AFRICAN ARTS最新文献

{"title":"The Long View: Leadership at a Critical Juncture for “African Art” in America","authors":"S. Vogel","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00692","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"56 1","pages":"10-12"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44621943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Flip-flop Toys of Saarenald T. S. Yaawaisan in the Bryn Mawr Art and Artifact Collections","authors":"Nina Owczarek, Madeline Hagerman","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00695","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00695","url":null,"abstract":"| african arts SPRING 2023 VOL. 56, NO. 1 A conservators’ first step is to examine the materials, construction, and cultural context of artifacts. This ensures a full understanding of the objects, allowing us to consider any ethical implications of our work prior to any potential treatment. This is also one of the first ideas that we teach to aspiring conservators. To facilitate this, in early 2020, Bryn Mawr College loaned four toys constructed primarily from colorful flip-flop sandals to the University of Delaware for use in an undergraduate-level course in art conservation. The course centered on learning how to document artifacts, studying materials used in the manufacture of art, and recognizing condition issues. The flip-flop toys provided rich material for investigating each of these areas and challenged students to capture these complicated structures in a report. Furthermore, the students were tasked with putting these artifacts into context. Although they were resourceful in finding references about the artist, it was clear that there was not much available to research. Through the Bryn Mawr Collection online catalogue, they could see that Saarenald T.S. Yaawaisan made the toys, that they were accessioned in 2016, and that Jane Martin had donated them to Bryn Mawr. But who was Yaawaisan? How is he connected to Bryn Mawr? This article will address these questions in more detail and will also put Yaawaisan’s work into broader context. It will consider the materials and methods of manufacture as described from a conservation-based point of view and supported by condition observations. It will also compare them to selected other flip-flop art works by African artists and contextualize them in the use of discarded materials for artistic purposes.","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"56 1","pages":"20-25"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45377021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"We Made It in Venice! But Then …? Reversing Notions of Center and Periphery","authors":"Stephan Köhler","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00691","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00691","url":null,"abstract":"At each Venice Biennale, the visitors get to experience the encounter of independently curated national pavilions and the artistic director’s thematic exhibition. The latter is always presented in the same two venues: the Arsenale, a tunnel-like space where in old times ropes for the marine were twisted, and in the central pavilion of the so-called Giardini. This park hosts the national pavilions of the European nations, who are part of the inaugural core group of 1895, whereas the other countries rent sections of the Arsenale and other venues in the city, palazzos or transformed factories for example (see Köhler 2020: 84 for the history of the biennale and distribution of pavilions). Cecilia Alemani was chosen artistic director of this 59th Biennale, which was scheduled to take place in 2021. However, due to the pandemic, the Biennale opened one year later, in 2022. According to Roberto Cicutto, the president of the Venice Biennale, Alemani’s choice to focus on the relationship of human bodies to their environment, their fragility, could have to do with this biennial being entirely planned from video conferences and no physical studio visits (Margutti et al. 2022: 39). Alemani wanted to give space to processes of transformation, dissolve rigid distinctions of gender, and break up categories confining notions of human–animal– machine, as she wrote in the introduction of the catalogue (Margutti et al. 2022: 44–45). Of the more than 200 artists she invited, 180 “have never had their work in the International Art Exhibition until now”(Margutti et al. 2022: 44–45) and 80% were women. As a matter of fact, many artworks alluded to human anatomies, be it replicas, or imagined organs, some in action, palpitating with liquids moving around, others in between actions, as the video of a woman cleaning the organs of a rubber sex puppet between clients’ visits demonstrated.1 Five “historical capsules” interspersed in both venues, showed pioneer work of artists2 exploring different forms of “trans” and “post” that, according to Alemani, offered a “web of references” (Margutti et al. 2022: 46) that encouraged the present generation to continue exploring new territories and cross borders.3 The title Milk of Dreams was borrowed from a book by the surrealist artist-writer Leonora Carrington, who stood up for a world of magic and transformation and was sanctioned and marginalized (Margutti et al. 2022: 43). Paintings by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami (Biennale College Scholarship recipient) installed on black and white floor-to-ceiling wallpaper prints welcomed visitors in the","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"56 1","pages":"1-9"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46106203","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Remembering the Herero-Nama Genocide in Namibia","authors":"P. Wilson","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00698","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00698","url":null,"abstract":"| african arts SPRING 2023 VOL. 56, NO. 1 The mass killing of Herero/Ovaherero and Nama/Namaqua peoples carried out by German colonial forces between 1904 and 