African art

Conjure up a mental image of African art, and you probably don't think of a striking photograph snapped by a Namibian woman, or a textured vase created by a woman from Ghana.

"African art is almost always the art of men," said Romona Riscoe Benson, president and chief executive of the African American Museum in Philadelphia.

An exhibition set to open at the museum today seeks to alter that image. "The Art of African Women: Empowering Traditions" features more than 100 photographs by the acclaimed photojournalist Margaret Courtney-Clarke, as well as pottery, textiles, beadwork and other decorative arts created by women from all over Africa.

Courtney-Clarke spent more than two decades traveling through Africa, trying to document the beauty created by the women of the continent - artists who work creatively despite a struggle with social, political and economic challenges.

The result, Benson said, is stunning.

"We're so excited to be able to showcase talented women," Benson said.

The exhibition, open through May 6, comes from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. It is lent support by no less a voice than poet Maya Angelou, a good friend of Courtney-Clarke's.

"I met her, and she offered to be as supportive as she needed to be to promote the exhibit in Philadelphia," Benson said. "To have her pitching the exhibit, to us was such an honor."

Angelou and Courtney-Clarke - who splits her time between Africa and her home in Italy - are scheduled to travel to Philadelphia sometime in March to visit the show.

The museum also has gathered a committee of 100 women of influence in the Philadelphia region - names ranging from Dittie Guise, chief operating officer of the Convention Center, to Meryl Levitz, of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp. - to lend their support.

That collection of women, Benson said, has a power of its own.

"There is a universal sisterhood as it relates to the issues of self-empowerment," she said. "We think that comes across through the content of the exhibit as well as an assemblage of such a strong group of women."

For her part, Courtney-Clarke said Philadelphia was a good fit for the show.

"Americans, especially African Americans, have been a wonderful public for me all these years," she said. "They are the buyers of my books. It's a natural place for me to be exhibiting."

Americans, who for the most part "don't have a foggy idea" about Africa, need illumination on the subject, Courtney-Clarke said.

"Everything is so arid and so barren and so harsh - Americans have a really different idea of what Africa is like, because we do have so much on television that is negative. Not much has really been exposed about the positive aspects," Courtney-Clarke said.

And the places and art forms she captured with her camera are fast disappearing, with a large-scale migration to cities.

"The younger generation are not the least bit interested in painting symbols on the walls of their mud houses when they could be living in an apartment, so they think," Courtney-Clarke said.

That visitors will be able to experience important, vanishing artistic traditions makes the works all the more important, Benson said.

"We're looking for this exhibition to be the cornerstone of our 2007 exhibition season," Benson said. "We hope it signifies to the public the reintroduction of high-quality exhibitions from the African American Museum in Philadelphia."

"The Art of African Women: Empowering Traditions" opens today at the African American Museum, 701 Arch St., and runs through May 6. The opening reception will be at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.

It features more than 100 photographs taken by Namibian-born photojournalist Margaret Courtney-Clarke over 20 years, and a range of African interior and exterior housing design, pottery, textiles, beadwork, and other decorative arts.

There is a section of the exhibition tail-

ored to children, with object-based learning.

The museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, noon to 5 Sundays. It will be open Monday for Martin Luther King's Birthday, with related pro- gramming. Admission for adults is $8, $6 for children, senior citizens, students, and the disabled. The museum is han- dicapped-accessible. Information: 215-574-0380, www.aampmuseum.org.

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