kifwebe Mask, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Courtesy of Christie’s.

An art handler holds The Mendes-France Baule Mask, Ivory Coast at Christie’s, London, 2016. Photo by Ray Tang/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images.

This week, a 19th-century kifwebe mask from the Songye people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will be the star lot of Christie’s spring sale of African art in New York. With angular facial features, striated designs, and a symbolic use of color, bifwebe (plural of kifwebe) masks are distinctive and rife with symbolism. Female masks are white, symbolizing light, the moon, and health, and male masks are black or red, representing smoke and danger. Before colonial times, the male bifwebe were linked with policing practices within the Songye community. During colonization, they took on a new role: preserving the historical powers of leaders within the community as Belgian forces—who colonized the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1879 to 1960—came in and tried to disrupt them.

But you wouldn’t know much of this history if you read the feature Christie’s ran about the mask on its website. Instead, the auction house has chosen to lean into what it doesn’t know about the object, describing it as “intangible,” “other-worldly,” and even assigning supernatural powers to it—calling it “an opening to the fifth dimension.” Out of context, the descriptions provided by Christie’s—including the slick 47-second video it has paired the text with—come across as breathlessly effusive at best, infantilizing at worst.

Beyond mystical descriptors, Christie’s has devoted a significant portion of its marketing space to Jeanne Walschott, the Belgian collector who acquired the object in the early 20th century. The article also name-drops Western artists who have been inspired by Songye art, “from the Cubists to the Surrealists.” The result is a text that fluctuates between the impossibly foreign (the “other-worldly”) and the comfortably familiar (canonical Western artists). Lost in between are the real people who crafted these masks and used them in their daily lives—and who, despite the nostalgic, primordial language Christie’s uses to describe them, still very much exist.

Reckoning and restitution

Drawingby C Bottigella based on an account of Captain James Cook’s visit to Easter Island in 1774. Photo by Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images.

Recently, museums around the world have been grappling with complicated colonial legacies. Last November, per President Emmanuel Macron’s instruction, France released a comprehensive report on African objects. The report by French art historian Bénédicte Savoy and Senegalese economist Felwine Sarr rattled the museum world, particularly institutions with major African art collections like the British Museum and the Musée du Quai Branly. Some feared that the report would call for the restitution of tens of thousands of objects, stripping their collections bare. In October, the British Museum agreed to loan some of the Benin bronzes back to Nigeria, which has sought their return since receiving independence in 1960.

Most recently—and perhaps most poignantly for the kifwebe mask—the African Museum in Belgium reopened following a revamp that sought to include greater engagement with critical postcolonial ideas. The museum—which had not seen a significant reorganization since the era of Belgian dominance in the Congo—had long been criticized for imagery depicting Africans as savages, and even has eroticized African figures carved into its walls. Still, post-reboot, the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights criticized the museum for not going far enough to own up to Belgian’s violent colonial history under Leopold II. “The Working Group notes the importance of removing all colonial propaganda and accurately presenting the atrocities of Belgium’s colonial past,” the group said in a statement.

Figure of an Edo King (Oba), 1620-1630. Unknown Artist Davis Museum

Belt mask, 18th century. Fowler Museum at UCLA

And yet, despite museums’ well-meaning (but not always successful) efforts to adjust their tones and practices to 21st-century standards, auction houses continue to present African artifacts through a Eurocentric lens, often glossing over an artifact’s original context while foregrounding its connections to Western artists and collectors. A Christie’s article about a rare Fang Ngil mask that the house sold last fall for €2.4 million ($2.7 million) invokes Braque, Derain, and Picasso among its admirers. The article goes on to make passing mention of colonialist policies that outlawed the tradition with which the mask is associated—noting that the ban led to a scarcity of such masks, making the object even more valuable.

