Oceanic Art

Oceanic art encompasses the visual and material cultures of Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and Australia, produced across millennia and across an enormous range of forms: carved figures, masks, bark cloth, ceremonial objects, and architectural elements. Objects from the Sepik River region of New Guinea — among the most intensively collected and exhibited of all Oceanic material — entered Western museum and gallery contexts from the late nineteenth century onward, where they were variously framed as ethnographic specimen, primitive art, and sculptural form. The exhibition and publication history of Oceanic material in Europe and North America remains a significant and contested part of its afterlife.

  • `Kunst uit Nieuw Guinea — exhibition catalogue front cover, 1963. Cream wraps with orange letterpress title lower right: "kunst uit nieuw guinea". Left: black and white photograph of a tall carved wooden ancestor figure (bis pole or similar), with a stylised face, open-work body, and flame-like projections at the crown. Age toning and handling wear throughout. `Kunst uit Nieuw Guinea, 1963 — interior plate. Black and white photograph of catalogue no. 43: a carved wooden ancestor figure, open-work construction with a large rounded head, hollow oval torso, and elongated pendant legs. Dark patinated surface. Photographed against cream ground.

    Kunst uit Nieuw Guinea — Museum Fodor / Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1963

    Kunst uit Nieuw Guinea — Museum Fodor / Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1963