Press Release
Old Money: Currency forms of sub-Saharan Africa at Hurst Gallery
February 24 – April 6, 2007
Indigenous African currencies were both aesthetic and functional. Composed of metal, shell, beads, cloth, and even salt, regional currency forms varied widely. In its latest exhibition, Hurst Gallery offers a comprehensive collection of African currency with forms as varied as the horseshoe boloko of the Nkutshu peoples and the spear-like doa currency of the Topoke peoples of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Old Money represents both the functional and abstract forms characteristic of traditional African monies. Certain currency forms—such as spearheads, hoes, knives, or jewelry—had real commodity value, and thus derived their worth from the implements they represented. These utilitarian forms of currency are juxtaposed with a selection of abstracted, elaborated shapes, most of which are based on the functional prototypes mentioned above. The largest, least portable objects (such as the Katanga crosses of the Luba peoples or the twisted bronze "snake manila" of the Igbo) were often restricted to "big business" transactions, including the payment of fines and bride-prices.
Still other currency forms represented in the exhibition were specially shaped for use as media of exchange without reference to any commodity parity or prototype. The famous Kissi pennies of Sierra Leone, for example, were used in the marketplace for the purchase of everyday goods. Their function and use most resembles that of the colonial period, with its European systems of coinage and notes.
Additionally, the exhibition includes traditional prestige objects and those of symbolic value. There are several purses and pouches, in which some form off currency would have been transported. Also represented are weapon forms and symbolic power emblems, speaking to the flexible concept of currency in traditional African societies.
Because iron and copper alloy were valued significantly less in Europe, European economic influence in sub-Saharan Africa during the nineteenth century brought about rapid change in the use and acceptance of these traditional forms of currency. In some cases, native currencies were retained for ritual and ceremonial exchange, but most of the indigenous forms quickly fell out of use.
The currency forms offered in Old Money pay tribute to the creative energy and inspiration of the tribal blacksmith. Hurst Gallery hopes that visitors to the exhibition will also find the objects moving and beautiful in their own right. Old Money seeks to illuminate for the viewer the past function of these currencies, while emphasizing their lasting elegance and beauty.
View thumbnails of the exhibition:
Hurst Gallery, 53 Mount Auburn St. Cambridge, MA 02138 tel. 617.491.6888