I often find myself wandering through my home (which looks much like the gallery into which you have entered), considering again and anew the African works that surround me and wondering for what purpose I have been given the opportunity to live among them.  In seeking to fulfill the mission that has befallen me as the guardian of these works, I have sought to gather as broad a body of information from all perspectives that will help to inform my understanding and appreciation of these works and to share that information.  Through the processes of consideration and communication regarding the forms and traditions from which these objects emerge I am learning much about African peoples' realities (past, present and future) and my own (past, present and future), and that process helps me to locate myself within the world and to see ways in which to contribute to the communities of which I am a part in various ways here and abroad.   The traditional and contemporary works exhibited here in various media – wood, metal, ceramic, glass, plastic, fiber, paint -- come from a vast range of African societies and cultures.  The seemingly endless diversity of African forms and the variations on these forms -- within and across regional cultures and through time – make me aware of the movement and change that influences both “traditional” forms and the lives of the people who interact with them (from their creators to those of us who look upon them now).  They bear the traces of manual production as well as signs of societies and lives in transit and, as such, mirror the lives of the peoples from whom they come as well as our own.  While realities change, the forms persist and are continually reborn in traditional, tradition-based and contemporary works that continue to emerge from Africa, arising on the continent itself and through the hands of African artists around the globe. African forms arise from history but are not relegated to the past.  Both in their innate forms and in their geographical journeys, the works here presented represent for me the dynamism of life on the African continent and make me mindful of the complex global context in which African lives (and all human lives) are continuous and ever inter-twined.  The forms and styles of African “art” embody an evolving continuum of purposes, meanings and significance.  Each object has many stories to tell and may lead one to imagine or recall ideas, places, moments and human realities on the African continent.  These works are expressions of traditional forms and modes of production, bearing traces of history, suggestions of inter-relationships (between peoples within and across communities) and evidence both the continuity and change that characterizes the vast body of material culture from Africa which we consider now as African art.   African arts – as a unified geographical body – cannot be reduced to a single idea or over-arching rubric – any more than the arts within any continental geographical construct (e.g., European, American, Asian) can be considered as a representative continental expression.  Geographical grouping -- by continent, region or even, more narrowly, "culture"-- is convenient for defining the limits of a field of study or appreciation within the broader visual arts categories and in tracing the inter-relationships among "distinct" styles and cultures as part of a vaster endeavor to perceive the history of African peoples and societies.   It does not always seem, however, to bring me closer to a deeper understanding of what draws me inescapably into this realm of seeing, considering, conceptualizing... except for one unifying factor:  the basic underlying humanity.  Each of these works – “traditional” and contemporary -- draws from life and social experience and recasts that experience in a form that is linked to that which preceded it and projects it ever forward. Regardless of the extent to which we try to define an Object by what we know or believe to be true of its life in its original context (as closely as can be ascertained), each object ultimately develops or is attributed its particular history and identity, a conceptualization that hovers precariously (and inescapably) between the Object and ourselves.    Each of us enters this consideration with a unique and changing body of experiences and references.  Whatever information, impressions, agendas that any of us may bring to a consideration of the works, one factor that remains primary is the flutter of one's heart -- or other such physical response -- in the presence of a particular object.  Often I sit back and savor the pure aesthetic rapture that can be gained from a wordless appreciation inspired by a particular object well apart and far away from the complex world from which it has arisen and through which it has traveled by chance to me...for the fleeting present moment.   The best metaphor I can find to symbolize this endeavor is that of sitting or standing beneath a very large tree.   The roots are below me.    The branches are above me.  Leaves hang, shimmer or are carried by the wind, playing in the changing light and with the movement of air.  I encourage you to come under the tree and to look and to explore the forms and to see where that exploration may lead you…toward Africa…toward yourself...  I am eager to serve as a guide for your further explorations of the forms, peoples, lives, realities suggested under this one tree in a vast forest. Lee Rubinstein
		Enter the Exhibition