Iconic Collections For 70th Anniversary of National Museum In Nigeria

By Tajudeen Sowole

 When the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) rolls out the drums before the end of the year to mark seven decades of its existence, a landmark exhibition of 70 top cultural objects will be on display. It’s an event specifically designed to celebrate the culture agency in its preservation of Nigeria’s heritage. 

 

Director-General of NCMM, Mallam Yusuf Abdallah Usman (right); Director of Admin and Supplies, Mr. Emeka Omiegbo and Artistic Director and Ag Director, Museum, Mr. Peter Odey… in Lagos.

While flagging off the event in Lagos, the Director-General of NCMM, Mallam Yusuf Abdallah Usman stated that the celebration, which will hold in Abuja before the end of the year is to highlight the existence of the government agency in seven decades. Set up by decree 77 of 1979, NCMM replaced the Federal Antiquities Department and had the responsibility to manage the collection, documentation, conservation and presentation of national cultural properties to the public for the purposes of education, enlightenment and entertainment.

From Federal Antiquity Department in 1945 to NCMM, the agency has been preserving Nigeria’s cultural objects and monuments. At its 70th celebration, NCMM, according to Usman, has the objectives to articulate impact of 70 years’ existence on Nigerians, increase awareness on the value of museum as well as "seek greater cooperation with our international partners," among other objectives.

The landmark exhibition, according to Usman features "70 iconic objects drawn from various Nigerian art traditions such as Dufuna, Nok, Ejaghan, Calabar, Igbo Ukwu, Ife, Benin, Esie, Owo, Tada," among others. He added that the exhibition would highlight "similarities in our differences thereby promoting national unity."

   

Included in the events are publications on museums, monuments and other heritage sites of Nigeria as well as a research journal on museum in Nigeria: Sustainability and challenges; art competition involving school children at National Museum to promote art appreciation among youths; a gala night to honour and appreciate friends, mentors, benefactors and staff of the museum in Abuja.

   

Since Kenneth C Murray, the British founder of the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos Island started museum administration in Nigeria seven decades ago, the achievement of the agency till date "is the fact that we are still existing," Usman responded to a question about the issue of landmark achievement. "Many government institutions have come and gone. But the NCMM is still existing and building more museums across Nigeria." He boasted that "today, we have 48 national museums from one 70 years ago and from 12 national monuments to 167 currently."

  Most crucial in any achievement of museum administration is preservation and conservation. Currently, the state of conservation laboratory of the national museum is a work in progress, Usman assured.

   

In 2009, Ford Foundation in partnership with NCMM unveiled a plan to assist in the rehabilitation of the conservation laboratory of the Onikan Museum. Giving an update on the laboratory, Usman said, "The partnership with Ford Foundation is still ongoing." He added that the "Federal Government on its own has given money for the construction of conservation lab in Ogbomoso, which is about 45 percent completion." When completed, the labs, Usman stated, will be available to service museums within Nigeria and others from countries in West Africa."  

  

 Given the spread of digital accessibility, the NCMM is also in compliance. The collections of the museums, he disclosed, are already going through the process of digitalization, noting, "We are digitalising our collection and documentation for easier research." He added that the agency is currently "constructing a digital archival" outlet in Enugu.

 Some of NCMM-managed museums are in Abeokuta, Aba, Akure, Asaba, Benin, Calabar, Enugu, Esie, Ibadan, Igbo-Ukwu, Ile-Ife, Ilorin, Jos, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Lafia, Lagos, Lokoja, Maiduguri, Markudi, Minna, Nok, Osogbo, Oyo, Oron, Owerri, Owo, Port Harcourt, Sokoto, Umuahia, Uyo, Yola and the Institute of Archaeology and Museum Studies in Jos. Among the monuments are two UNESCO World Heritage Sites such as Sukur Cultural Landscape and Osun Osogbo Sacred Groove.

On its website, NCMM has as its vision “a stable museum system, which ensures the preservation and integration of the Nigerian cultural and natural heritage within the local and national developmental process and the world heritage network.” And the Mission Statement explains what it describes as ensuring “systematic collection, preservation, study and interpretation of the material evidence (tangible and intangible) of the development of the peoples of Nigeria and Nigerians in the Diaspora.”

Highlife music legend, Tunde Osofisan dies at 77

One of the last highlife musicians standing, Tunde Osofisan (1938-2015) died yesterday, aged 77.
 

