The Surrealists’ Dance with Yup’ik Masks
Gini Alhadeff of the New York Review of Books discusses the exhibition Moon Dancers: Yup’ik Masks and the Surrealists, organized jointly by Di Donna Galleries and Donald Ellis Gallery
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Dance Mask
Yup’ik
Southwest Alaska
Southwest Alaska
late 19th century
wood, pigments, vegetal fibres
height: 12"
Inventory # CE4083
Please contact the gallery for more information.
PROVENANCE
Merton Simpson Gallery, New York, NY
Private collection, New York, NY
Donald Ellis Gallery, New York, NY
PUBLISHED
Donald Ellis Gallery, Art of the Arctic: Reflections of the Unseen (Masks), London: Black Dog Publishing, 2015, pg. 75, pl. 18
RELATED EXAMPLE
Sheldon Jackson Museum, llB161a,b, for a pair of finger masks featuring a hole in the ringed center. See: Fienup-Riordan, Ann. The Living Tradition of Yup'ik Masks. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996, pg. 114, in which the author writes:
“The ringed center featured on this pair of dance fans was a strong image in Yup’ik cosmology. Much ritual activity focussed on clearing the paths of animals and spirits into and out of the human world. Movement between worlds through circular or square holes was a constant theme in daily and ceremonial life”
Sheldon Jackson Museum, cat. no. 11HB, see: Ibid, pg. 175 for a mask featuring a hole in the centre, said to represent a bubble in the ice
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