Frist Art Museum Presents Dynamic Exhibition Highlighting Contemporary West African Masquerade Artists

New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations

October 10, 2025–January 4, 2026

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 4, 2025 /PRNewswire/ --The Frist Art Museum presents New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations, an exhibition that offers a rare and close look at contemporary West African masquerade. Organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art, in partnership with Musée des Civilisations noires in Dakar, Senegal, the exhibition will be on view in the Frist's Ingram Gallery from October 10, 2025, through January 4, 2026.

New African Masquerades highlights the stories of four contemporary masquerade artists, their motivations, artistic choices, and the patronage and economic networks with which they engage. Through the presentation of works of Chief Ekpenyong Bassey Nsa (Calabar, Nigeria), Sheku "Goldenfinger" Fofanah (Freetown, Sierra Leone), David Sanou (Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso), and Hervé Youmbi (Douala and the Grassfields of Cameroon), the exhibition offers fresh research models for contemporary masquerade, bringing to the fore issues relating to ownership and research ethics.

A collaboration between an international team of scholars and artists, this is the first major exhibition on contemporary West African masquerade artists to focus on individual creators rather than presenting of masquerades as products of entire cultures, which undermines the nuanced and layered stories that individual artists and masquerades tell.

The term masquerade has many different meanings across different cultures and communities, but it can be loosely defined as a broad set of practices wherein individuals and societies dance in full-body, multimedia ensembles. These ensembles are then activated in many ways, including in performances, processions, and other ceremonies by either the masquerade artist or another practitioner. 

"Masquerade is among the most vibrant, dynamic, and long-standing expressive art forms found around the world today," writes Amanda M. Maples, the Françoise Billion Richardson Curator of African Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art. "Centering the artists' voices offers a new perspective on masquerade arts, and their ensembles demonstrate that creativity in African masquerade is fundamentally contemporary, highly collaborative and innovative in nature, socially and geographically mobile, and innately connected to global markets."

New African Masquerades showcases 13 head-to-toe masquerade ensembles created for social, spiritual, entertainment, and museum contexts. Made from materials including wood, cloth and fabrics, sequins, feathers, gourds, raffia, and cowrie shells, these ensembles represent a wide variety of masquerade practices and societies. Nearly all the ensembles were commissioned expressly for this exhibition, and some genres have not previously been authorized for display to audiences abroad. In addition to ensembles, the exhibition includes photography, recorded interviews, and an immersive video experience showing never-before-seen 360-degree footage, including views of the ensembles being performed, glimpses into the artists' studios, and clips sharing the perspectives of the artists. Breeze blocks—common architectural elements used in the cities where the artists live and work—are used as an exhibition design component with each artist represented by a unique pattern displayed alongside their ensembles.

Created with the support and participation of the artists, masquerade societies, and their communities, the immersive experience and videos offer visitors the extraordinary opportunity to see masquerades rarely displayed in the U.S. These additional exhibition components underscore the importance of music, movement, libations, skillful presentation, and audience participation to masquerade more broadly. 

Some masquerades—such as those of Bassey Nsa within the Ekpe Society of Calabar, Nigeria—hold political and didactic significance; others—like Fofanah's designs for Jollay and Ordehlay in Sierra Leone—are primarily social and celebrate holidays. Still others are created to honor a life well lived—as is the case with some of Sanou's work in Burkina Faso—or to explore legacies, as Youmbi demonstrates. Some are private, and others are paraded through the streets. And contrary to many static museum presentations, masquerade is almost always defined by movement, theatricality, and audience participation.

In addition to being a featured artist, Youmbi—whose work directly addresses the ethical questions inherent in presenting masquerades internationally—serves as a core member of the exhibition planning and curatorial team.

"My work over the last ten years has taken the form of hybrid masks that challenge the clichés and categories to which masks from Africa have generally been confined," Youmbi said. "Addressing the question of new masks in Africa today is not just about the aesthetics and ethics of collaborations that govern the creation of new objects and living entities from Africa. It's also, and above all, a question of envisaging new ways of collecting and exhibiting them."

Beyond highlighting the works of four specific artists, the exhibition and accompanying catalogue present a case study in the methodology of producing a collaborative, cross-continental exhibition. Considering topics such as the ethics of presenting masquerade works in a museum context, traveling ensembles within and beyond the African continent, provenance, and cultural ownership, with contributions from African and North American scholars and artists, New African Masquerades suggests an ethically grounded transparent model for contemporary exhibition-making related to African art.

"In developing this exhibition, it has been crucial to reframe masquerade as a vibrant contemporary practice that both honors past genres and relates to a global present," says Maples. "Museum visitors will leave with a better view of masquerade as a rich collection of artistic practices today." 

Martin ArtQuest, the Frist's award-winning art-making space, will feature new interactive stations thematically connected to New African Masquerades. Guests can use beads and string to make textile art pieces, create their own breeze block designs inspired by those displayed in the exhibition, and learn more about the artists' native languages. At the Drawing in the Round station, the mannequin will be adorned with a Jaguda ensemble from the Jollay society in Sierra Leone. For young guests, there will be a themed children's book reading list and take-home instructions to make a mini mobile.

Catalogue
Available in the Frist's gift shop, the accompanying 264-page exhibition catalogue is published by the New Orleans Museum of Art and D Giles Limited and distributed by Yale University Press. Authored by Jordan A. Fenton, Lisa Homann, Amanda M. Maples, and Hervé Youmbi and with additional contributions from Kevin Dumouchelle, Ndubuisi Ezeluomba, Ishmeal A. Kamara, and Aimé Kantoussan, the volume includes 188 color and black-and-white illustrations; artist biographies; in-depth analyses of masquerade ensembles in relation to themes of collaboration, economics, innovation, and mobility; and a discussion of the methodologies for ethically commissioning and acquiring masquerade art.

Exhibition Credit

New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations is organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art, in partnership with Musée des Civilisations noires in Dakar, Senegal, and received generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities

Supporter Acknowledgment

Platinum Sponsor: HCA Healthcare/TriStar Health

Education and Community Engagement Supporters: Nissan Foundation and Windgate Foundation

Supported in part by Ameriprise Financial

The Frist Art Museum is supported in part by The Frist Foundation, Metro Arts, and the Tennessee Arts Commission, which receives funding in part from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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About the Frist Art Museum
Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Frist Art Museum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit art exhibition center dedicated to presenting and originating high-quality exhibitions with related educational programs and community outreach activities. Located at 919 Broadway in downtown Nashville, Tenn., the Frist Art Museum offers the finest visual art from local, regional, national, and international sources in exhibitions that inspire people through art to look at their world in new ways. Information on accessibility can be found at FristArtMuseum.org/accessibility. Gallery admission is free for guests ages 18 and younger and for members, and $20 for adults. For current hours and additional information, visit FristArtMuseum.org or call 615.244.3340.  

SOURCE Frist Art Museum