Vigango Totems - Kenya 1960's

05/10/2007
Cornwall Discovery Leading To Return of Kenyan Totems
By: Laurel Tuohy

CORNWALL-A series of tall, graceful statues have traveled a long way to make their debut at the Insiders/Outsiders Art Gallery in the new "All About Africa" exhibition, but soon they will return home.
The show, a celebration of African art and art inspired by "the dark continent," as it is sometimes called, prominently features nine Vigango burial totems that have recently been involved in a scandal.
The obelisk-shaped items are from the estate of art collectors and producer/screenwriters Lewis M. Allen and his wife, Jay Presson Allen. The two purchased the totems for just a few dollars each on the street in Kenya in the 1960s while living in Africa. It seems they did not know they were purchasing sacred burial totems that had been stolen from their rightful villages by those out to make a few dollars off the tourists.
The totems were displayed in the couple's Park Avenue apartment for decades. It was only when the daughter of the late couple, Brooke Allen, offered to show them in gallery owner Kelly Gingras' latest show that Mrs. Gingras began her research and realized the totems were ill-gotten.
"Last year I went to New York City and saw the totems and said I'd love to show them," she recalled. She brought them home in her car, went inside her Cornwall home and Googled "Vigango." The search returned more than 30 pages of sites asking for the return of the totems to the Mijikenda people of the Kenyan coast. It seems that hundreds of them have been stolen over the years.
The gallery owner recalled the moment she found out the states were ill-gotten property. "My heart just sunk. I went in and looked at them and thought, 'Some way or another you guys are going home." When she called Ms. Allen, the young woman was shocked at the totems' true origin and readily agreed to return the artifacts but implored the gallery owner to show them anyway and teach local children about them while the two women worked to return them to Kenya. Mrs. Gingras raced back over to where the statues were and shouted, "'You're going home.' They looked much happier from that moment," she said.
The two women and the estate manager, Peter Jung, set out to find someone who could facilitate the statues' safe return. They eventually reached Tanzanian Ambassador Charles Stith and Kenyan Ambassador Peter Nicholas Rateng'Oginga Ogego. These men, thrilled to be getting the totems back, agreed to let Mrs. Gingras display the artifacts through the end of June, when they will visit the area for a formal hand-over ceremony on a yet to be announced date.
The totems, which can fetch between $7,000 and $10,000 on the open market, have been robbed from graveyards for years. The chipped-wood carvings are long skinny figures, most with ornate faces and delicately patterned and carved robes. They are between four and six feet high and about six inches wide, and some tilt to the right or left from years of being exposed to the elements. The Vigango are erected for high-ranking members of a secret society, called the gohu. The height can be dependent on the status of the society member. Otherworldly, they look like they are in mourning.
It is considered bad luck to remove the statues from their homes in the Mijikenda graveyards, and the people of that region believe bad luck can befall both the offender and the family members.
It doesn't seem that the Allen family met this fate, however. In his storied career, Mr. Allen had writing or producing credits on the movies "Lord of the Flies" and "Fahrenheit 451" and on the Broadway productions of "Annie," "My One and Only" and "A Few Good Men." Mrs. Allen logged credits in the movie versions of Alfred Hitchcock's "Marnie," "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," "Cabaret," "Funny Lady" and the remake of "The Thomas Crown Affair."
Also in the show are more pieces from the Allen collection and from the collection of John Clayton, a documentarian for National Geographic and an admirer of 1960s art from the Congo. He will donate the proceeds from any sales to the Africare charity.
Cornwall photographic artist and entrepreneur (he co-owns Kent's Northern Exposure photography gallery) Lazlo Gyorsok was on hand to view the African art. He particularly enjoyed Mrs. Gingras' curatorial decision to hang a painting of a woman in a compromising position with the Marquis de Sade next to one depicting "The Last Supper" through the eyes of a 1960s African artist.
There are also works from five American artists that reference Africa: oils by Bernard Hoyes, found sculpture by Lucy Krupenye, watercolors by Joan Palmer, creatures and totems by Stewart Clayton and Michael Theise's bull elephant and modern trompe l'oeil paintings.
At the exhibit's opening last weekend, Mr. Theise's heavy pieces on masonite were being admired by Vance Jaffers, an actor of "One Life To Live" fame. The Brookfield-dwelling thespian is a longtime friend of the painting's owner, famed acting coach Phillip Tavonatti, and Mr. Jaffers was there on his behalf. If his painting sells, Mr. Tavonatti will donate the proceeds to African charity "School of Dreams."
Ms. Krupenye was on hand to discuss her found object, wall-hanging sculptures. The surprising discrepancy between her petite, blond, girlish appearance and the totemic sculptures she creates from found objects, including car parts such as catalytic converters and flattened tailpipes, and even deer bones she finds in the woods, is charming.
The Wilton-based sculptor's pieces have an African sensibility that is not entirely unlike the Vigango totems. "I grew up in a house surrounded by African art, my parents were collectors," she said of her frame of reference.
Her pieces, which all have a sort of warm, protective and motherly feel and shape, bear names such as "AuTotem," for one made of car parts, "Guardian" and "Le Reine Rouge," or "the red queen," for one made of rusted parts that have taken on a rusty red patina.
Ms. Krupenye was especially moved by the story of the Vigango. "When I first saw them, I was immediately drawn to them. They looked like something that could have been in the house I grew up in. When I heard the story my first thoughts were that the same thing could have happened to my parents without their realizing it. They bought art in the same way. It's extraordinary that they are going to be retuned," she said.
The more far-reaching message of the Vigango's journey will be delivered to younger people who visit the gallery with their school classes, Mrs. Gingras hopes. "If we hit young minds they'll absorb this story and in the future when they travel to Africa, or any area where artifacts are black marketed, they won't buy them, they'll think twice and do their homework," she said.
The gallery is at 131 Kent Rd. at the intersection of Routes 7 and 45. The show is up through June 24. Call 860-672-6631 for more information.

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