This group of objects exemplifies a contemporary form of African visual culture: Jewelry, created for the tourist-trade market, that is based on traditional ceremonial, spiritual, or symbolic art objects. These works are not typically precise reproductions of the African artifacts, but commercially produced adaptations by artists who are responding to global demand as they … [Read more...] about African Jewelry Inspired by Traditional African Art: Researched by Laira Marshall
As in most cultures, in African cultures, symbols of status are used to make distinctions among classes or other groups of people. The owners of status objects are recognized as powerful, wealthy, or high-ranking. In Africa, high-status individuals include people with hereditary power such as royalty; spiritual leaders; high-ranking military or civic leaders; prosperous … [Read more...] about African Status Symbols: Researched by Emily McClain and Zoë Pixler
Textiles are an important artform in many African cultures. While weavers in some cultures are traditionally female, as among the Basotho of southern Africa, in other cultures men traditionally do the weaving, as among the Asante of Western Coastal Africa and the Senufo of Western Africa. The weavers do use different types of looms, however; women tend to weave on upright, … [Read more...] about African Textiles: Researched by Hannah Woolridge
While African masks and large-scale sculptures are highly celebrated, the small figures produced by African cultures are much less well-known. These sculptures generally take human form, but they are made of diverse media, including carved wood, assemblages of resin, cloth, and found materials, and even soft sculptures of sewn, stuffed cloth. They range from relatively … [Read more...] about African Figures: Researched by Rebecca Warden
This cloth figure represents a 20th-century Ghanaian woman doing chores, sweeping up the mess that is in front of her. The most interesting aspect of this figure, however, is that she wears a dress and head covering of fabric printed to represent the famous Asante cloth known as Kente. Like the Korhogo cloth also in this exhibit, Kente cloth is one of the few textiles in … [Read more...] about Figure of a Sweeping Woman wearing Kente Cloth: Researched by Hannah Harmon