October 2021 - Toronto ON
I was at the AGO, Art Gallery of Ontario, this week to see the Picasso exhibit and came across a new sculpture in the atrium.
Standing 5 metres tall, Moko Jumbie is a new sculpture by British-Trinidadian artist Zak Ové (b. 1966). Inspired by aspects of African masquerade and Trinidadian Carnival, it features a masked figure adorned in antique glass beads, cowbells, and gold Air Jordan sneakers, standing atop towering stilts. A guardian who travelled to the region to protect enslaved peoples from evil, the figure of Moko Jumbie blends African diasporic mythologies: in Central Africa, ‘Moko’ refers to a healer, while ‘Jumbie’ is a Caribbean term for spirits. Since the early 1900s, it has been a key figure at Carnival celebrations in Trinidad and across the Caribbean.
This Is plain awesome.
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Very unusual.
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