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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Picturing old Africa: The Frobenius-Institute's ethnographic picture collection
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33. Visualizing Africa, from there to here, between now and then.
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| Paper ID | 188 |
| Author(s) |
Kuba, Richard
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | More than a hundred years ago the German ethnographer Leo Frobenius (1873-1938) started a series of so-called expeditions to many parts of Africa. He laid much emphasis on visual documentation and was regularly accompanied by draftspersons. The collection, which his successors continued until the 1960s today consists of 40.000 single images. Often of extraordinary artistic quality the images such as water colour paintings, gouache, pen-and-ink or charcoal drawings show architecture, clothing, hairstyles, handcrafts, religious objects, body and other decoration etc. as well as drawings of rock art produced on the site. Apart its artistic value, the collection’s scope and scientific purpose document the history of ethnology in the first half of the twentieth century. This paper explores the history of the collection, the exhibitions it produced– among other in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1937 – and its future use in the context of different scientific discourses about Africa. |
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