‘Heroic Africans’ at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum

...a quick stroll through this exhibition’s eight sections, each devoted to a different West or Central African art tradition, confirms African art’s variety, in a stylistic spectrum stretching from detail-perfect representation to near-abstraction. And as to African art’s pertinence to Western concerns, suffice it to say that almost all the sculpture in this exhibition is asking a question that is foremost on the mind of many Americans in the early stages of the presidential campaign: what are the qualities we want and need in our political leaders?