New York City Museum for African Art

Opened to the public in 1984, the Museum for African Art is dedicated to the arts and cultures of Africa and the African Diaspora. Since that time, it has become internationally recognized as a preeminent organizer of exhibitions and publications related to historical and contemporary African art, with programs that are as diverse as the continent itself.

The Museum was located in a rented townhouse on New York City's Upper East Side from 1984 until 1992, when it moved to rented space in the City's SoHo district. In 2002, the Museum moved to temporary quarters in Long Island City, Queens, and in late 2005 it closed its gallery space there in order to focus on developing plans for a new, larger facility that it would own. In September 2007, ground was broken for a new building that will enable the long-needed expansion of the Museum's exhibitions, public programs, and educational 
initiatives.


Designed by the celebrated Robert A.M. Stern Architects, LLP, the new Museum for African Art will open to the public in the second half of 2012. It will be located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 110th Street, in New York City, where it will join Manhattan's "Museum Mile."

The Museum for African Art will own and occupy about 90,000 square feet in a mixed-use joint-development project. With its expansive exhibition and programming spaces, the new facility will enable the institution to dramatically expand the audiences it serves, providing a powerful link between the diverse cultural communities of New York City and those beyond.

While it prepares for the public opening of its new quarters, the Museum continues to develop important exhibitions that travel to major venues internationally and are accompanied by scholarly publications. It also presents a wide range of public programs for adults, families, and school children, held at locations throughout New York City.

Current  Exhibitions

 

Dnasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria

Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria is a landmark exhibition devoted to the art of Ife, the ancient city-state of the Yoruba people of West Africa (in present-day southwestern Nigeria).  The exhibition highlights the artistic accomplishments of this unique 12th- to 15th-century civilization and examines how factors of dynastic power and divine authority shaped their exceptional arts. Featuring more than 100 extraordinary bronze, terra-cotta, and stone sculptures ranging in date from the 9th to the 15th centuries, Dynasty and Divinity presents many works that have never before been on display outside of Nigeria.

El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa

El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa brings together the full range of El Anatsui’s work, from wood trays made in Ghana referencing traditional Akan symbols, early ceramics from the Broken Pots series, through chainsaw-carved wood, to his most recent luminous metal sculptures and wall hangings. Anatsui has gained international acclaim for his dazzling metallic hangings made from liquor bottle caps. In these sculptures, as in wood and ceramics, Anatsui pieces together monumental visual statements that refer to global, local, and personal histories.

Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art

Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art presents the remarkable beauty of coiled basketry and demonstrates how the utilitarian rice fanner and market basket can be viewed simultaneously as objects of use, containers of memory, and works of art. The exhibition features 225 objects including baskets from the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia and from diverse regions of Africa, as well as African sculpture from the rice-growing societies which, through the agency of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, exported their cultures to America.  

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