For Hearth And Altar: African Ceramics From The Keith Achepohl Collection'

CHICAGO, ILL. - Drawing open the curtains on millennia-old techniques and traditions utilized in the creation of African ceramics, many of which remain in active use today, is the exhibition "For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection," currently on view at The Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition, open through February 20, chronicles how one man's passion led to the creation of an extraordinary collection of handwrought African ceramics, old and new.

Some 125 pots are on view, nearly half of which collector Keith Achepohl has promised as gifts to the museum. James Cuno, president and director of The Art Institute of Chicago, writes in the show catalog that the extraordinary selection of pots "will place us squarely in the forefront of museums displaying African ceramics."

Curated by Kathleen Bickford Berzock, the show, as she puts it, "Explores the intersection of hearth and altar." Most of the pots are from the Twentieth Century and are the work of potters from virtually every culture on the African continent. Others that date from as early as the Third Century are displayed for comparison's sake, and such juxtapositions underscore the similarities that have endured across the entire region throughout the centuries. The range of examples is stunning.

Pots were made for one of two specific purposes: hearth or altar; daily use or ritual. In the African communities where these pots were made, however, the distinctions were frequently blurred. An Osun shrine jar from the Yoruba people differs profoundly from a northeastern Tanzanian ritual container, yet each bears distinct similarities to both everyday storage containers and the wares of earlier centuries.

The elegantly textured vessel was used to signify rank among titled men of Igbo. The container is thought to have been used to serve palm wine to guests at a title-taking ceremony. Title-taking vessel, mid-Twentieth Century. Northeastern Igbo; Nigeria, terra cotta, 15 ½ by 16 inches. All pots illustrated are from the Collection of Keith Achepohl. Courtesy of The Art Institute of Chicago.

For as long as pottery has been made, its traditions and techniques have been driven by the climate. In rural African communities little has changed. Except in the oasis communities where there is sufficient water to use a wheel, pots are molded over or within a concave or convex form that can be either a bowl or an indentation in the ground. Alternatively, vessels were made by the pull or punch pot method in which a potter works a lump of clay, punching and digging at it directly. In both cases, the vessels were formed in such a way as to give them interesting decorative, but essentially utilitarian, textures. Corn cob texturing, for example, makes a pot easier to grasp.

In either case, it is their extraordinary textures that give these pots their extraordinary appeal.