The Progress of Love recently at the Menil Collection, Houston, was a very important exhibition, and this is not simply because of the fact that it brought together many impressive works by established and new artists working in Africa, Europe and the United States. A collaborative project between...

I finally got to see El Anatsui's show, "Pot of Wisdom," at Jack Shainman Gallery, just before it closed this past weekend. I had to see the show not the least because I was curious to see how much the artist had advanced the subtle but significant experiments...

Last week I visited the artist El Anatsui at the papermaking studio of The Judith K. and David J. Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He had come to the United States from Nigeria to install his work at

Unidentified Photographer, [Part of the crowd near the Drill Hall on the opening day of the Treason Trial], December 19, 1956. Times Media Collection, Museum Africa, Johannesburg. All images courtesy, ICP, NY.

Okwui Enwezor (the director of the just-concluded La...

Egyptian artist Amal Kenawy died August 19 of leukemia. She was 38.

Kenawy was one of Africa's really compelling contemporary artists, and a leading voice in the thriving Cairo art scene. Her work captured the simmering individual and collective anxieties in Egypt and anticipated the 2011 revolt at Tahrir Square....

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) has just become a major player among collections of the famed Royal Benin brass and ivory sculptures, thanks to the gift of 34 objects by Robert Owen Lehman. And the MFA and its publics are justifiably thrilled because until this gift the museum...

This past Thursday, Segun Olusola, the Nigerian playwright, actor and pioneer television producer died. He was 77. Despite that the average life expectancy in Nigeria is a mere 47 years, I still received the news of his death with great difficulty, and this is not just because he was a...

Last month news came of the delay in plans to open the new home of The Museum for African Art, in New York. Damn, I thought to myself for a number or reasons. First is that I really miss this Museum, which has more than any in the...

Something terrible happened in Cape Town, South Africa, on April 20. Some unknown persons broke into the studio/home of Zanele Muholi, the photo artist, and made away with virtually all her work of the past five years or so. Gone are about 20 hard drives and backup systems...