At that early moment, collectors appreciated African sculpture narrowly as formal solutions to issues in modernist figural sculpture, and often removed the accumulated layers of power materials, which they regarded as impediments to aesthetic appreciation. (museumpublicity.com)
As a result, the sculptures look too much like packaged formal solutions to the problem of art - historical inscription, too much like replacements for a lack of formal inventiveness independent from historical scaffolding. (dailyserving.com)