Mystical language and Western-centric presentations are not limited to Christie’s. In texts accompanying the Sotheby’s auction of art from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas this week, a Songye shield is described as evoking “a striking sense of modernity to Western eyes.” In describing an Ancestor Statue from New Ireland (a part of what’s now Papua New Guinea) that sold for $4.7 million in 2016, the auction house first mentions André Breton’s reaction to it (“Good lord!” he reportedly said), and describes the statue as offering “a glimpse into the spiritual life of a primordial, autochthonous island culture, as it existed before the cataclysmic influence of Western contact.”

Andre Breton at home in France with his art collection, ca. 1960. Photo by Archive Photos/Getty Images.

And it’s not only African art that is subject to Eurocentric framing and mystical descriptions. An object from Easter Island featured in a March sale at Christie’s was advertised as “beguiling” and “baffling” experts, and was called a “silent witness to long-lost civilization.” Given the recent news about the governor of Easter Island tearfully begging for a massive Moai sculpture to be returned, Elizabeth Marlowe, professor of art history at Colgate University, was stunned. “There was this very public moment of Easter Islanders asserting their autonomy and voice,” she said. But in anticipation of a sale of a Moai kavakava figure, the Christie’s text was “full of language that makes it sound like Easter Island civilization has vanished,” Marlowe continued.

In response, Marlowe started a Twitter thread prompting others to take the same language Christie’s uses for non-European art and use it to describe European art.

“It has been a notable influence on prominent modernist Pacific Island artists,” one said of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam (1511–12). Another jabbed at the tendency to generalize and link everything to fertility in a description of Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Sons (1820–23): “This haunting piece showcases the enduring myth of eating the son of a god—a preoccupation in many European cultures, probably related to fertility.”

In a description of Grant Wood’s iconic American Gothic (1930), one Twitter user wrote: “Two totems stand rigidly, possibly menacingly, in this American painting whose origins remain unknown.…The curious eyes…seem to stare into the viewers very soul.”

Decolonizing language

An elderly woman sits reading by a Moai sculpture from Easter Island on display at the British Museum, London, 1967. Photo by Romano Cagnoni/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

The responses to Marlowe’s prompt are funny, but they get at a sad truth: Applied to familiar Western objects, the language seems condescending, alienating, reductive, and laughably simplistic. Such language is, “by many measures, a reaffirmation of the colonial worldview,” Marlowe said. In the case of the kifwebe mask and the ancestor figure from Easter Island, she criticized the “insistence on the idea that this is a mysterious culture, that there is no way to know what these objects are,” and the complete “refusal to engage with the descendents of the community.”

Marlowe’s point about language also extends to the visuals supporting auction house presentations of non-Western art. In a Sotheby’s feature about Aboriginal art, before any images of the actual objects or any images of the people associated with them, there is a photograph of a white missionary and collector in Aboriginal headgear, and someone who appears to be a Papuan individual blurred in the background.

A fragment from a temple assemblage, this 'image with fingers' has a surprising delicacy. Its key feature is the pronounced musculature of the male figures, apparently depictions of sky deities. It has been a notable influence on prominent modernist Pacific Island artists. pic.twitter.com/tkCPMfJtOV

— Anna Orridge (@orridge_anna) April 6, 2019

When objects from outside of the traditional, Western art-historical narrative are auctioned off, they tend to be presented in what Marlowe called a “pure dehistoricized form.” The result is often a narrative of the object within a Western framework and a marketing strategy that operates under a colonialist ethos. The story of the object is edited into a selective biography—often relying heavily on the collectors who acquired the object—with any messiness edited out. That “messiness” means, in many cases, the very people who created the object.

By rendering these objects distant and curious, they can seem ahistorical, apolitical—outside the progress of time, suspended in some imaginary, pure realm. They are written out of the historical narrative. A collector acquiring them may not feel they are engaging with the dire present conditions in the Congo, or the region’s violent colonial history, but some more distant, idyllic—if not entirely fictional—past.

Deified collectors

William Holden during Bill Holden’s African Art Auction, Feingarten Gallery, New York City, 1977. Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage.

