A List
10/11/04

PHOTOS OF NIGERIAN MONUMENTS EXHIBITED AT SLU

CANTON – An exhibition of photographs by Ulli Beier, "Mbari Houses: A Personal 
Experience," will be in the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence 
University from Monday, October 18, through Saturday, December 11. A slide 
lecture related to the exhibition will be presented on Thursday, October 28, 
at 7 p.m. in Room 123 of the Griffiths Arts Center by Herbert Cole, professor 
emeritus at the University of California at Santa Barbara. It is open to the 
public, free of charge.
	Beier states, "The custom of building mbari houses, monuments honoring 
Ala, the Igbo creator goddess, is limited to a region in Nigeria around the 
town of Owerri.Mbari are unfired, painted mud figures constructed by young 
boys and girls from a certain age group who work under the supervision of 
senior craftsmen. The artists, working from nine months to a year, live in 
total seclusion outside the village on a piece of land that has been fenced 
in with palm leaves. A mbari house is not a shrine. After a sacrifice is 
brought to Ala, no further ceremonies take place there. Exposed to wind and 
rain, the figures crumble within a few years, and then the next age group 
will construct new mbari…The ephemeral quality of mbari is essential to its 
meaning and purpose." 
      Beier has spent 20 years in Nigeria. He founded and edited Odu, a 
journal of Yoruba studies, and Black Orpheus, a journal of African literature. 
In 1961, he founded Mbari, an African writers' and artists' club in Ibadan, 
Nigeria, with Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and others. Beier participated 
in the St. Lawrence University Festival of the Arts in 1999, which had as 
its theme "African Arts: Into the Next Millennium."
      The lecture by Herbert Cole is made possible with funds from the 
Jeanne Scribner Cashin Endowment for Fine Arts.  
      For more information or to arrange individual or group tours, 
contact the gallery at 315-229-5174.

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The Richard F. Brush Art Gallery
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