Disguise: Masks and Global African Art

“Disguise: Masks and Global African Art” at the Fowler Museum at UCLA was the second of the exhibition's three iterations, curated by Seattle Art Museum Curator of African and Oceanic Art Pamela McClusky and consulting curator Erika Dalya Massaquoi. Positioning masks and masquerade as the exhibition's conceptual catalysts, the curators aimed to fill the interstice between the often static presentations of masks in museum settings and the immersive experience of lived masquerade, envisioning the show itself as an unfixed performance. Centering on ten contemporary artists, with the majority commissioned to produce new works, the show explored themes engendered by masquerade in expansive ways. With a propensity towards new media, participating artists came from both the continent and the diaspora, reflecting the global dimension of the exhibition heralded in its title. Supplementing the ten core artists, the Fowler Museum installation included a small sampling of contemporary artwork that had also been...