There is a case to be made that these sorts of descriptions in auction houses’ marketing copy are harmless, and even necessary. And the houses haven’t entirely omitted context—there is a more extensive description in the Christie’s sale catalogue that includes some information about the kifwebe mask’s functions in Songye culture (though it still eschews any mention of colonialism).

Christopher Steiner, professor of African art at Connecticut College, notes that in the past decade or so, the significance of “star quality” provenance has increased—meaning the higher the pedigree of Western collectors who have owned an object and the more Western artists have been inspired by it, the better. This he attributes, in part, to the fact that “as more and more copies/replicas enter the markets, collectors have become less confident in their own ability to judge quality and authenticity,” he said. Instead, they rely on provenance as a guarantor of an object’s value.

“In the end, we are dealing with the empowerment of two ‘spirit beings,’” Steiner added. “The original African religious context and the near-godly status of some esteemed dealers and collectors in art-market history.”

In the case of the Christie’s kifwebe mask, it is not that this object was made for export or should be subject to restitution. “Our market covers works of art [that] were made and used within the culture for traditional purposes. We cannot comment on the value of items that we don’t auction, such as objects made specifically for export,” a Christie’s specialist said via email.

At the end of 2018, when museums and galleries were in the heat of a reckoning with their colonial pasts, Christie’s released a statement saying it remains deeply committed to researching the provenance of consignments and will only auction objects it feels comfortable selling. The auction house undertakes a “comprehensive pre-sale due diligence process,” the Christie’s specialist said. “In cases where potentially problematic provenance is found, Christie’s will not take on the consignment.”

When asked for additional information about the kifwebe mask’s origins, the Christie’s specialist said that a Songye artist made it in the 19th century and that Walschott purchased the mask before 1933, and also described her status as a collector: She was “one of the first and few women to become a dealer and collector of African art,” the specialist said. “She had an exceptionally long career, spanning over nearly 50 years and opened her first gallery in 1923.”

Still, Marlowe offered an additional criterion beyond airtight provenance for such artifacts: “The ethical collector should want to see some indicator someone in the country of origin has given his blessing to this sale.”

Selling “mystery”

There are layers of truth to auction houses’ characterizations of these objects. In the case of the kifwebe mask at Christie’s, there is, indeed, mystery. Each and every minute detail of the mask has an esoteric meaning linked to a mnemonic phrase or metaphor. To join the “masking society” that wore bifwebe, one would need to learn a secret code as a kind of membership identification. Wearing the mask and an elaborate costume it would have been paired with, the Songye person would achieve a different state of being, becoming a ngulungu.

But the mask’s ceremonial purpose was not not so much about “entering a fifth dimension,” as Christie’s put it. In the Songye ritual, “the invisible is as real as the visible; there is no transition, the invisible is simply made apparent,” writes Dunja Hersak, a scholar of Congo masks.

Songye Mask, ca. 1930. Unknown Songye Didier Claes

Songye Mask, Early 20th Century. Unknown Songye Bill Lowe Gallery

In response to questions about its descriptions of African and other non-European objects, Christie’s said there were no significant differences between descriptions of African art and art in other departments. “Christie’s Specialist Departments cover a wide range of art from Antiquities, to American, Asian, Luxury, Old Masters, Post-War & Contemporary to name a few,” the specialist wrote. “The language used to define the art in each of these categories is descriptive, not more or less descriptive than the language used in African art.”

But this response may miss the distinction between the amount of description and the nature of that description, as Marlowe’s Twitter thread irreverently demonstrated. The sense of mystery elicited in Christie’s language is not so much tied to the details of the cultural practices, which genuinely contained mystery, but more generally applied to the entire Songye people and their artifacts.

Such promotional language in auction house catalogues and websites risks romanticizing lack of knowledge, erasing the living people who could more fully contextualize the object, and the difficult reasons why we might not know more about it.

