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The Forum is an opportunity for readers to interact with the magazine on the major issues confronting the tribal arts community. To participate in an ongoing discussion of these and other topics, go to the Letters section.

The Editorial of our Summer/Autumn 2001 issue. 

During the spring and summer of this year the field of tribal art lost a number of its luminaries. All made significant contributions toward bringing the discipline of tribal art to the state that it is in today. Some have obituaries in the pages of this issue. Others will be memorialized in future editions. Either way, it is worth taking a moment to briefly recognize them here. Herbert Baker, the venerable Los Angeles-based collector and tribal art dealer, passed away in March. The same month took New York collector Irwin Smiley, who had long worked on the board of the Museum for African Art. Parisian collector and dealer André Fourquet died in July, as did noted anthropologist and Australian National University emeritus professor Derek Freeman. French art expert Jacques Kerchache, who was a key figure in bringing tribal art into the Louvre, left us in August. Roy Sieber, the prolific Africanist and Rudy professor emeritus of Indiana University, died in mid-September, followed two days later by Douglas Newton, Oceanic specialist and emeritus curator of the Rockefeller collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Another prolific author, Terence Barrow, former curator of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, passed away at the end of August. His son Leonard said in a recent telephone conversation that, while he was saddened by his father’s death, he took small comfort in the fact that Barrow had not lived to see the events of September 11, which would have profoundly disturbed him.

It borders on the fatuous at this point to state that the tragedies on the East Coast of the United States have had profound fallout throughout the Western world. As world financial markets plunged, seemingly in free fall, and citizens of many nations stood aghast in shock and horror, thoughts of personal pursuits were overwhelmed by world events. In the weeks since, most have found some sort of new equilibrium, but for many the passions that we once held close have been consciously or unconsciously reevaluated. Art collecting unquestionably lies among these.

Like any arena of commerce, the art market is a delicate thing. Dealers acquire the best objects they can find in order to sell them to collectors. When the market tightens and collectors buy less frequently, the ability of dealers to come up with new material is impacted, since much of their capital is tied up. When collecting all but stops, the resources that collectors have counted on run the risk of vanishing permanently.

I am a collector. My fascinations include vernacular photography and Christian devotional art, among many other things. In late September I was driving down a typically crowded San Francisco street and happened to find a rare parking space near a small shop where I often find interesting things. More by habit than anything else, I took advantage of it and visited the shelves of ephemera that filled the store. I was suddenly almost overwhelmed by a sense of my own frivolousness and the apparent triviality of what I was doing. Although somewhat dazed, I did find a good piece and purchased it. I would not be surprised to learn that this was the only piece sold that day.

In today’s world, are the values of aesthetic appreciation and the support that we have given to the system that has nurtured these so shallow that they should be laid aside? Or are they an important part of what distinguishes us as knowledgeable and passionate individuals in a vast world of differing views? I choose the latter, and I would encourage anyone who has demonstrated enough interest in the field of tribal art to pick up this journal and read this column to do the same. Many galleries and auction houses have prospered over the last few years. Today they need your support as much as you may well need theirs. The loss or failure of any organization or institution that supports beauty and knowledge makes the world a poorer place indeed.

Jonathan Fogel

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Current editorial | Previous editorials