Tunde Osofisan

He has been wheel chair ridden for eighth years He last performed at the 50th Independence anniversary in 2010 as one of the the highlife maestros that performed at the Festival 50 Concert held at City Hall, Lagos Island.

Among the music legends that performed during the event include Chris Ajilo, Orlando Julius, Ebenezer Obey, now late Fatai Rolling Dollar and K Mann from Ghana, Victor Olaiya and Prince Bull.
  
Osofisan was a member of the famous Roy Chicago Band from 1950s.

With 15 artists, new gallery in London expands space for African art

A new entrant, Tyburn Gallery, London, U.K adds to the expanding space of African art in Europe as its maiden exhibition, Broken English, currently showing till October 28, 2015 features work of Nigerian photographer, Lakin Ogunbanwo and 14 other artists. The gallery formally opened for business two weeks ago.
  

A section of newly opened Tyburn Gallery, London, U.K.

The mission statement of Tyburn Gallery is though global, but has African art as its focus. “Founded in London by Emma Menell, Tyburn Gallery is a new gallery dedicated to international contemporary art, representing, exhibiting and supporting emerging and established artists from a global range of evolving art scenes, with Africa as a point of departure.”

Curated by Kim Stern, Broken English features works of other artists such as Stephen Allwright, Joël Andrianomearisoa, Bridget Baker, Eduardo Berliner, Edson Chagas, Dan Halter, Mouna Karray, Yashua Klos, Ibrahim Mahama, Michele Mathison, Mohau Modisakeng, Athi-Patra Ruga, Rowan Smith and Moffat Takadiwa.
Excerpts from the curatorial note of the gallery states: The exhibition investigates the categorisation of cultural identities in an increasingly globalised world. Most of the artists exhibited live between multiple cities as wide ranging as Antananarivo, Cape Town, Harare, Johannesburg, Lisbon, London, New York, Paris, São Paulo and Tamale; their cross-cultural experiences call into question the relevance of traditional ideas of nationality within the contemporary climate. The exploration into constructions of identity, misinterpretation, alter-egos, myth and story-telling characterises several of the works on view.

Highlights include a significant presentation of artists working across performance, video and photography, often placing themselves centre-stage. Bridget Baker’s meticulously constructed photographs are poised between fiction and fact. In The Assemblers #1, the first in a series of works, the artist re-stages the discovery of a coelacanth: a fish once thought to be extinct but rediscovered in 1938 near Baker’s hometown, off the coast of South Africa. By bringing together seemingly disparate fragments, Baker investigates myth and creates new narratives. Photographs from Edson Chagas’ Oikonomos series show the artist with a mass-produced shopping bag over his head, a performative act exemplifying the erosion of personal identity by global consumerism. Photographer Mouna Karray’s black and white self-portrait series Noir deals with issues of confinement. Inspired by a live rooster in a plastic bag being carried by a man in Tunisia, the artist wrapped herself in a white sheet with only her hand visible to release the shutter. The resulting series exists as a metaphor for imprisonment, whilst the photographer’s act demonstrates the power one still has to act under duress – be it physically or creatively.

Photographer Lakin Ogunbanwo creates enigmatic portraits where subjects are often masked by shadow, drapery and foliage. In Mohau Modisakeng’s large scale photographic portraits, he physically embodies colonial and postcolonial identities, exploring the complexities of violence and justice through symbolic and often sequential descriptions of ritual. These confronting works simultaneously record history and predict the future, inviting the viewer to think about concepts of transition. Athi-Patra Ruga’s hand-embroidered tapestries construct fictionalised worlds that become complex realities, often reappearing in story lines within his performance practice.

Sculptural works in the exhibition explore social, political and economic concerns in the post-colonial era. Zimbabwe born, Dan Halter’s work explores ideas of a homeland and the myths and according to him, ‘fabrications’ that exist in search of it. He employs the language of craft using materials ubiquitous to South Africa and Zimbabwe, such as hand woven fabric to investigate issues of dislocated national identities. Commissioned to make a new work especially for the exhibition, Ibrahim Mahama considers the impact social structures exert upon the working man. Michele Mathison, an artist working between Zimbabwe and South Africa, studies the value of common objects and their conversion into icons and symbols of tumultuous times; in Revolution, he sculpts interlocking machine guns into charred wood. Rowan Smith examines the complexities of South Africa, through the acts of appropriation, defacement and reparation. Untitled (Tyre) is a hand carved wooden tyre depicted slowly burning in a series of photographs named Untitled (Burn), a reference to ‘necklacing’ – a practice associated with apartheid era protest. Found objects characterise Moffat Takadiwa’s work which speaks of the cultural dominance exercised by the consumption of foreign products in Zimbabwe and across Africa.

