Close Looking: Archives of African Art at the AGO in the 20th century

Join us to see the ways art reveals and shapes the world in which we live. Close looking is an online monthly series that invites people to spend time with artworks from the AGO Collection - observing their details, discussing its creation, its history and the artist’s intention through multiple senses and perspectives.
Join Al Stanton-Hagan, AGO Archivist, and Mariah Coulibaly, Research Assistant, Frum Collection, Arts of Global Africa & the Diaspora, as they explore changing attitudes about African art at the AGO and in the West through records from the AGO Archives.
By taking a closer look at key documents, learn about the exclusion of African art from the AGO’s early programming and how changing trends in the late 20th century increased acknowledgement and appreciation of African artistry at the Western art museums that had previously shunned it.