MIA Affinity Groups are a great way for museum members to connect more closely with special areas of art interest. more »

Enthusiast ($100 per year/household/Affinity Group): Provides admission to three annual programs (e.g., lectures and gallery tours), e-newsletters, with insider information from the curatorial department(s) of your choice.

Collector ($1,000 per year/household/Affinity Group): Provides all the above, plus invitations to annual events with curators, dealers, and visiting scholars, travel opportunities, and other curator-developed programs focused around collecting in the curatorial department(s) of your choice.

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The vast continent of Africa is home to many peoples, societies, and civilizations, each with unique forms of aesthetic expression. Dramatic abstraction—particularly of the human figure—is often associated with African art, whose radical aesthetic exerted enormous influence on European artists in the first half of the 20th century. The MIA’s collection of sub-Saharan art began in the 1950s with a magnificent Luba mask and two ancient Benin sculptures. It has grown steadily ever since and now includes Ethiopian paintings, Moroccan silver jewelry, central African textiles, a 600-year-old Djenne horse-and-rider (left), and many other outstanding artworks.

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Jan-Lodewijk Grootaers, Ph.D.
Curator of African Art
Head of the Arts of Africa & the Americas
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