Death and the King's Horseman A play by Wole Soyinka Edition reprinted in 2002 W.W. Norton & Company ISBN 978-0-393-32299-6 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393322998/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_PkAECbBM9CVGW
Bathed in warm light, the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery’s newest exhibition, “Wole Soyinka: Antiquities Across Times and Place,” provides a critical take on a collector’s purpose. Slated to run through December 21, the show provides the setting for a series of related book talks scheduled in the coming few weeks. The exhibition skirts canonical Western museum practices and speaks instead to the act of collecting as a living, breathing tradition meant to promote dialogue.
Like visiting a new land, viewers of Wole Soyinka’s collection of African sculpture and art in Cambridge will likely encounter works of stunning craft and power that make them want to know more about the artisans who made them and the Nobel laureate who brought them together.
Nigerian playwright and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka’s collection of African traditional art includes bold, expressive masks, vessels, and figures — carved in wood, cast in bronze, sometimes adorned with beads or feathers. We don’t know who made them. We do know how they were made.
They are the starting point for “Wole Soyinka: Antiquities Across Times and Place” at Harvard University’s Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African...
Curated by Awam Amkpa, Professor, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, WOLE SOYINKA: Antiquities Across Times and Place is the first exhibition composed of African art since the Cooper Gallery first opened its doors in 2014. What started as an idea generated from conversations about aesthetics between a student and his mentor have blossomed into a gallery filled with wonder. In an effort to challenge the boundaries of history’s impact on the present, Amkpa juxtaposes works of...
Wole Soyinka is someone to celebrate. Africa's most acclaimed writer, dramatist, poet, novelist, "writer of genius", politico activist who spent 22 months as prisoner of conscience and, for the most part has transcended negativity in a host of camps. He’s been iconic across the board, with his mad hair, quick, hip wit, and his work, which will be along …a long time. His is uncommon work, perhaps monumental.
“WOLE SOYINKA: Antiquities Across Times and Place,” on view at the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art in Harvard Square, features nearly three dozen objects from the famous African playwright’s personal collection. Contemporary works by Nigerian artists who have been inspired by Soyinka’s writing augment his personal pieces. The resulting exhibition presents a dynamic response to the question, “What does it mean when artists collect art?”