1908 in Namibia (then German South West Africa) is often described as a “forgotten genocide” (e.g., Erichsen and Olusoga 2011).1 When this kind of rhetorical trope gets employed in the art world, it often casts the artist as what Okwui Enwezor calls an “agent of memory,” a figure who rescues forgotten historical traces from a mausoleum-like archive and then presents them to a hitherto ignorant public (2008: 46). Black Box/Chambre Noire (2005) by the South African artist William Kentridge is perhaps the most well-known artwork to address the genocide. It operates within the understanding of the relationships among artist, archive, and audience outlined by Enwezor (Dubin 2007: 130). Commissioned by the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, the installation takes the form of a miniature proscenium with mechanized figures and an animated film. Visual motifs such as cameras, typewriters, newspapers, and written ledgers draw attention to how colonizers collected and communicated information (Fig. 1). Animation sets these archival materials into motion while animatronic figures move across the stage. Although the artwork offers few specific details about the historical events it references (labels provide these in some exhibition venues), it conveys the calculated brutality of colonialism and calls on viewers to engage in Trauerarbeit, the work of mourning (Baer 2018: 100–102). By animating the archive, it summons the ghosts of Germany’s forgotten colonial past to haunt contemporary viewers (Demos 2013). The visual inventiveness and conceptual depth of Black Box allow it to hold up to the exhaustive attention paid to it by critics and art historians in Europe and North America, but it is worth noting that part of its success derives from how well the artwork meets the expectations of those audiences (Baer 2018; Buikema 2016; de Jong 2018; Dubin 2007; Kentridge and Villaseñor 2006). It assumes a societal amnesia against which it can perform “acts of remembering” (Enwezor 2008: 47). However, as Kevin Brazil notes, “For something to be rediscovered in a present, it first must be assumed to belong to a past, because only then can it serve as a reminder of what a present has forgotten” (2020). Assuming that the genocide is forgotten, thus allowing it to be rediscovered via contemporary art, is a privilege of the former colonizer, not the colonized. Likewise, taking written documents or photographic images to be the primary evidence of the genocide assumes a Western archive. While these assumptions are reasonable given the German patron and primarily non-Namibian audience for Black Box, they should not be taken as universal. Recent artworks made with Namibian viewers in mind engage with how the genocide is remembered, by whom, and why. They go “beyond the rhetoric of revelation” (Brandt 2020: 123). A brief syn","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"56 1","pages":"62-81"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49288632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Museum of Black Civilizations in the Contemporary World: In conversation with Hamady Bocoum","authors":"Adriano Mixinge","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00694","url":null,"abstract":"| african arts SPRING 2023 VOL. 56, NO. 1 It was on July 26, 2022, on a morning in Dakar, that I had a long talk with Hamady Bocoum (Fig 1), general director of the Museum of Black Civilizations (Fig. 2): He received me quietly, while I observed how the furniture was organized in his office—but mainly looked at the work by Abdoulaye Konaté, in blue tones, that hung on the wall (Fig. 3). During the interview, Bocoum revealed the objectives, ideas, vision, and outlook that underlay the foundation of a museum that intends to create a new paradigm: He defends rebellion creativity and states that they do not follow the pattern of any previously established museum. He also claims a native outlook for a contemporary Africa that is more creative in the historical and cultural world. Adriano Mixinge [A.M.]: Next December 6 [2022], the Museum will be four years old. Do you think this institution has fulfilled its objectives—that is to say, those which fostered its creation?","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"56 1","pages":"14-19"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43414614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"“Knowledge” or “Progress?”: Do They Have to Be Mutually Exclusive?","authors":"Amanda H. Hellman","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00693","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"56 1","pages":"12-13"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47279427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Gosette Lubondo: Imaginary Trip curated by Erica P. Jones and Elaine Eriksen Sullivan","authors":"Aisha M. Muhammad","doi":"10.1162/afar_r_00732","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_r_00732","url":null,"abstract":"Located in a gallery next to the central foyer, Gosette Lubondo: Imaginary Trip immediately greeted guests from the main entrance of the Fowler, encouraging them to follow the artist on her travels. The location's institutional framing facilitated close looking for each photograph, while maintaining a steady pace of narrative. The vibrant photographs stood directly across from the soft lighting of the foyer's courtyard, supplying ample natural light for viewers to view the works, accented by soft overhead lighting. The exhibit was separated into two series, Imaginary Trip I and Imaginary Trip II, creating a seamless chronological transition that moved viewers in a clockwise pattern among its four walls, tying them into a cohesive narrative. Imaginary Trip I moved viewers through an urbanized abandoned structure, followed by rural scenes of dilapidated buildings in Imaginary Trip II.Lubondo set the series in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Wall text described how the artist focuses on dilapidated, decaying structures that reflected