Africa in Focus - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The expansion of The Met's mission to present art from sub-Saharan Africa through the gift of a core collection of works given by Nelson Rockefeller was the catalyst for an influential program of special exhibitions. These have highlighted artistic achievements through major international loans from the region that address the scope and complexity of its deep and expansive history pioneered by Nigeria’s National Museums in 1980 to those recognizing its leading practitioners, such as "The Buli Master and Other Hands."

Africa & Byzantium

Mosaic in the shape of a map with a title in yellow that reads

This long-awaited exhibition highlights how the continent contributed to the development of the premodern world and offers a more complete history of the vibrant multiethnic societies of north and east Africa that shaped the artistic, economic, and cultural life of Byzantium and beyond.

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Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara

This groundbreaking presentation brings to life the artistic traditions of the influential pre-colonial states that developed in Niger, Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal between the sixth and the nineteenth century.

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The African Origin of Civilization

Image of a marble statue next to an iron one

Through twenty-one pairings of works from different African cultures and eras, this exhibition provides a rare opportunity to appreciate the extraordinary creativity of the continent across five millennia, revealing unexpected parallels and contrasts. Although there was no contact between their creators, the works share deep and underrecognized histories.

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Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room

Afrofuturism graphic identity, red, blue, green pattern with image of African American woman

This project has roots in the homes of Seneca Village, of which only a fragmented history remains. Like other period rooms throughout the Museum, this installation is a fabrication of a domestic space that assembles furnishings to create an illusion of authenticity.

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Heroic Africans

This major international loan exhibition challenges conventional perceptions of African art. It considers eight landmark sculptural traditions from West and Central Africa created between the twelfth and early twentieth centuries in terms of the individual subjects who lie at the origins of the representations.

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