Elvehjem exhibit examines wide range of YorÂbá beadwork

Among many examples of beadwork to be displayed at the Elvehjem Museum of Art are, from top to bottom: Carved wood Ibiji figures featuring glass beads; a pair of beaded shoes from 1978 with glass beads thresded over leather and rawhide; a Yoruba beaded throne from the UCLA Fowler Collection that combines beads, leather, fabric, wicker and other materials; and an Oriso Oko beaded crown and dress including leather, wood and cardboard, beads and cotton cloth. Photos courtesy of Elvehjem Museum of Art. Details: “Beads, Body and Soul: Art and Light in the Yorùbá Universe,” opens at the Elvehjem Museum of Art Saturday, Jan. 29. Public reception: 6-8 p.m., Friday, Jan. 28.

Beads are forever, for everyone. Archaeological excavations of very early sites of far-flung civilizations turn up beads that were used to beautify the human body and the environment.

Building upon tradition, Yorùbá bead artists continue to astound us with their artistry and inventiveness. The exquisite textures, vibrant colors and intricate patterns make us marvel at the care, precision and skill needed to create such objects. The Elvehjem Museum of Art’s new exhibition, “Beads, Body and Soul: Art and Light in the Yorùbá Universe,” demonstrates why the Yorùbá have become renowned throughout the world as bead artists.

A spectacular array of some 150 beaded objects – including crowns and ceremonial regalia, masks, divination implements, contemporary paintings and sculpture, necklaces, slippers and even royal thrones – speaks to an evolving artistic tradition and explores the web of ideas and images that shape the Yorùbá universe.

To the Yorùbá, beaded works are not just about luster and luminosity; they are also about illumination and transformation. Beads fit into Yorùbá political, religious and social orders; colors have meanings and express ideas about character, that of spiritual forces as well as humans.

The exhibition is the first to focus on a wide range of Yorùbá beaded traditions in West Africa and the Americas, both past and present. Yorùbá-speaking peoples are among the most numerous in Africa, with an estimated population of more than 25 million. Their arts and religion have also flourished in the diaspora and are at the heart of African-American traditions in Brazil, Cuba and the United States.

This exhibition of beadwork, organized and developed by the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, establishes artistic traditions and sources in Africa and underscores their reflection, reclamation and evolution in the Americas.

This project results from more than 25 years of fieldwork in Africa and the Americas by Henry Drewal, Evjue-Bascom Professor of Art History and Afro-American Studies, and Babalorisa John Mason, founder and director of the Yorùbá Theological Archministry, New York. Drewal and Mason are also the authors of the 300-page exhibition catalogue, which has more than 400 color illustrations.

The Elvehjem is the only museum in the Midwest to offer area viewers the opportunity to view this collection of beaded sculptures, attire and paintings. The exhibition, accompanied by detailed narrative panels and photographs, is divided between the beaded arts of the Yorùbá of Africa and the Yorùbá in the diaspora. These sections are further subdivided into such themes as royalty, divination and initiation.

The Yorùbá see and understand colors in terms of temperature and temperament. Each value can be classified within three categories: cold or white; hot or red; and a more moderate cool or dark. Thus cold-white suggests composure; hot-red signals aggression or strong action; dark may lie in between these extremes.

Geometric shapes, which can be subdivided into ever smaller units, connote the infinity of forces, spiritual and worldly. Breaking up an object’s surface with diamonds or triangles energizes it, making the surface shine. For the Yorùbá, shininess is related to the principle of “completeness,” the idea that something has been fully and properly realized, ready for use.