Art premier

Date: 18th century. Geography: Nigeria, Court of Benin. Culture: Edo peoples. Medium: Brass, iron. Dimensions: H. 13 1/8 x W. 9 3/8 x D. 10 3/8 in. (33.3 x ...

Kiiappak mask, Greenland, Inuit (Quai Branly Museum, Paris)

South Arabian stele Alabaster, 1st millennium BC (20.3 cm) The stele depicts an abstract face with carved eyes, a long nose, and a small fleshy mouth; above, an inscription in Minaic gives the name…

Fang mask used for the ngil ceremony, an inquisitorial search for sorcerers. Wood, Gabon, 19th century.

In West and Central Africa, the elephant is a potent image of political force and the accumulation of wealth by those in power. This is true for the art of the Cameroon Grasslands, the origin of this mask, which is elaborately decorated with imported glass beads and represents an elephant. Long panels with geometric forms hanging down the front and back represent the animal’s trunk, and the flat discs with starburst patterns are its ears. The mask can be worn with a headdress made of red…

This white-faced maiden is sometimes mistaken for a character from the Japanese Noh theater. It is from the Musee du quai Branli and is one of the best Punu masks I have ever seen. Think how this highly abstracted sculpture would have shocked European artists in the late 19th century. The Punu were originally part of the Luango kingdom of Angola in the 18th century, and settled in south and southwest Gabon. In the Mukuyi society it represented a female guardian spirit in the funerary rites…

CONGO DRC LUBA Rare Kifwebe Large Mask There is a sticker inside Village: MUKUNA ? ( but a little unreadable) Chefferie

Skull rack

This early 20th century portrait mask is from the Baule peoples of the Ivory Coast. Acquired by the Yale University Art Gallery.

Masks of the Lega people of Zaire betray both a seriously unhealthy collective unconscious and an almost pathologic interest in psychedelic substances. In other words, Lega people are my kind of pe…

She was a crucial part of a cultural movement in the 1980s. Now a first solo exhibition in 15 years will allow her work to shine

Geometric motifs and symbols of ancient rock art, cave paintings and rock engravings such as the spiral found at Brú na Bóinne, and the kerbstones of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, in relation to the anatomical and neurophysiological characteristics of the human visual cortex. This neurophysiological approach will test the 'universality' hypothesis, and universals, and introduce the concept of 'neuro-aesthetics'. Comparing Irish megalithic motifs and hallucinations.

José Herrera