Frist Art Museum to Present NEW AFRICAN MASQUERADES

The Frist Art Museum will present 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.

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. 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.

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.

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