the afterlife of Belgian occupation. Train cars and abandoned schools were the most frequent settings for the series, given their importance to colonial economic maintenance and prosperity. Within a contemporary context, this stark departure from their former use indicated that the structures have been transformed into visual symbols of abandonment, embodying a sense of despair and longing for yesteryear. It is here that Lubondo directly challenged this assumption of total desertion, inserting several people into the composition moving among the ruins. People in these photographs directly interacted with their surroundings; some with intention, others seemingly nonchalant to the physical space around them.Imaginary Trip I was set in an abandoned train car in which a large, unkempt open space is flanked by a rusted metal carriage. It was here where viewers were introduced to Elikia, a woman primarily seen in a red dress, facing away from the camera. In the first photograph, the woman looked up at a chalkboard entitled Situation de Production des Vehicules du 14/09/2015. Directly below, a number of stops were listed with their arrival times. However, instead of standard city names for the stops, they were supplemented with seemingly nondescript words: “Voyage,” “Imaginaire,” “Na Keyi,” “Confort [sic]+ Securité,” “Somba Tick,” and “Assurance.” This labelling emphasized the imaginary element of the series, asking viewers to embark with Elikia to the abstracted stops that complete the trip.Imaginary Trip I continued with the woman entering an abandoned train car, facing away from the viewer and walking toward the back of the composition. In subsequent images, Elikia was replaced by other Congolese urbanites. Both men and women entered the run-down train car, sitting down on wooden chairs, facing the open windows of the rusting carriage on either side. Activities varied: sleeping, playing a game of chess, reading, and e","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135508412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Decolonizing Heritage: Time to Repair in Senegal by Ferdinand de Jong","authors":"Annalisa Bolin","doi":"10.1162/afar_r_00735","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_r_00735","url":null,"abstract":"The idea of decolonization has come to the fore in recent years’ scholarship on cultural heritage. Not that the concept is a new one: but with Black Lives Matter and Rhodes Must Fall protests roiling the (haltingly) postcolonial world, it is entirely expected that heritage studies publications on the topic would grow. Not, either, that heritage scholars who are interested in the question of the past in the present had utterly failed to consider decolonization, but like pop culture, academia has its trends. The problem, for researchers, is often the mismatch between the speed with which trends flow and ebb, and the relentlessly glacial pace of funding applications, fieldwork, and publication. Some scholars have answered this eternal, and eternally shifting, need for applicability with tendentious conclusions about how their work responds to this decolonial focus. Others, more fortunate, have been able to draw upon years of preexisting research that legitimately rises to meet the moment. Among the latter is Ferdinand de Jong's new book on Senegalese cultural heritage and imaginings of the utopian future, Decolonizing Heritage: Time to Repair in Senegal.The discussion of Eurocentrism and colonial dynamics in heritage practice (and scholarship) has existed in the discipline of heritage studies since before this most recent surge in interest. Works on heritage by African scholars and scholars of Africa have been at the forefront of this conversation: it is obviously crucial to discuss colonialism and its legacies, along with prospects for countering them, when considering a continent whose present-day political arrangements and position in modern racial-capitalist orders have been drastically shaped by colonial forces. Such factors have naturally impacted heritage practice, too, from destroying traditional methods of management to alienating communities from their own heritage. Today, governments, civil society actors, and communities across Africa are reclaiming such heritage in the pursuit of goals like cultural revitalization. This project requires reckoning with the impacts of colonialism past and present, which includes not only how colonial administrations intervened in African heritage practices, but also how conditions of heritage-making today are shaped by both histories and ongoing dynamics of global colonialism. Scholarship has included both a consideration of colonialism and its impacts and decolonizing responses—such as reanimating locally grounded ways of thinking about heritage, in which contributions by African archaeologists and heritage scholars such as Shadreck Chirikure (2021) and Ashton Sinamai (2021) are vitally important. Along with excavating the past, these efforts are interested in developing new orientations toward the present and the future.Decolonizing Heritage considers the future not merely as a temporal concern for heritage practice, but also as an object of historical interest. What visions of the future did the past d","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135508464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Lagos and Its Representation in Visual Arts","authors":"Akinwale Onipede","doi":"10.1162/afar_a_00728","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_a_00728","url":null,"abstract":"Lagos, in West Africa, by virtue of its strategic coastal location, has played very significant roles in human development and modernity. It has for centuries been a hub of economic, political, and artistic activities. Lagos has been a favorite subject of artists, who have depicted its physical and cultural uniqueness variously. This paper examines Lagos generally, and how parts of its history, geography, culture, myths, cosmopolitan nature, the joy and challenges of living in it have