BMA Presents Design for Mobile Living: Art From Eastern Africa

Exhibition highlights artworks worn or associated with the body

BALTIMORE, MD (June 29, 2016)—The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) explores the ways in which nomadic life shapes creativity and artistic form. On view now through November 27, Design for Mobile Living: Art from Eastern Africa presents 28 visually striking works, including examples of necklaces, bracelets, shields, fertility dolls, and vessels. Many never before on view, the objects were created by 19th and 20th century artists who lived in cattle herding groups from the Great Rift Valley to the horn of the
African continent. Light-weight, portable objects showcase how in mobile societies body ornamentation becomes art. Kalenjin, Maasai, Samburu, Somali, and Turkana artists are represented.

“Few art museums have prioritized the collection and display of art from Eastern Africa,” said Kevin Tervala, Curatorial Fellow for the Arts of Africa, the Americas, Asia & the Pacific Islands. “The BMA is proud to feature these works so that visitors can appreciate the artistic sensibilities of historic societies markedly different from our own.”

Organized by Kevin Tervala, Curatorial Fellow for the Arts of Africa, the Americas, Asia & the Pacific Islands, with Associate Curator for African Arts Shannen Hill.

This exhibition is generously sponsored by Amy L. Gould and Matthew S. Polk, Jr.

African Art Collection
The BMA has one of the earliest and most important collections of African art in the United States with more than 2,000 objects spanning from ancient Egypt to contemporary Zimbabwe. A major gift from the collection of Janet and Alan Wurtzburger in 1954 marked the beginning of a permanent display of African art at the BMA and assured a significant place for African art within the museum’s growing collection. More than 200 African cultures are represented in the collection. Diverse in medium, works range from paintings and headdresses to masks, figures, staffs, textiles, jewelry, ceremonial weapons, and pottery. Several pieces are internationally known as the best of their type.