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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H-shaped ingot ("Katanga cross" or possibly handa)H-shaped ingot ("Katanga cross" or possibly handa), 19th century or earlier
possibly Luba artist -
Basket with lid (agaseki)Basket with lid (agaseki), late 19th–early 20th century
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Basket with lid (agaseki)Basket with lid (agaseki), 20th century
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Basket with lid (agaseki)Basket with lid (agaseki), 20th century
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Basket with lid (agaseki)Basket with lid (agaseki), 20th century
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Vessel lid (taampha)Vessel lid (taampha), before 1950s
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Ndam ManduNdam Mandu, mid-20th century
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BasketBasket, probably 20th century
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BasketBasket, 20th century
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ClothCloth, before 1924
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VesselVessel, 20th century
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CalabashCalabash,