African Art

In the art of Africa, the mask is a versatile, multipurpose facade. It may signify identity and the ancestors, politics and medicine or the invisible world of the spirits. And in whatever form a mask appears, color is integral to its meaning. Now color is the subject of the second installment of Meditations on African Art, a three-part series at the Baltimore Museum of Art that explores African art from the point of view of the people who created it. The modestly scaled show presents about 30 traditional African masks from the museum's collection arranged in four groups: red, white, black and the tricolor that incorporates all three hues.

E.R. Shipp's commentary on Morgan State University's growth as well as reminders of what happened in and around Morgan is much appreciated, especially by one who was witness to Morgan's growth in the 1950s and 1960s ("Moving on by moving up," Dec. 5). I taught history at Morgan from 1955 until 1967, and one thing I think was missing from the article is giving credit to the remarkable leaders who were responsible for Morgan's growth and increasing reputation. Among those who need to be mentioned are Morgan's president, Martin D. Jenkins, the nationally-recognized author and historian Benjamin Quarles, and the nationally-recognized collector of African art James E. Lewis.

Buried deep inside the Oakland neighborhood of Columbia resides a little-known treasure -- the Maryland Museum of African Art. One of a handful of American museums devoted exclusively to the exhibition of African art, this decade-old institution brings the African aesthetic alive to Marylanders who might not otherwise know it.From Gambia in the west to Ghana in the east, traditional African artifacts in the museum and gift shop depict the beauty and mystery...

Thirty-one years ago, Doris Ligon had a vision. She wanted to educate the community, young people in particular, about the historical and cultural significance of African art. “My husband and I felt as though we had the energy to make a difference through education in the way people perceive the continent of Africa,” Ligon, founder of the African Art Museum of Maryland, says. Indeed, the museum, which has free admission, is an extensive educational resource with about 3,000 pieces of art. The objects, which come from all over Africa, include dolls, teapots, figurines, masks and much more.

Mission: To promote better understanding and deeper appreciation of African art and cultures through exhibits, lectures, films, tours of Africa, book discussions, youth and adult workshops, academic courses, dance and music performances, and an extensive community outreach program.Latest accomplishment: In early May, AAMM sponsored the annual Baltimore-Washington Jazz Fest, featuring 14 bands performing at the museum and venues along Route 175 in Columbia. And in January, the AAMM received a $1,775 Museum AssessmentProgram grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to be used for assessment of internal operations.

"African Art from Maryland Collections" at the Life of Maryland Gallery brings together 70 pieces from five sources. Its chief virtue is showing the pieces; its chief fault is not telling us more about them.There's a variety of works, from big to small, from masks and headdresses to staffs and spears to musical instruments, animals, wall hangings and even two doors. They come from various peoples in several countries in Africa, including Mali, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and Nigeria in the west, Zaire in the center, Kenya in the east and Zimbabwe and Lesotho in the south.

HISTORIC OAKLAND vibrated to the beat of West African drums Sunday as two members of the Anansegromma Storytelling Theatre Company performed for the first session of "Passport to African Art and Culture" at the African Art Museum of Maryland.Ghana natives Emmanuel Roger Dennis, also known as "Kofi," and Eric Ansah Brew, also called "Kwame," sang and danced, accompanying themselves on African drums, for a group of 6- to 13-year-olds and their families.The children are participants in the passport program, which is a series of African-oriented events over the next several weekends sponsored by the museum.

An expert in African art who has lived on that continent and studied how its leaders have used the arts to promote political and economic agendas has been hired as the Baltimore Museum of Art's curator of African art. Karen Milbourne, an assistant professor of African art history at the University of Kentucky who has organized exhibitions on the healing powers of African art and on the political aspects of African-art studies, will step into her new...

The Baltimore Museum of Art houses a stellar collection of African art that includes more than 2,000 pieces, most dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Yet a visitor encountering these works in the museum today may be forgiven for experiencing a certain amount of confusion. The African objects share a gallery with those of other "primitive" cultures -- Native American, Oceanic, Asian and Pre-Columbian, for example -- but it's not clear what the relationship between them is supposed to be or how it should be interpreted.

WASHINGTON -- During the 20th century, African art developed a new face.Although modern art has thrived on the African continent for the past 90 years through a blend of new styles and centuries of tradition, contemporary African art remains something of an enigma for most Americans.Until now."Africa Explores: 20th Century African Art," the latest exhibit to open at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, provides the first-ever comprehensive look at modern African art through more than 100 sculptures, paintings, photographs and mixed media artworks on loan from a wide range of artists, collectors and cultural institutions.

