Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

“Humor and Violence: Seeing Europeans in Central African Art”
Dr. Zoë Strother, Riggio Professor of African Art, Columbia University
Thursday, February 21, 2019
6PM, Chandler Auditorium, Harn Museum of Art
Reception to follow

There is a long history of Central Africans depicting Europeans and Americans. Vili ivory sculptors made some of the only surviving portrayals by Africans of the worldwide slave trade. Yaka and Nkanu caricatured Europeans during boys’ initiations in order to provide models of how not to be a man. During the colonial period, Europeans appeared on a wide variety of media, including free-standing sculptures, engraved gourds, house murals, sculpted chairs. It is a paradox that some of the most light-hearted images of Europeans were produced during the periods of the worse violence, often in the form of diplomatic gifts. The talk ends with reflections by artists on the role of humor in making visible the mechanics and ethics of power in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in the global economy.