“African Art in American Collections: From Male to Female Authorship” with Moyo Okediji, PhD

Join us for a virtual lecture with Dr. Moyo Okediji, Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Texas. This talk will examine the history of collecting, exhibiting, and evaluating African art in the United States, positioning the African art objects in SAMA’s collection within a larger context of collecting African art in the West. Using an autobiographical perspective, the lecture will examine the growing role of women artists in African art and the responsibility of museums in effecting this transition.

Professor Okediji is an artist, curator, and art historian. He was the curator of African and Oceanic Art at the Denver Art Museum from 1999 to 2008, when he became a professor at the University of Texas, Austin. He was the director of the Center for the Art of Africa and its Diasporas at the University of Texas, Austin, and has taught at various universities all over the world. His books include African Renaissance, The Shattered Gourd, and Western Frontiers of African Art. He has shown his work at many venues including the New Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, and the Denver Art Museum.