National Museum of African Art - Exhibitions

Exhibitions

Exhibitions at the museum focus around African art and culture. Exhibitions are designed in house and are also brought in from other organizations. Early exhibitions were held at the museums first home, the Frederick Douglas house located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington. Ethiopia: The Christian Art of an African Nation, was held in 1984. The last exhibition held at the house was A Human Ideal in African Art/Bamana Figurative Sculpture. After the museum moved to its current location, its exhibition space was broken up by African regions: Western Sudan, Guinea Coast, Cameroon, Ogowe River Basin, Lower Congo, Northeastern Zaire, the eastern Congo Basin, and southern and eastern Africa.

In the winter of 1997 the museum explored the importance of adinkra cloth in the exhibition A King and His Cloth: Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I. Mami Wata made an appearance in the 2009 exhibition Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas.

In Spring of 2012, Lalla Essaydi was the focus of the solo exhibition: Lalla Essaydi: Revisions. The exhibition showcased Essaydi's photographs of herself and other Moroccan women to help fight stereotypes of Middle Eastern women.