This text is a survey of North African textiles from ancient Egypt to the present day. It is published to accompany two exhibitions at the Museum of Mankind: "Modesty and Display: North African Textiles" and "Secular and Sacred: Ethopian Textiles". The rich textile tradition of North Africa is the result of centuries of diverse cultural influences. The civilizations of ancient Egypt, Carthage, Rome and Greece had left their mark well before the Arab invasion of the 8th century, while more recent...
Africa On The Floor - A New Voice and Medium for Contemporary African Art
by Lande Anjous-Zygmunt
Take a rare look at the artisans of the Tuareg people, who have made their home in North and West Africa for untold generations. An essential part of their hierarchical society is the group known as "Inadan"—the artists and craftspeople who make and adorn day-to-day objects, tools, crosses, jewelry, cutlery, swords, bags, musical instruments, and saddles. The artisans use local materials in traditional ways to make objects of utility and beauty. These pieces and the skills required to...
This book features an evocative collection of images that reveal the power and importance of art in human nature. Amidst the dumps and slums of urban Kenya, street children and artisans search for a way to survive, to reclaim and promote their own existence. "The Art of Recycling in Kenya" presents readers with an evocative collection of photographs taken in the markets and villages of Kenya, where initiatives promoting self-sustenance through the exploitation of recyclable materials have been s...
One day, more than twenty years ago, Zdenka Volavka found a lost treasure: the investiture regalia of the African kingdom of Ngoyo, dating from the Iron Age of the second millennium. The plaited copper crown or mpu, turned upside-down and filled with a jumble of metal objects, was on display in the MusTe de l'Homme in Paris, ignominiously labelled as a 'fishing basket.' These objects became the focus of Volavka's research in her remaining years, and form the subject of her book. Combining exten...
A superb collection of Moroccan Berber jewelry is showcased here alongside historical and artistic context for the beautiful objects The Berbers, also known as Amazigh, are an ethnic group indigenous to North and West Africa. For hundreds of years, Berber tribes of Morocco have created intricate jewelry to adorn the bodies of Berber women not merely to aesthetic ends, but to convey information about the positions of women within their tribal worlds, including messages about fertility, wealth,...
Emerging in the realm of popular entertainment, Jean-Charles Langlois’s Panorama of Algiers (1833) drew an audience in much the same way that the arcades drew consumers. Just as the consumption of material goods never fully satiates the consumer, the landscape of Algiers, as represented in Langlois’s panorama, kept the French coming back for more. This monumental painting—the result of Colonel Langlois’s involvement in the 1830 siege of Algiers—offered a French audience a spectacle of the furthe...
William Kentridge (born 1955, Johannesburg) is one of South Africa's pre-eminent artists, internationally acclaimed for his drawings, films, theatre and opera productions. His work draws on varied sources, including philosophy, literature, early cinema, theatre and opera to create a complex universe in which he explores time, history and revolutionary politics. In 2016 the Whitechapel Gallery will present an exhibition of his recent works, focussing on a sequence of five key pieces dating from...