Beauty can be found even in the utilitarian. A recently opened exhibit of African art at the Baltimore Museum of Art makes that point powerfully, with a varied array of elaborately handcrafted personal objects from across the continent — from hats, blankets and hairpins to weaving tools and jugs used to carry water and milk. "Hand Held: Personal Arts from Africa" shows off more than 80 items from the museum's 2,000-piece collection, many of them never or rarely displayed before.

The African Art Museum of Maryland will continue to operate in Historic Oakland for another year, heading off an impending relocation at the end of the month that operators say would have proved a real hardship for the not-for-profit organization. But while the museum will not have to move, the search for more spacious quarters, with improved accessibility and visibility, is continuing, Doris Ligon, the museum's director, stressed. A new lease with the Town Center Village Association that would begin June 1 is being reviewed by the museum's attorney, and Ligon said she expects it to be signed and delivered by Monday.

At the end of May, a mere six weeks from now, the African Art Museum of Maryland will have a new home somewhere, preferably still in Columbia. The board of the museum, a not-for-profit institution that is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, gave notice last August of its plans to move out of Historic Oakland, where it has operated since 1989. Though the museum's lease expires May 31, it has not secured new quarters. "We have been actively looking at new spaces for over a year and have gotten some positive leads," said Doris Ligon, the museum's executive director.

Hazel T. Barrett, a retired educator and collector of African-American art who also had owned and operated a Baltimore art gallery for a decade, died Mondayof complications from Parkinson's disease at Keswick Multi-Care Center. She was 90. Hazel Thompson, the daughter of scrap yard owner, was born and raised in Somerset, Pa. After graduating from Somerset High School in 1936, she enrolled at what is now Morgan State University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in education in 1940.

Howard Cohen, a retired real estate developer, African art collector and philanthropist, died Oct. 2 of complications from the neuromuscular disease myasthenia gravis at his Dickeyville home. He was 79. Born in Baltimore and raised in Windsor Hills, he was a 1946 graduate of Mercersburg Academy. After graduating from Princeton University in 1950, he enlisted in the Army and served as a lieutenant and forward observer in Korea from 1951 to 1953. In 1968, Mr. Cohen earned a master's degree in liberal arts from the Johns Hopkins University.

A few weeks ago, I found myself at a most intriguing runway show. It didn't feature the leggy beauties of New York's Fashion Week draped in the latest lace and frills. The models on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art were showing off their bodyware: tattoos as diverse as the men and women who wore them. Skulls attached to wings, hearts encased in a pot of gold, names of deceased loved ones etched across shoulder blades and crosses engraved on necks. They were so unlike the symbols and patterns that I admired in an upstairs exhibit, Meditations on African Art: Pattern.

African art has it all: beauty, brio, inventiveness, moral gravity, emotional depth, practicality, sensuality and humor. It's hot and cool, high and low, chastening and consoling, endlessly varied, surprising always. So why do our big museums still give us so few African shows? And why, when they do, are those shows so often packaged the same way? Third-tier Western artists get solo retrospectives; entire African cultures are squeezed into art-of-a-continent surveys. Many such surveys are collection samplers, the only thematic thread being the taste or money of a single owner or institution.

AFRICAN ARTWhat: Museum for African Art.Where: 593 Broadway, New York.When: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Current show runs through Aug. 15.Admission: $3 adults, $1.50 seniors, students and children.Call: (212) 966-1313.Enter the Museum for African Art's new headquarters on New York's lower Broadway, and the bright yellow walls of the reception area draw you to them like a magnet. On the way, however, you get a glimpse of the dark, brown-gray tones of the galleries beyond, and they in turn beckon with their promise of mysteries and revelations.

Ongoing REMEMBERING KING -- The Reginald F. Lewis Maryland Museum of African American History and Culture, 830 E. Pratt St., is showcasing From the Ashes of a Dream: Race and Revitalization Since MLK, a reflection on the 40th anniversary of the death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Through April 27. Free. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 443-263-1800 or africanamericancul ture.org. AFRICAN ART -- The Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive, is showcasing its third installment of the Meditations on African Art series, which highlights the use of pattern in textiles, carved ivories, painted shields and body adornment.