Paper short abstract:

Given their histories of acquisition and display, the exhibition of Central Nigerian objects not originally made for the art world poses dilemmas that can be ‘explored’ and to which there can be 'response'. Resolution is both inappropriate and unfeasible. Can this anthropological framing itself be exhibited?

Paper long abstract:

Exhibition has become particularly acutely problematic in relation to places (like Africa), subjects (like historic religions) and times (such as the 'pre-colonial') that have been subjected to wideranging critiques of primitivism.

The curators (myself included) committed to staging a recent exhibition of artworks from Central Nigeria (which opened in LA in 2010 and will close in Paris in 2013) needed to seek resolutions to exhibiting such objects that would both inform visitors about works that had been made with regard to conventions probably unfamiliar to them, and simultaneously respond to a variety of likely misconstruals intrinsic to the very project of showing such works in museum spaces. The presentation reflects on the nature of these challenges and the kinds of responses to them essayed.