Black Arts & Culture Feature:
- U.S. presentation displays 13 head-to-toe ensembles with photographs and videos produced in collaboration with artists, communities, and masquerade societies.
- Amanda Maples describes the exhibition as a corrective to the frequent exclusion of masquerade from African and contemporary art presentations.
- Artist-curator Hervé Youmbi presents hybrid masks that challenge clichés and calls for new ways of collecting and exhibiting African masks.
- The traveling show, organized with Musée des Civilisations noires (Dakar), will tour U.S. museums and West African venues through 2027.
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). Shown, Ensemble by Hervé Youmbi. | Photo by Wayan Barre, Courtesy NOMA
GIVING RARE INSIGHT into contemporary West African masquerade practices across societies, cultures, and religions, “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations” presents ensembles by four artists: Chief Ekpenyong Bassey Nsa (Nigeria), Sheku “Goldenfinger” Fofanah (Sierra Leone), David Sanou (Burkina Faso), and Hervé Youmbi (Cameroon). The exhibition opened at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA), where it will be on view through Aug. 10, and travels next to several other U.S. and African venues.
The elaborate works—masks, headpieces, and costumes—are composed of an array of materials, including wood, textiles, sequins, feathers, gourds, raffia, and cowry shells. The U.S. version of the exhibition features 13 head-to-toe ensembles displayed alongside photographs and videos created in collaboration with the artists, their communities, and masquerade societies. The videos show the ensembles performed in processions and ceremonies and interviews with the artists providing context and background about the works, their collective practices, and studio processes.
NOMA Curator of African Art Amanda Maples, said the show “acts as a corrective for the frequent exclusion of masquerade in presentations of African and contemporary art.”
The traveling exhibition is organized in partnership with Musée des Civilisations noires (Museum of Black Civilizations), in Dakar, Senegal. This fall “New African Masquerades” is headed to Tennessee and will make stops in Texas and Florida in 2026, when it also debuts in West Africa. The full exhibition schedule includes:
-
UNITED STATES
New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. | April 4–Aug. 10, 2025
Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Tenn. | Oct. 10, 2025–Jan. 4, 2026
San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas | Feb. 27-July 5, 2026
Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Fla. | September 2026–January 2027
Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C. | Feb. 19–Sept. 26, 2027
WEST AFRICA
Musée des Civilisations noires (Museum of Black Civilizations), Dakar, Senegal | February–June 2026
Sierra Leone National Museum, Freetown, Sierra Leone | Fall 2026
National Museum, Calabar, Nigeria | 2027
Youmbi, one of the exhibiting artists, was part of the team that planned and curated the show. “My work over the last ten years has taken the form of hybrid masks that challenge the clichés and categories to which masks from Africa have generally been confined,” Youmbi said in a statement. “Addressing the question of new masks in Africa today is not just about the aesthetics and ethics of collaborations that govern the creation of new objects and living entities from Africa. It’s also, and above all, a question of envisaging new ways of collecting and exhibiting them.” CT
“New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations” is on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art in New Orleans, La., from April 4-Aug. 10, 2025. The exhibition travels next to several U.S. and West African museums
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). | Photo by Wayan Barre, Courtesy NOMA
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). Shown, Ensembles by Sheku “Goldenfinger” Fofanah. | Photo by Wayan Barre, Courtesy NOMA
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). Shown, Ensembles by Sheku “Goldenfinger” Fofanah. | Photo by Sesthasek Boonchai, Courtesy NOMA
Sheku “Goldenfinger” Fofanah parading with his Mami Wata devil during the Massaboni Ordehlay procession, Lunsar, Sierra Leone, December 26, 2022. | Photo by Amanda M. Maples, Courtesy NOMA
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). Shown, Ensemble by David Sanou. | Photo by Sesthasek Boonchai, Courtesy NOMA
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). Shown, Ensembles by David Sanou. | Photo by Sesthasek Boonchai, Courtesy NOMA
A pair of Kimi masks (headpiece carved by David Sanou in the studio of André Sanou) performing greetings with the lead griot Tchiedo playing his drum behind them, Bindougosso district, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, May 3, 2022. | Photo by Lisa Homann, Courtesy NOMA
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). | Photo by Sesthasek Boonchai, Courtesy NOMA
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). | Photo by Wayan Barre, Courtesy NOMA
SHEKU GOLDFINGER FOFANAH, Sierra Leone (active in Freetown), “Fairy” Masquerade Ensemble, 2022 (fabric, sequins, wood, paint, glue, life-size). | Commission for the Fitchburg Art Museum. Photo courtesy of the New Orleans Museum of Art
SHEKU GOLDFINGER FOFANAH, Sierra Leone (active in Freetown), Detail of “Fairy” Masquerade Ensemble, 2022 (fabric, sequins, wood, paint, glue, life-size). | Commission for the Fitchburg Art Museum. Photo courtesy of the New Orleans Museum of Art
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). Shown, Ensemble by Chief Ekpenyong Bassey Nsa. | Photo by Sesthasek Boonchai, Courtesy NOMA
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). | Photo by Wayan Barre, Courtesy NOMA
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). Shown, Ensemble by Chief Ekpenyong Bassey Nsa. | Photo by Wayan Barre, Courtesy NOMA
Two raffia Efik Ekpe masquerades with Chief Ekpenyong Bassey Nsa during his Ekpe chieftaincy installation, Creek Town, Nigeria, December 31, 2009. | Photo by Jordan A. Fenton, Courtesy NOMA
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). Shown, Ensemble by Hervé Youmbi, | Photo by Sesthasek Boonchai, Courtesy NOMA
HERVÉ YOUMBI, “Bamiléké-Kwele Ku’ngang Gorilla Mask and Single-faced Rhino Mask, during a ceremony in Fondanti village,” 2019. | Photo by Hervé Youmbi. Courtesy of the artist and Axis Gallery, New York and New Jersey
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). Shown, Ensembles by Sheku “Goldenfinger” Fofanah. | Photo by Wayan Barre, Courtesy NOMA
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). | Photo by Wayan Barre, Courtesy NOMA
Installation view of “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations,” New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, La. (April 4-Aug. 10, 2025). Shown Ensembles by David Sanou. | Photo by Wayan Barre, Courtesy NOMA
BOOKSHELF
A fully illustrated exhibition catalog was produced to accompany “New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations.” The volume was edited by Amanda M. Maples, Jordan A. Fenton, and Lisa Homann, with contributions by Kevin Dumouchelle, Ndubuisi Ezeluomba, Ishmeal A. Kamara, Aimé Kantoussan, Hervé Youmbi.
Read more from the original source
