All Essays
African Art in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
Great Zimbabwe’s architectural layout and material culture have been key in understanding the site’s settlement history and economic, social, and political organization.
Tawanda Mukwende
May 27
African patrons and entrepreneurs quickly picked up the new technology, which circulated and flourished through local and global networks of exchange. Photographers, clients, and images moved across the region often traversing both national and ethnic boundaries.
Giulia Paoletti
March 1, 2017
The Museum of Primitive Art’s focus on works linked to a single cultural or ethnic group was unprecedented, and it created a standard for exhibitions of African art that endured throughout the twentieth century.
Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi
May 1, 2016
Images on scrolls are nonrepresentational talismanic designs that reveal mysteries and enhance the effectiveness of written prayers.
Kristen Windmuller-Luna
April 1, 2015
The Lalibela churches take their form, placement, and orientation from both geological features and structures within the complex.
Kristen Windmuller-Luna
September 1, 2014
Combining functionality, exacting skills, and visually dazzling graphic elements, the wide range of basketry artifacts created by elite Tutsi women from Rwanda and Burundi represent the apogee of refinement.
Yaëlle Biro
March 1, 2011
Diviners invest in the arts to foster personal relationships with the spirit world and enhance communication between nature spirits and humans.
Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi
January 1, 2010
[Power associations] are dynamic institutions that respond to local contexts and historical change and thus exhibit great variability.
Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi
January 1, 2010
Senufo Sculpture from West Africa and its precursor [exhibition] set a precedent for the exhibition and study of African art that prevailed for decades.
Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi
January 1, 2010
Poro has historically been responsible for the transmission of histories, genealogies, and other knowledge and has contributed to diverse and dynamic artistic production in northern Côte d’Ivoire.
Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi
January 1, 2010