Talk:Tanzania. Masterworks of African Sculpture

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Sukuma mask from Tanzania

• ... that the exhibition Tanzania. Masterworks of African Sculpture highlighted traditional artworks like masks (pictured) from Tanzania?

• Source:

• ALT1: ... that the exhibition Tanzania. Masterworks of African Sculpture refuted the alleged scarcity of figurative art (pictured) in Tanzania? Source:
• Reviewed: Template:Did_you_know_nominations/2024_Masyaf_raid
• Comment: Largest exhibition on traditional artworks from Tanzania ever, catalogue out of print, with original versions in German and Swahili. This article on the en-WP fills a gap.

Created by Munfarid1 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 25 past nominations.

Munfarid1 (talk) 12:24, 6 January 2025 (UTC).

References
References

• Note: This is one of the best hook images I've ever seen. I hope it runs in the top slot. Viriditas (talk) 21:33, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

• @Munfarid1: I am looking closely at your article. Can you confirm that the image in the hook (Makonde mask from Tanzania) appeared at the Tanzania. Masterworks of African Sculpture exhibition? Viriditas (talk) 22:27, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

• Thanks for pointing this out. Actually, the only sculpture from the exhibition on Wikimedia is the Sukuma mask I have now exchanged for the first image of a Makonde mask.- I hope this works just as well. (This mask was sold to Stanford Museum by the Jahn gallery after the exhibition took place. I have checked it in the catalogue and this provenance is mentioned on the museum's image file.

• I want to congratulate you on covering such an important topic. One thing that stands out is the structure and composition related to this exhibition. Wikipedia has hundreds of such articles, covering some of the most popular as well as some of the most obscure art exhibitions in history. I would say that none of them are written in this style. Although your article doesn't diverge all that much from best practices, it does do a few things that are unusual that I can go into, but I think it would be more helpful for you to take a look at how other articles cover the subject. One way to do this is to explore Category:Art exhibitions by country. You will find some commonalities in the structure of sections. These include history, floor plan, exhibits, themes, legacy, list of artists, images, and other sections. Catalogues are generally used as sources, not as their own focus. I think the content you added here works, but the way you structure it should not be around the catalog as you do, but around the exhibition itself. It's a subtle change in focus that wouldn't require much modification. It would also take the focus off the authors and put it back on to the art exhibits. Viriditas (talk) 23:11, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

• I will answer on the article's talk page, as this complex idea does not stricly relate to the DYK nomination.

• I will respond there. Viriditas (talk) 19:56, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer requested. Viriditas (talk) 20:31, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Suggestions for re-structuring this article

Hello @Viriditas:, thanks for your appreciation and suggestions for re-structuring this article. I will have a look at other art exhibitions as you suggested. However, there has not been much coverage of the exhibition itself, probably as it took place in the 1990s when German or other newspapers and art journals did not make their reviews available on the net. The main reason for describing the individual chapters of the catalogue are to make it available in English, as there have been almost no translations or similar articles since them. (The only exception is Nancy Nooter's article on high-backed stools mentioned in the Literature) - One of the main reasons for the exhibition was to refute the prevailing stereotype that there are hardly any notable sculptures from mainland Tanzania. This is why, IMHO, a detailed summary of the various chapters from the catalogue is necessary. To me, this seems similar to describing the chapters of a non-fiction book. - I suggest we wait some time for other users to give their opinion on this and then to engage in our mutual ideas of improving it, maybe even through a GA review? Munfarid1 (talk) 09:47, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

I think we are probably talking at cross purposes on this. The changes I am recommending wouldn't remove anything, they would merely reframe and restructure the article so that the material follows what an article on an art exhibition would look like. Right now, you've got a confused, hybrid of two different articles mashed together. You have another choice, however. You could just move the entire article to one on the book catalog itself and then rearrange the material so that it's not framed as an exhibition. And it sounds like that's exactly what you want instead. I've got too much going on so I'm not going to reply further, but it's obvious to me that you should decide if this should be an article about an art exhibition or about the published catalog and restructure after you make your choice. Viriditas (talk) 20:01, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for taking time to explain your POV. But I don't see any reason why this article should not cover both, especially as they are closely related. And as I said, there are not enough sources to write a separate article about the exhibition. Munfarid1 (talk) 20:17, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Again, I think you misread me. I didn't say the article shouldn't cover both, in fact I said the opposite and implied that the content should be preserved. What I said was that the overall structure of the article deviates from how we write about art exhibitions or catalogs on English Wikipedia. Here, we usually frame it as either an art exhibition or a book catalog. What you've done here is you've created an article about an art exhibition, but written about a catalog. This is a matter of framing and structure, not a content issue. FWIW, there are many examples where we restructure catalog content as articles about art exhibitions, and where we discuss art exhibition content within articles about catalogs. I think you might be missing this point. For example, recently, in my own work, I combined not just two topics (art exhibitions and catalogs), but added a third variable, that of an artist biography. You can see how I structured and reframed all three vehicles as a singular topic named Hawaii series by Georgia O'Keeffe. I used many different art exhibitions and catalogs to create a singular encyclopedic topic, combined with the biography of O'Keeffe, which all of the catalogs include. This is a slightly different example of the kind of reframing and restructuring that I'm talking about, but it's the same general idea. The difference is that in your article, you want to either have an art exhibition topic that mentions the catalog but focuses on the art, or a catalog article that mentions the art but focuses on the catalog. As far as I can tell, you currently have the latter, but you structured it as the former, hence the issue. I should be clear here, there is no one true way of doing this, there are a number of finite combinations and varieties you can choose from to write the article. For me, the primary concern here is the principle of least astonishment. Readers like myself expect an article on art exhibit as you have told us about in the lead, only to find an article about a catalog. I hope that makes sense. Viriditas (talk) 23:42, 13 January 2025 (UTC)