I hope you all had a good Easter / Pesach / Holiday – I spend mine in Berlin, hence the lack of blog posts these last few days. My personal highlight was the Ethnological Museum. It will close in two years (and reopen in 2019 at a new location on the ‘museum island’ in Berlin’s city centre), so don’t postpone your visit if you haven’t been there. The selection of art from the Benin Kingdom is incredible and alone worth the trip – I was happy to learn the new museum will show even more objects. Furthermore, there’s a strong group of Congo material, some important Gabonese objects and a huge amount of art from Cameroon – all of these being collected more than 100 years ago. It is an amazing experience to see all these icons of African art in reality. Additionally, at the moment there’s a small exhibition about ‘object biographies’, curated by Margareta von Oswald and Verena Rodatus, including a stool from the ‘Buli workshop’, a group of Fon figures and the famous throne figures from Kom (info). After spending the day in awe in the museum, I realized I forgot to take some installation photos, but below a couple of snapshots. I can’t wait to go back, although I’ll definitely skip the museum’s restaurant next time – the bookshop, on the other hand, was very good.
