A Head of an "African" Youth in Chicago: New Approaches to Interpretation and Display (20 min)

Presenters

Andrew Crocker, University of Michigan; and Katherine Raff, The Art Institute of Chicago

Abstract

Among Roman artworks thought to depict people from Africa, life-size sculptures are relatively uncommon in the material record. One such sculpture, long identified as a head of an African male youth, has been on loan to the Art Institute of Chicago for more than a decade. The head has traditionally been identified as such based on the use of a dark gray marble thought to indicate his skin color, along with his physiognomic traits, including tightly curled hair, a broad nose, and full lips. While the absence of the head’s former bust or statue body complicates our understanding of its intended appearance, function, and meaning to ancient viewers, its lack of archaeological provenience similarly prevents us from considering its original display context. Collectively, these issues impact our ability to identify the type of sculpture to which the head belonged, which also has ramifications for our interpretation of the object when presenting it to the museum’s wide-ranging audiences in our galleries.

We begin this paper by examining the art-historical evidence supporting possible identifications of the head in its original state—namely, whether it was a part of a genre image or a portrait of a historic individual. We then consider the choice of terminology used in its interpretation and the impact of those choices. Next, we address our collaborative work to produce new interpretive materials for this object with the Art Institute’s Teen Council. We conclude with a discussion of how this multipronged approach to research and interpretation has informed our display plans as part of the ongoing efforts to reinstall the galleries of ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine art, for which our overarching interpretive goal is to present more compelling and relevant stories about the cultural, geographic, and ethnic diversity of the ancient Mediterranean world.