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.
AIA-7D