Reflecting its global reach and reputation for authoritative exhibitions in an array of fields, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's “Kongo: Power and Majesty” brought together an impressive selection of 146 of the finest Kongo objects from over 50 European and American collections. While acknowledging the trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonialism as cataclysmic events in Kongo's history, the exhibition continually drew attention to Kongo creative expressions before and in spite of these events. The exhibition emphasized the ways in which Kongo artists from the fifteenth to twentieth centuries creatively responded to historical experiences. In each gallery visitors were introduced to objects with a variety of functions including diplomacy, prayer, and defense.
Curator Alisa LaGamma organized the exhibition into four galleries, structured the-matically and beginning with the earliest objects. Throughout the exhibition, visitors were presented with an array of multiples, which demonstrated the artistic possibilities for each object type as well as...