Also on view are multi-layered watercolours and drawings by Stephen Allwright that focus on the human figure, using a sensual and gestural technique of painting. Eduardo Berliner’s evocative use of pictorial space in his paintings questions the authenticity of memory and direct experience. Yashua Klos’ work details the construction of personal identity and the influence of surroundings on this process, using collage as a metaphor for the fragmentation of African American identity.

Through the exploration of recorded and distorted histories, Broken English examines collective relationships to contemporary citizenship and engages a new discourse in an increasingly global world.

Onobrakpeya, Ovraiti, others highlight Artists and Politics

By Tajudeen Sowole

Challenges in long travel time and rough roads from Lagos to one of the border towns, Olambe, Ogun State could not hold back art enthusiasts who flooded Greenhouse Art Empowerment Centre, for a group art exhibition titled Nigerian Visual Artists and Politics, featuring Dr Bruce Onobrakpeya as a guest artist. Attached to the exhibition was a lecture, The Role Of Visual Arts In People’s Empowerment And Politics In Nigeria, delivered by Onobrakpeya.

An installation titled Sambisa Forest by Dr Bruce Onobrakpeya.

Since opening two and half years ago, the Princess Theresa Iyase-Odozi-led Greenhouse, which sources say, is a household name in community resource field, is, perhaps, having its biggest exhibition till date, showing till November 30, 2015. Other exhibiting artists with Onobrakpeya include Sam Ovraiti, Iyase-Odozi, Stella Awoh, Kolawole Olojo Kosoko, Dr. Mabel Oluremi Awogbade, Ato Arinze, Juliet Ezenwa Maja-Pearce, Bolaji Ogunwo, Stella Ubigho, Oke Ibem Oke and Evelyn Osagie.

  In a welcome address shortly before the formal opening of the exhibition, Chairman of Greenhouse, Mr Victor Odozi described Onobrakpeya as "a mentor of mentors," from whose fountain of knowledge the founder and CEO of Greenhouse, Iyase-Odozi has benefited. Odozi reminded the guests of the three-in-one situation of the event: exhibition, lecture and launching of Greenhouse Art Journal. 

 A crowd of visitors from Lagos joining others in the host community and choking the view of the works on display notwithstanding; it was still possible to have a bit of dialogue with the diverse texture of the works on exhbition. The exhibits include a wall-to-floor installation of fabrics by designer and textile artist, Awoh; Nigerian Conundrum II, a collage rendered in newspaper cuttings and labels, shaping the geographical map of a troubled nation, by Iyase Odozi; Ovraiti's abstraction in layers of colours titled That Way Out; debutant, Osagie's captures of people and places, from the field of journalism, assembled as Nigerian We Hail Thee; and Olojo's painting impression of a failed-state in the piece titled Reaction. Other works on display are a portrait by Ogunwo, Heal the World, which attempts to x-ray the reflective state of despise that Nigeria is going through, suggesting the urgent need for a smile on the people’s face; stylised figures in plastograph, The Politicians Additive by Maja-Pearce, a likeness of Nigerian state's "vulnerability" to the fragility of pre-puberty young ladies; metal sculpture, Antenna of Inspiration by Oke, bringing abstraction as a medium in analogous link between creativity and inspirational content; ceramists Arinze and Awogbade bring Debacle and Set Me Free into the gathering adding voices to the call of artists towards a sane Nigeria. 

 As the period of denial has been flushed away with the era of impunity, paving way for 'change' mantra, Onobrakpeya pays solidarity to the kidnapped Chibok girls, imploring an installation titled Sambisa Forest. Hidden in the installed totems, which explain the artist's thoughts, comes his Letter to Chibok Girls. Quite some touching words; "As grand parents, parents, brothers, sisters, friends, citizens of Nigeria and the world, we share your pains," are among the over 200 words the artist writes, and dated 09-09-15. "...dear girls, don't lose hope, your present state may be a design, by the creator, to put you at the top of the world," Onobrakpeya adds.

