Elvis Mask To Be Featured in African Innovations at the Brooklyn Museum

An unusual mask of Elvis Presley goes on view today, August 12, 2011, as part of a new installation titled African Innovations. Worn by members of the Nyau, a secret society of the Chewa peoples, who live in central Malawi, the mask was used in ritualistic dances for events like initiation ceremonies, chief coronations, and funerals.

African Innovations features 200 of the finest objects from the Museum's renowned collection of African art in recently renovatEd Gallery space on the first floor.

The Brooklyn Museum was the first museum in America to display African objects as works of art and has one of the largest and most important collections in the country. African Innovations continues the Museum's pioneering history in the field, inviting the visitor to examine the Museum's world-famous collection with new eyes and to celebrate centuries of African creativity. The installation will remain on view while the galleries in which the African collection have been installed since 1935 undergo large-scale renovation.

This reinstallation has been organized by Kevin Dumouchelle, Assistant Curator, Arts of Africa and the Pacific Islands, Brooklyn Museum.

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/