inspired artistic production by some of its creative minds.The study seeks to engage and explain the works of contemporary visual artists such as Ghariokwu Lemi, Emmanuel Ekefrey, Bimbo Adenugba, Dil Humphrey Umezulike, Bolaji Ogunwo, Ayo Owolabi, Taiwo Oye, Kehinde Sanwo, Adekusibe Odunfa, Abiodun Olaku, Lukman Karounwi, Bodun Shodeinde, and Mavua Lessor, in the context of their representation of Lagos. Paintings, sculptures and drawing including Lagos Shitty (2001), Survival of the Fittest (2003), Waiting for the Bus (2003), Oshodi Isale (2007), Eyo (2012), Eja Nla II (2017), Apongbon Exit (2019), and Onilegogoro (2022) are analyzed. The artworks were chosen because they depict salient physical aspects and realities about Lagos. In addition, they also document iconographic features such as the Eyo,1molue,2 and White Cap Chiefs, which are unique to Lagos.The study is carried out through observation and analysis of visual artworks produced or influenced by Lagos or factors of its existence. Galleries, studios, and websites were visited while books and journals were consulted and a few interviews conducted to gauge the different ways that Lagos has been portrayed. The meaning and reason for distinct Lagos features such as Eyo, molue, danfo,3 the color yellow, the Idejo chiefs,4 traffic jams and congestion portrayed in the artworks are also explained.Lagos, as far back as the eighteenth century, has been a destination for regional and global economic activities (Olatunbosun 1981). Lagos is evidently the artistic capital of Nigeria, a melting pot for all the cultures in Nigeria, the West African coast, and other parts of the world because of the economic opportunities it offers, its urbanity, and its status as a former capital of Nigeria, all of which attract people to dwell in it (Filani 2001; jegede 2001; Sonuga 1987). Lagos, in spite of its multicultural nature, is largely a Yoruba city,5 founded by Ogunfunminire and Olofin, princes from Ile-Ife, the ancestral home of the Yoruba (Alli 2002; Sonuga 1987). They belonged to the Awori, a subgroup of the Yoruba who settled and occupied many parts of Lagos which, according to Sonuga, still retain their original names. Consequently, Yoruba language, beliefs, and cultural practices are preeminent in Lagos.Lagos, also known as Eko6 (Sonuga 1987: 7; Adepegba 2017: 37), would appear to have a centripetal force that draws to it people from far and near. This supposition is affirmed by Olumhense (2010: 69): “Lagos is a national ","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"273 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135508436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"L'Art de cour d'Abomey, le sens des objets by Gaëlle Beaujean","authors":"Marlène-Michèle Biton","doi":"10.1162/afar_r_00734","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/afar_r_00734","url":null,"abstract":"The interest of Gaëlle Beaujean's work, L'Art de cour d'Abomey, le sens des objets, resides in the fact that it constitutes a meritorious assemblage of knowledge about Abomey, capital of the ancient kingdom of Dahomey, situated in the southern part of present-day Republic of Benin. It does not, however, fulfill the expectations raised by the second part of its title.Abomey and the Fon kingdom of Dahomey are at the heart of what is certainly the best documented and known region of west Africa. Indeed, many voyagers, diplomats, traders, and navigators left logbooks and travel reports. During the French war of conquest and colonization, soldiers in their travel diaries or field notes, and then administrators, geographers, and historians, made sometimes exceptional contributions to the knowledge of this kingdom and its historical, political, religious, social, and artistic particularities.Since the independence of the colony of Dahomey in 1960, interest in the ancient kingdom of Abomey among European researchers, photographers, museum collectors, ethnographers, as well as Beninois historians, linguists, musicologists, and geographers has not diminished, and the corpus of erudite studies has been amplified and enriched.UNESCO recognized the uniqueness and quality of the royal buildings of Dahomey, acknowledging, in 1985, their distinctive aesthetics, architecture, and history. Later, in 2008, UNESCO included in their Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity certain ceremonies and aspects—shared at the regional level—of the Gelede complex, as well as the practices, practitioners, modes of apprenticeship, tales, and myths of the divination system of the Fa (Faa, Ifa). A compilation that addresses itself to a public larger than that of specialists in these matters is thus always of interest.This work has many positive aspects. It clarifies and calls attention to historical details that are known little or not at all. It is also a deluxe edition with abundant iconography, which includes color photographs of well known pieces as well as rarer objects.Based on the title, Art de cour d'Abomey, le sens des objets, however, one expects to discover new perspectives on the art of this realm, when in fact this is for the most part a history textbook.This book is based on previously published studies or narratives, ranging from those datable to the seventeenth century (Delbée 1671), to recent contributions, all of which can fill the shelves of a library. The first notable reports on the region, dating from the middle seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, relate not to Abomey, however, but to the kingdom of Allada (Ardres, Ardra) and the small states of the coast (Des Marchais 1730).The author maintains a certain ambiguity by evoking a king of Abomey from the beginning of the seventeenth century. The emergence of this kingdom, however, took time. Upon leaving Allada, the group of individuals, related by kinship and alliance, who wou","PeriodicalId":45314,"journal":{"name":"AFRICAN ARTS","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135508437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}