Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley
February 13 – July 24, 2011
"Surprises appear at every turn: a strikingly abstract buffalo mask carved of wood; an ax with a tongue-like blade that emerges from a metal figure's mouth; an ominous ceramic spirit vessel with spiky outgrowths designed to heal a nasty skin disease; films of energetic, fabulously costumed masquerades."
Los Angeles Times, February 6, 2011
The Benue River Valley is the source of some of the most abstract, dramatic, and inventive sculpture in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet compared to the majority populations living in northern and southern Nigeria, the many and diverse groups flanking the 650-mile-long Benue River—and their fascinating arts—are far less known and studied. Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley will be the first major international exhibition to present a comprehensive view of the arts produced in the region. See more than 150 objects used in a range of ritual contexts, with genres as varied and complex as the vast region itself—figurative wood sculptures, masks, figurative ceramic vessels, and elaborate bronze and iron regalia—in a groundbreaking exhibition that demonstrates how the history of central Nigeria can be “unmasked” through the dynamic interrelationships of its peoples and their arts.
