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Africa’s rich cultural heritage encompasses a tremendous range of music, musical instruments, and performing arts. Music is enjoyed recreationally, and permeates celebrations, festivals, processions, masquerades, ceremonies, rituals, royal occasions, and community events. The variety of instruments made and used in Africa ranges from drums, xylophones, and zithers, to electric guitars and keyboards. Many traditional musical instruments appear utilitarian, while others are embellished with geometric, anthropomorphic, and zoomorphic features, allowing them to simultaneously serve as works of art. The musical instruments on view are from the Fowler Museum at UCLA from the West and Central African countries of Liberia, Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, and Democratic Republic of the Congo. “The Art of the African Instrument” is on display, post-security, in Harvey Milk Terminal 1 and online at: https://bit.ly/African-Instruments Yoruba batá drummer 1951 Photograph by William Bascom (1912–81) Oyo State, Nigeria © Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology and the Regents of the University of California 15-31827, R2024.0204.001
This image was posted on May 13, 2024.