Oceania: Art of the Pacific Islands in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

by Eric Kjellgren

In aesthetic quality, significance, and scope, the Metropolitan Museum’s Oceanic, or Pacific Islands, collection is one of the finest and most comprehensive in the world. This generously illustrated volume features some 200 masterworks from the more than 2,600 objects currently in the collection, and it is published to coincide with the opening of the Museum’s new galleries of Oceanic art. An overview of Oceanic art and a history of the Metropolitan’s collection are followed by detailed chapters devoted to each of the five major cultural regions of the Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and the islands of Southeast Asia. Among the notable works discussed are a monumental Baining barkcloth figure, a spectacular shield from the Solomon Islands, the Museum’s renowned Torres Strait mask and acclaimed Mangarevan wooden male figure, a weather charm from the Caroline Islands, and textiles from the regions of Lampung and Sumba, in Sumatra. A glossary and selected bibliography conclude this essential guide.

Published in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Genres: Nonfiction

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Hannu Kokko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Metropolitan museum of arts has such a great collection of art from Oceania that must be seen in person to understand. They made a book out of a few items from the collection. The book has quite extensive notes about history of the region as related to the arts and each of the art pieces that is presented in the book. What is great about the book that they have in addition photographs from the 1800s to 1970s of locals using or wearing the art. Much is lost in the 1800s and even to 1960s of the original art but what remains is meticulously and interestingly documented in here.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Art books featuring artworks and artifacts from the non-Western world are always an interesting experience. On the one hand, I love the beautiful color photographs of objects--just the opportunity to gaze at the intricacies and patterns of carving, weaving, painting. But on the other hand, it's an odd feeling, looking at these drastically out-of-context objects, floating against their sterile light-gray backgrounds, so far from where they originally came from. The privilege of looking at them now, collected in the Metropolitan and now in this book, comes because Europeans traveled and bought or traded for the objects years ago. And I know from living in Papua New Guinea that some people in the places of origin feel that the objects should come back home. It's a complicated issue, to be sure.

In spite of the complexities, however, I did enjoy Eric Kjellgren's tour of the Metropolitan Oceania collection. I saw a lot of items that I've never seen before, as well as some objects that are very much like art I've seen "in-context" in my work throughout PNG. Sprinkled throughout the book are historical pictures of similar items in their original contexts; I would've appreciated even more such photos, which tended to fire up my imagination of different places and different times. Another element I wanted more of was maps. The book includes only two very general maps at the beginning--inadequate for book's content. I would've liked each regional section to begin with more detailed maps, pointing out the places that are mentioned in that section.

These are relatively minor criticisms, though. The book is beautiful, and I enjoyed my read-through. What endures as the most significant thing about the book is how thorough a collection the Metropolitan has. They have representative examples of an amazing number of major Oceanic traditions.