Financiële ondersteuning van Vereniging Rembrandt (BankGiro Loterij Aankoopfonds van de Vereniging Rembrandt), de Vereniging Vrienden Musea Zutphen en de gemeente Zutphen stelde het Stedelijk Museum Zutphen in staat om de museale collectie met een...

There can be few collectors of African art who have not heard about the British Benin expedition of 1897. Benin City, in Nigeria, was sacked by a British led force, following an attack on a group of British administrators and their African bearers. Hundreds of bronze artworks were removed from the Oba’s palace. Today many of these beautiful objects are to be found in the British Museum in London, and in other European and American museums and private collections. The Government of Nigeria has called for the return of these items.

On November 6th, 2005, the Volkerkundemuseum der Josefine und Eduard von Portheim-Stiftung in Heidelberg, Germany, opened its doors to an exhibition of African art. This was “Mit dem Auge des Astheten. Kunst aus Gabun” (“With the Eye of the Aesthete: Art from Gabon”). According to the catalogue, the seventy-odd items on show were ancient, and of great importance. However, according to Lorenz Homberger and Christine Stelzig, “it appears to us that many of the objects shown in Heidelberg are contemporary reproductions and therefore problematic to the trained eye”. They belonged to, “the many thousands of copies flooding the market (that) are produced in abundance not only in Gabon, but also, and primarily, in workshops in Cameroon, where they are laboriously ‘aged’”.

According to Allen F. Roberts, “Leopards are one of the most commonly portrayed animals in African art. Throughout Africa, the leopard is symbolically associated with political authority. As extraordinarily intelligent and courageous animals, leopards readily lend themselves to the production of politically useful metaphors. As predators of humans, leopards are associated with individuals and organisations that have the authority to take human life. Leopards are often considered the animal-others of chiefs, kings, and members of the governing bodies charged with maintaining law and order.”

HOPPER12 June to 16 September 2012Curators: Tomàs Llorens and Didier Ottinger   The Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Réunion des musées nationaux de France are presenting the exhibition Hopper, to be shown first in Madrid then in Paris. It will b...