Upon entering the Newark Museum's reinstallation of its Arts of Global Africa collection, visitors are immediately greeted with Yinka Shonibare's spectacular Lady Walking a Tightrope (2006; Fig. 1). The life-size, headless female figure balances precariously on a rope stretching diagonally across a corner space. Lady Walking a Tightrope is positioned high—above eye-level, as any tightrope walker would be—and captures the immediate attention and the upward gaze of visitors as they enter the gallery. Shonibare's Lady is dressed in the artist's signature Dutch wax fabric, and the heavy layers of the brightly colored textile surely make her task—walking across the tightrope—even more challenging. Indeed, the figure's left hand grips a fistful of the dress, pulling it up so as not to trip as she balances with her right arm stretched backwards.
Positioned just to the right of Shonibare's work is a second remarkable sculpture: Man with Bicycle, a Yoruba...