Baule: African Art/Western Eyes draws attention to different ways of looking both in Baule culture and in the West and reveals that Baule art differs from most traditional African art in being intimately bound to the personal experiences of individuals.

Baule sculpture, renowned for its re-finement, diversity of forms, and the labor it represents, includes not only face masks and human figures but also a great variety of works in ivory, bronze, and gold, and a range of styles that inclues animal helmet masks, monkey figures, stools, drums, heddle pulleys, pottery, and jewelry. Paradoxically, only limited numbers of people are entitled to look at Baule artworks, seen only rarely and fleetingly in Baule villages. Thus, a core concern is the paradox of creating elaborate and beautiful artworks made to be seen by only a select few. 

The exhibition examines the dual elusiveness and beauty of Baule art, and considers the ways that limiting access to works of art led artists to advertise their skills by elaborately decorating private utilitarian objects.  It also examines different modes of looking at art, such as the kinds of visual encounters that occur when Western eyes look at African art, and the possibilities inherent in a personal relationship with a work of art.  Where most traditional African art is and was commissioned by groups and institutions, Baule sculpture responds to personal needs and experiences and, taken as a whole, articulates relationships between men and women, the village and the wilderness, and between the visible and spiritual worlds.

Organized by the Museum for African Art in cooperation with the Yale University Art Gallery and presented September 11, 1998-January 1999 at the Museum's 593 Broadway location, New York, New York.

Baule: African Art/Western Eyes toured the following venues: in 1997 at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut; in 1998 at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institutuion, Washington, DC; and in 1998 at the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.