In what looks like a phenomenon in contributing to rural development, Greenhouse Art Empowerment Centre really impressed the host, Olambe community. This much, a representative of Olambe traditional leaders, Otunba Rahman Ogunremi expressed when he read the town's goodwill message to visitors. He noted that the centre, "is built to take care of students, women and youths in creative arts and culture." Otunba Ogunremi described Iyase-Odozi as "pillar of support for Olambe community." Present at the event were Baale of Olambe, Chief Wahab Sangodina and Chief Adewunmi Ogunremi.

 Earlier, Prof Layiwola of Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos (Unilag), had also made a profound statement on Greenhouse and community development: "whoever we are - lawyers, doctors, any professional - you should use the profession to support your community as Iyase has done to the people of Olambe."

   

For clarification, Iyase-Odozi, during a chat warned that the empowerment focus of the centre is not about teaching participants how to create art such as painting and sculpture. "We empower youths and women to use art in enhancing other creative profession. For example, if you are a designer, event manager, jeweler, craft person and any creative profession, knowing the rudiment of art is important."

   

Dr Bruce Onobrakpeya and CEO of Greenhouse, Princess Theresa Iyase-Odozi during the opening of the exhibition and lecture.

After a tour of the works on display, Onobrakpeya took guests through the art history lane, suggesting that since Nigerian modernism, dated to the emergence of Aina Onabolu, artists of the country have been contributing to global art vocabulary.  He listed ten areas to support his claim of a dynamic Nigeria that should not be shut out in efforts towards the development of the country. "Our visual artists, through experiments, innovations, inventions, domestication of ideas, rediscovery of lost techniques, etc., have developed unique styles which continue to form art pieces that can over time only be described as Nigerian because they originated from Nigeria." Onobrakpeya, an artist caught between the second and third generation of Nigerian modernists stressed the dynamics in the country's art space.  "These forms not only blaze the trail for the creation of new and exciting products but also constitute our contribution to the global art repertoire."   

  

He listed some of the artists that should be so revered: Aina Onabolu, "credited as being the first to introduce perspective and realism to drawings and paintings," in Nigeria; .Ben Enwonwu, gained "both Nigerian and international recognition and becoming a role model for younger artists,"; Ladi Kwali "transformed Nigerian pottery into collectable ceramics which made Nigeria famous globally,";  Uche Okeke, who "developed new drawing and painting styles from Igbo body and wall paintings and decorations called Uli,"; and Oladapo Afolayan, who revived the art of stone carving for which Esie in Kwara state was once famous"

 The guest artist also added to thie list, his work and invention in plastograph. "Onobrakpeya invented the plastograph and other techniques and developed printmaking to a major art form.  Also he developed the Ibiebe Ideograms and alphabet."

Taiwo Olaniyi known as Twin Seven Seven, according to Onobrakpeya, “created drawings and paintings which drew images from folktales, myths and legends.  By using repeated patterns he helped create mystic and timelessness.

 Others include Lamidi Fakeye, and George Bandele who, "through their induction at the Oye Ekiti workshop were among the pioneers created a new Christian art form from traditional African art."; and Yusuf Grillo, "appropriated the stained glass technique from the West towards the creation of the Nigerian Christian art."

 He also listed, El Anatsui, Jimoh Buraimoh, Asiru Olatunde

 Nike Okundaye, Susanne Wenger, Abayomi Barber, Olu Amoda, Olu Ajayi, kolade Oshinowo and J.D. Ojikere.

 When the centre opened nearly three years ago, Iyase-Odozi listed areas of coverage as skill acquisition in Music, acrylic painting, Oil painting, Mixed Media, Tie & Dye, Designs (freehand and computer-aided), bead-making, Fashion Designing, Goldsmith, Sculpture / Ceramics, Draughtsmanship, Candle Making, Soap Making, Hat Making/Millinery, Drawing/ Sketching, Water colour painting, General Crafts.

 

Dr Bruce Onobrakpeya (left) and Chairman of Greenhouse Empowerment Centre, Mr Victor Odozi during the exhibition and lecture.

