All photos courtesy of the Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, except where otherwise noted
When it opened on October 21, 2011, the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison displayed the first permanent installation of African art in the University's history (Fig. 1). The gallery's forty-two works, representing about one-fifth of the museum's total collections, were assembled through piecemeal donations and the concerted efforts of faculty members. They stand as testaments to the shifting acquisition and pedagogical priorities of various institutional stakeholders over the previous six decades. While some of these works would find pride of place at any major museum, many also display long histories of adaptation in and out of the continent and/or could be classified as forgeries, reproductions, or works intended for the tourist market. Others are products of ongoing cross-cultural or cross-historical dialogues, or come from contexts that otherwise fall...