Perhaps this is what sells. Perhaps an aura of mystery appeals to a majority of collectors. These are potentially valid justifications from a commercial standpoint, but that doesn’t have to be the only consideration. As Marlowe put it: “It’s very possible to educate people to want something different.”

from Artsy News

[oculiaperticlausi]

sawyer: it didn't help i was high constantly when i did it. sawyer: what if he realizes that being with a four month sober person isn't it for him? sawyer: i don't know how to do this, it doesn't matter if people are my friend, my more than that... there's a certain point where i... stop letting people in. it's always... been a problem. sawyer: and i don't know how to not do it now. sawyer: what if i disappoint him? sawyer: what if i fall off the wagon? and he can't stand the sight of me? sawyer: what if i can't do this? sawyer: i've thought about not going into this house for the last thirty minutes because i keep thinking how fucking stupid he is for wanting me. sawyer: i keep thinking about how fucked this kid is with me being it's mom [deleted] sawyer: honestly, i'm not sure why he does.

leo: ya you push ppl away when things get hard

leo: and it fucking sucks

leo: so if u rly want things to work just like……… don’t

leo: and before u say something like it’s easier said than done it’s rly not ok???

leo: u should be telling him all of this instead of me marshall

leo: its ok to freak out sometimes but it sounds like u fuckin love this guy and shit so just. tell him ur scared instead of pushing him away

[oculiaperticlausi]

Junior 📱 Leo

Junior: It's Friday night, where the hell ya at? @eclvpses

[oculiaperticlausi]

sawyer: you should know i'm not good at this shit either, leo. sawyer: i pushed myles away, i pushed you away... sawyer: i keep wondering if my mom made the right choice and telling me to get lost all those year ago was the best choice she made because she hasn't come back so... sawyer: and i think about that and wonder how the hell i'm.. even... sawyer: i'm sitting on the porch of his place, i've been for thirty minutes and i don't know if i'm ready for what's to come sawyer: i don't want him to hold back his feelings sawyer: it's something i actually want to work, it's the one time in my entire life i've ever felt like the most precious thing i could ever have and... i'm fucking it up, leo.

leo: ok i know i said you can tell me anything and i mean that but

leo: i am probably the worst person to give you advice about this

leo: or anything ever

leo: i feel like i need a years worth of context, who’re u even seeing??

leo: […]

leo: u knew u would be risking a lot going but u went anyway and that’s gotta mean something right???

leo: […]

leo: idk what to say i feel like im not gonna make sense either and then ur never gonna talk to me all over again CHSHCJSJCJCHSNVKDJC

leo: i just think if the guy ur seeing has brains he’ll try to understand where ur coming from so that he doesn’t lose u

[oculiaperticlausi]

sawyer: yeah, serious boots... sawyer: [ .... ] sawyer: i started seeing someone. sawyer: someone that's not... myles. sawyer: which i thought i was going to be the girl who always wondered what would have happened if i hadn't gone down the path i did, if i had let myles in about everything that was going on. sawyer: i let this guy in and i'm terrified of fucking this up, leo. sawyer: i'm terrified he's going to realize what everyone else does... sawyer: i don't know what i'm trying to get you to tell me. sawyer: but i uh fucked up tonight... i mean i fucked up before... but the guy i started seeing in chicago, the one who was there that night, the one who called 911 from a distance.. he called me tonight drunk out of his mind and i went to help. sawyer: i put a lot at risk going. sawyer: and i mean... a lot. sawyer: i don't know how to explain any of it to anyone really. sawyer: i don't even kind of know what i'm expecting you to say, ya know... i don't know... i'm not making much sense am i?

leo: a lot??

leo: marshall u got ur super serious shoes on it’s kinda freaking me out lmfao

leo: what’s going on?

leo: […]

leo: u know u can always tell me anything right?

[oculiaperticlausi]

sawyer: it's a lot. sawyer: a lot has happened since the park... sawyer: you sure you are ready to hear it? sawyer: because i'm pretty sure you are one of the only people who will understand.

leo: YES

leo: oh sorry caps

leo: yes 🤪 what’s up???