Greenhouse Centre houses Art Educational Museum section of the GreenHouse, she said features “collection of replicated artefacts of Ancient and donated works of contemporary art,” adding that the ancient works represent different historical eras and kingdoms in Nigeria.” The rooms are thus labeled: Contemporary Museum 1900-1960; 1961-1975; 1976-1985; 1986-1999. Ancient Museum: South West (Benin, Ife, Osun, lagos, Owo; East, south South (Ifbo Ukwu, Iriji, Mwenka, New Yam, A`bia, Enugu); North (Nok, Argungu, Hausa, Kogi, Igala).

Mentoring 'responsible leadership' with Young @ Art

By Tajudeen Sowole

A fragrance of art gallery as resource space, across disciplines, is in the air at Biodunomolayo Gallery where creativity is being used as a pedestal in creating responsible leadership. Across ages, the gallery engages participants in intellectualising and dissecting of art contents as a an extension of sappropriating creativity beyond the regular space.

  

1. Guest Artist, Bunmi Lasaki and young patiicipants during a sculpture section.

The gallery, for the past one decade, has been articulating its mission via a platform known as Young @ Art. Being a consistent space that has a firm root in Nigeria's vocabulary of non-formal creative activities such as workshops and mentorships, Young @ Art, led by artist and gallery owner needs little or no introduction. But the insurgence of interest, which is also generating expansion of the space into diverse disciplines should be of interest to keen observers.

 "Beyond mentorship in art, we are coaching young adults and children on the need to start seeing leadership as a responsibility," Omolayo enthuses during a chat with his guest inside the gallery.  "Leadership is responsibility, not reliability." He states that Young @ Art has gone beyond just teaching art,  but adding the disciplines of statistics and mathematics "in creating art to ensure that a child has a total development." He argues that when a child is developed in creativity, "solving problems as an adult in leadership position is easier."

   

The volume of activities going inside Biodunomolayo Gallery, a top floor facility at City Mall, Onikan, Lagos, during a visit, clearly suggest an expansion of the mentorship programmes of the Omolayo-led group.  And when he discloses that "Young @ Art is currently running through out the year," he makes one shifts to the edge of a seat.  For anyone who has been tracking the project since inception, Omolayo's statement generates curiousity. It started as a seasonal programes scheduled for long school holiday period, a calendar that coincides with summer period of the northern hemisphere. And for quite a long period since incepetion, Young @ Art has sustained the programming.

  

Now redesigned to run through out the year - including academic holiday periods - quite a number of other disciplines have been included. One of such he says is consulting for secondary schools in effective management of excursions. "Rather than just take pupils and students to visit the museums, we expose them to contemporary art here where they meet artists at work and experience the fun of creating art." Extending the gallery's service in creativity resource to secondary schools, he says, is inspired by a British Council, Lagos experience last year. Through the mentorship and skill acquisition programmes of Biodunomolayo Gallery, the British Council had, last year, engaged select secondary schools across Nigeria in art workshop for art teachers.

  

As positive and progreesional the expansion of the gallery's mentorship workshops are, there comes challenges of keeping pace with the growh. For example, how does the gallery manage its facililitators who are engaged on part time? "We now have facilitators that are staff; under our full employment," Omolayo discloses. In fact, the facilitators "are trained in gallery management, handling of kids." The facilitators, who are "ten in number, are also trained to train other professionals."

   

Participants in different segments of Young @ Art include children, young adults as well as professionals from non-art fields who seek to acquire skills in the creative and culture sectors. Apart from the programmes for children and young adults, the other segment include Sweet Art for women as well as supportive birthday event in art exhibition for patrons.

  

As the new school session drew near, the gallery organised art exhibition that showed the works of children participants produced during the long holiday period.

   

In the previous years, Young at Art had featured celebrities that inspired the young participants. Among such note able names are Duke Asidere, a professional artist,  Engr. Yemisi Shyllon, Chief Rasheed Gbadamosi and Funke Akindele a.k.a Jenifa who mentored the children. 

Disu's prints of forgotten West African history

By Tajudeen Sowole

A West Africa sub-region that is struggling to get its nation states into economic independence is a betrayal of what the people were known for in pre-colonial era, so suggests a Lagos-based printmaker, Akintunde Disu's works. Disu's historical themes on canvas, according to the artist, were among works of 30 artists from across the world scheduled to open few days ago by a gathering known as Federation of British Artists.

 

Iron Flies Like Time by Akintunde Disu.

 To be on display as What's the Point? at Mall Galleries, South East London,,U.K, the group exhibition features artists, who, according to Disu, have no representative galleries in the country.

