Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa

Through a stunning selection of objects in diverse styles and mediums, Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa introduces visitors to the Poro and Sandogo societies, the primary settings for the production and use of works of art in the Senufo-speaking region of northern Côte d’Ivoire. Drawing on recent research in Mali and Burkina Faso, the exhibition also includes sculptures not usually attributed to Senufo-speaking artists or patrons, thus shattering the boundaries of the corpus typically identified as Senufo. Featuring nearly 160 loans from museums and private collections in Europe, Canada, and the United States, the exhibition now on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art examines the shifting meanings of the term 'Senufo' since the late nineteenth century and investigates assumptions underlying the labeling of art as Senufo. 

View the exhibition's official website.

The Art of Daily Life Enters its Final Week

Regarded as the finest showcase of Southern African art in recent years, The Art of Daily Life will enter its final week at the Cleveland Museum of Art on February 19. Through some seventy-five works from American private collections and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, the exhibition resplendently celebrates the stunning formal diversity and cultural significance of Southern Africa’s artistic heritage. Despite having enjoyed a degree of growing interest and appreciation over the past three decades, the art of indigenous Southern African societies has long been largely neglected. The Art of Daily Life puts the works of these traditions––which so subtly bridge the planes of the mundane and sacred––under a spotlight to receive the recognition they so unreservedly deserve. 

Visit the official website here.

Staff attributed to the "Baboon Master"   Tsonga, South Africa   19th–20th century

 

Prestige vessel   Nguni, South Africa   19th–20th century

Woman's beaded apron   Nguni, South Africa   19th–20th century

Pipe with anthropomorphic bowl   Sotho or Nguni, Lesotho or South Africa   19th–20th century

Headrest    Shona or Tsonga, Mozambique, South Africa or Zimbabwe   19th–20th century

Images courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art