Spend one Sunday afternoon learning the wonders of African Art! Jean Borgatti, Consulting Curator of Global Africa, First Peoples - North America and Oceania at the Fitchburg Art Museum, will delve in to a different aspect of African Art each month! This series of talks is meant as an introduction to African Art, its variety of forms, the depth of its history, and how it became an important player first in Western culture and continues to be important in a global world. A reading list will be available for anyone who wants to delve more deeply into any one topic. Jean Borgatti, our speaker, will invite participants to online workspace where she will post additional images, articles, and links to videoclips for anyone interested. 

For those interested in additional resources from the get-go, Jean suggests Christopher Spring’s African Art in Detail (2010), full of wonderful illustrations from the collections of the British Museum and a very accessible, readable text. Chris Spring served as a curator at the BM from 1987 until his retirement in 2018. I might also suggest Suzanne Blier’s book The History of African Art (2023). Suzanne Blier is a distinguished scholar and professor of art history at Harvard University. This is a new textbook based on many years of research, writing and teaching. Both are available on Amazon.

This month- CLICK HERE to register on zoom and receive the link.

21st Century African Photography. This talk looks at photography currently on exhibit at the Fitchburg Art Museum, Africa Rising, as well as that part of the backstory centered on Studio Portraiture. Names that will become familiar: Seydou Keita, Malik Sidibé, Zanele Muhole, Aida Muluneh, George Osodi, Wilfred Ukpong, Omar Victor Diop, Heather Agyepong, Lina Iris Viktor, Cyrus Kabiru, Maurice Mbikeye, Tamary Kudita, and Sethembile Msezane. These are only a few of the photographers whose work is represented in the exhibition. Senegalese photographer Victor Diop has become known for his self-portraits adapted from historical European artworks featuring distinguished Africans. His Dom Miguel De Castro is based on a 1643 portrayal of a central African envoy sent to the Dutch Republic on a diplomatic mission. The image draws attention to Africans neglected in European history, while the inclusion of soccer gloves suggests parallels between those forgotten men of distinction and today’s sports heroes. Both gained glory and recognition but still face the challenge of being “other.”