Looking at the white guys

"For centuries Euro-American eyes have been trained on Africa. We’ve scanned it from afar, surveyed it up close, put it behind glass; looked and looked, wonderingly, acquisitively, disdainfully, fearfully. But we rarely seem to be aware that during all that time Africans have been looking back at us — wonderingly, acquisitively, disdainfully, fearfully. A remarkable exhibition called “Through African Eyes: The European in African Art, 1500 to Present,” which opens Sunday at the Detroit Institute of Arts, gives a vivid hint of what they’ve seen."

Holland Cotter writes for the New York Times about a new exhibition that shows the image of the European in African art. Slide show available here.



photo © NY Times