Holding Culture: Containers in African Art
Whether filled or empty, open or closed, literal or symbolic, containers have long impressed themselves on the human imagination. Vessels preserve organic materials and interrupt natural processes. They hold power and wealth, as well as history, memory, and meaning. They are sites for transformation, whether through cooking, fermentation, or spiritual reshaping. In all these cases, the need to preserve food or house supernatural beings imbues vessels with particular importance. This installation, featuring African containers from the Museum’s collection, explores how various cultures encompass and embellish the world around them. Through the selection of patterns, materials, and forms, African artists facilitate relationships between vessels and their users or context. The works on view in this gallery—and those in adjacent galleries on this floor—investigate how art mediates the connections between inside and out.
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BottleBottle,
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Bowl for Ifá divination implements (ọpọ́n ìgèdè Ifá)Bowl for Ifá divination implements (ọpọ́n ìgèdè Ifá), before 1923
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Ceremonial vesselCeremonial vessel, 16th-early 20th century
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Reliquary figure (mbulu ngulu)Reliquary figure (mbulu ngulu), late 19th–early 20th century
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Reliquary figure (bwiti)Reliquary figure (bwiti), late 19th–20th century
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Gold dust box (abamphruwa)Gold dust box (abamphruwa), before 1987
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JarJar, 20th century
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Hunter's shirt (donson dlokiw) and hatHunter's shirt (donson dlokiw) and hat, 19th-20th century
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Altar vesselAltar vessel, 20th century
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Power figure (nkisi)Power figure (nkisi), early 20th century
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HatHat, 20th century
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HatHat,