Nigeria intends to build a new museum over the next four years that could exhibit looted Benin bronzes currently displayed in European and American museums, officials said Friday.
Many Benin bronzes — a group of more than a thousand prized metal plaques and sculptures looted in 1897 by British troops from the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, in modern-day Nigeria — are at the British Museum and the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.
Contemporary African art has long been a topic of contention. For a time, there was even a heated debate around the very existence of contemporary art in Africa. Nevertheless, artists hailing from the continent have continued to create despite conditions of invisibility and marginalization. Now more than ever, interest in contemporary African art is picking up and its artists are getting recognition both at home and internationally.
Dr Esther Mahlangu has had a Rolls-Royce named after her, exhibited in museums around the world, collaborated with Nelson Mandela and John Legend, and the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Alicia Keys, Will Smith, Usher, Black Coffee and Trevor Noah all own her work.
Many of these celebrities continue to make pilgrimages to her Mpumalanga homestead to pay respects to our national treasure and global icon.