Juxtaposed with the emotive and powerful Rodin sculptures in the adjacent room, a collection of African arts stops me in my tracks and bludgeons my preconceptions about the creative output and content of this overlooked continent. I’m dumbfounded by the modern dynamism and universal messaging of what is a “Global Africa” which “has been connected to the world at large for millennia and can no longer be thought of as the elsewhere of the West.”
Rodin, not one to shy away from imperfection, made the broken into the beautiful. Interestingly, many of these African sculptures — some created around the same time as Rodin — also layer the bold, beautiful, and broken into imagery that carries spiritual resonance and shakes me to my core.
Such a joy to be slapped upside the head by amazing African creations that give the best of Western art a run for its money.