In ‘African Origin’ Show at Met, New Points of Light Across Cultures

Holdings from Ancient Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa come together in a masterpiece show. Now the Met should make clear how the wondrous works got here.

Object for object, there isn’t an exhibition in town more beautiful than “The African Origin of Civilization” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nor is there one more shot through with ethical and political tensions.

The gathering of 42 sculptures in one of the Met’s Egyptian galleries unites, for the first time here, pieces from its Ancient Egyptian and sub-Saharan African holdings, centuries apart (the earliest sub-Saharan work on view is from the 13th century). The pretext for the display is a practical one. It immediately follows the recent closure for renovation of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing and its Arts of Africa galleries (the wing is scheduled to reopen in 2024). This is a way to keep some of its treasures on view and to forthrightly acknowledge Africa itself as the wellspring of human culture.

The show comes at a time when the history of African art in Western museums — how it got there, how it’s treated — is under scrutiny. The Met’s holdings from the African continent have always been installed in two sections located far apart — literally at opposite ends of the Fifth Avenue building — reflecting antiquated, racist Western distinctions between “high” culture (Egypt) and “primitive” culture (most of the rest of Africa). The show makes a gesture of unification, though, architecture being destiny, the old division will presumably remain intact on a larger scale within the museum’s geography after the Rockefeller wing renovation.