  Disu's works, specifically, revisits what he thought represents a section of West Africa's "industrial" era in the pre-colonial period. His research, he disclosed, was based on relics got from Nok culture, a civilisation dated to 1000BC. 

Last year, Disu brought a rich history of people and migration, focusing Lagos, in his solo art exhibition titled Layer Cake held at Didi Museum, Victoria Island, Lagos. The Dankolo, a nomadic people whose sojourn include north of Mali through the south of what would later become Nigeria was among those represented in the prints of Disu, last year. For What;s the Point? show, the artist continues tracking the Dankolo people and their contributions to the growth of ancient West Africa.

The peoples of the sub-region, he stressed, were never alien to technology. "This leap from pottery to iron is at once an allegory of our own self, specifically our emotions in the form of old memories and new religions," Disu stated in Lagos ahead of the exhibition's opening in London.  Disu, a sailor by first profession, expressed his thoughts in works such as Iron Flies Like Times and The Gaveling Repeating Rifle.

  

 Relics of the peoples’ proof of civilisation periods in technology are indeed abound in arts and culture, so the artist stressed. "Coinciding with this, the double headed axe itself is a sublime, hierarchical symbol at once standing for war and peace."  A part of the axe, he noted, "was used to fight and the other to clear a path." The double-headed axe, he explained also has a derivative from Yoruba culture. "For wealth and disaster the ability to cleave in two  as venerated by the high regard twins are held in the Yoruba culture and also the loss common with lightning strikes."

Indeed, the axe is actually known as ose-sango (a tool of Sango, god of lightning).  

On the medium of expression and the prints factor, Disu said the Iron Flies Like Times print “is the first of a set of four prints which reference the history of the people,” perhaps in a continuation of Layer Cake. 

Excerpts from Disu’s Artist Statement: “The multiplicity repetitiveness of the work signifies the productivity of mankind our industriousness and shared  experiences and also our proclivity to forget about specifics as we look at the bigger picture at the expense of the detail. While threads of the Nok style can be seen in all great Nigerian art e.g the Ife terracotta's and Benin bronze there is a gap of approximately 700 years in our history which has been lost to the sand of times.

 “This work aims to provide a basis for discussion, addressing these issues and connecting these vast  big majestic time spans. The double headed axe is present in almost all societies linked to iron and lightning and primordial gods, involved with the story of creation of man.

 This shared mythology I find fascinating especially as it pertains to man's curiosity and original thought process the journey from meteor strikes , lightning strikes and iron Ore deposits. The perfect storms creating temperatures above 1100ºC the dawn of industry.”

At Berlin literary gathering, Soyinka advises: 'Before you talk literature you better oil your gun'

Speaking on the security challenges, particularly the Boko Haram insurgence,  Nigeria's Literature Nobel Prize Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka argued that "the gun should be demystified,” by creating parallel armies or anything to confront criminality.

  

Prof Wole Soyinka

"When you encounter a faceless, ruthless army, which is what Boko Haram, Ansar al-Dine, Al-Shabaab are - they move like an army, they think like an army and they have only one objective - you are on the frontline. And on the frontline you should have some kind of training of defending yourself. Citizens should be trained to use arms." MORE.

Native sculptures of Kongo: Power and Majesty in U.S

Yesterday, at Gallery 199, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Yor, U.S., opened Kongo: Power and Majesty, an exhibition of ancient art of Central Africa's civilization regarded as one of the world's greatest artistic traditions. The exhibition is showing till January 6, 2016.

Power figure: seated female nursing child (nkisi). Photograph: The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Steven Kossak, The Kronos Collections, New York

According the museum, it’s an international loan exhibition that explores the region's history and culture through 146 of the most inspired creations of Kongo masters from the late fifteenth through the early twentieth century.

The earliest of these creations were diplomatic missives sent by Kongo sovereigns to their European counterparts during the Age of Exploration; they took the form of delicately carved ivories and finely woven raffia cloths embellished with abstract geometric patterns. Admired as marvels of human ingenuity, such Kongo works were preserved in princely European Kunstkammer, or cabinets of curiosities, alongside other precious and exotic creations from across the globe.

With works drawn from sixty institutional and private lenders across Europe and the United States, Kongo: Power and Majesty relates the objects on view to specific historical developments and challenges misconceptions of Africa's relationship with the West. In doing so, it offers a radical, new understanding of Kongo art over the last five hundred years.