Where:

Museum for African Art, New York

When:

November 11, 2011 through April 8, 2012

Summary:

Organized by the Museum for African Art in New York, in collaboration with the Fundación Marcelino Botín of Santander, Spain, and the Nigerian National Commission on Museums and Monuments, the exhibition will make 6 stops during its world tour. Upon premiering in England, the Ife exhibit was described as containing

“artworks that rank with the Terracotta Army, the Parthenon, or the mask of Tutankhamun as treasures of the human spirit.”

Dynasty and Divinity reveals the extraordinarily creative range of Ife art through a diversity of objects that includes handsome idealized portrait heads, exquisite miniatures, expressive caricatures of old age, lively animals, and sculptures showing the impressive regalia worn by Ife’s kings and queens. Together, these illuminate one of the world’s greatest art centers and demonstrate not only the technological sophistication of Ife artists, but also the rich aesthetic language they developed in order to convey cultural concerns.