New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Attribution in Central African art history is rarely as tidy as a museum label makes it look, and the Binji are one of the clearest examples of that on this site. Their carvers produced…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Some peoples name themselves. The Guro, roughly 200,000 strong on the Côte d’Ivoire, did not choose their own name at all. They originally called themselves Kweni, until French colonial forces, having violently subdued them…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Some of the most famous objects to come out of Central Africa are not, strictly speaking, masks at all. The Kota of Gabon are best known worldwide for a flat, shining, copper-covered guardian figure…
What is an African mask? People ask this question more often than you would think, and most of the answers they find online are thin. A single photo. A caption that says “tribal mask.” Nothing about who carved it, who wore it, or what it was for. That is the gap this piece is here…
