Tuesday 24 December
-4°C and Broken Clouds
Another milestone: Agnes is closed to the public as we prepare for Agnes Reimagined. Stay tuned for plans for off-site programming!
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Africans have traded raw and carved ivory for centuries. Its lustrous sheen makes it desirable, as does the brute majesty of its source: Africa is home to the world’s largest elephants. Across continents, ivory objects are used in rituals—rites of prestige and pageantry rolled into one. Desired by a range of bodies—political, social, medicinal, religious—ivory sparks discussion of history and debates about ecological and wild-life preservation.
This exhibition showcases works donated by Justin and Elisabeth Lang. Visitors will discover how Africans have used ivory to teach morality, convey social standing, heal wounds, safeguard communities and commercially profit.
Dr Shannen Hill is Research Associate at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art and President of the Arts Council of the African Studies Association. She is author of Biko’s Ghost: The Iconography of Black Consciousness (2015) and a former Fellow of the J. Paul Getty Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution.
Yoruba Artist, Nigeria, Iroke Ifa (Divination Tapper), ivory. Gift of Justin and Elisabeth Lang, 1984 (M84-435) Photo: Bernard Clark
Igbo Artist, Nigeria, “Spirit Elephant” Headdress (Ogbodo Enyi), 20th century, wood and pigment. Gift of Justin and Elisabeth Lang, 1984 (M84-168)
“Today, museums worldwide are home to thousands of ivory objects carved by artists from nearly every continent. These objects are multiple things at once. They are works of art, whether exquisitely carved or roughly hewn, and they are lessons in history both local and global.”
