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Tag: Warren G. Robbins Library

Roundtable on Artists’ Books – September 16th

To commemorate the opening of our newest exhibit, Artists’ Books and Africa, six artists will discuss how they develop and produce artist books. Panelists will address the inspiration for and recurring themes within their creations. The history of artist books in Africa will also be discussed. Curator Janet Stanley will lead a tour of the exhibit immediately following the discussion.

 

Swahili Coast: Exploration by French Captain Charles Guillain, 1846-1848. Part 3, Encounters and Partnerships

The blog post, last of three, was written by Xavier Courouble, research assistant for Sailors and Daughters: Early Photography and the Indian Ocean, an online exhibition part of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art’s Connecting the Gems of the Indian Ocean: From Oman to East Africa.

Charles Guillain’s three-volume work, Documents sur l’histoire, la géographie, et le commerce de l’Afrique orientale and the accompanying atlas folio of lithographs and map engravings, Voyage à la côte orientale d’Afrique give an account of travels undertaken in a pre-colonial context, where European explorers politically and logistically depended on the African inhabitants and sovereigns they encountered in Africa. The interactions experienced by Guillain and his African counterparts allowed for a reaffirmation of exploration as an encounter and a partnership rather than as an unequal confrontation constructing insurmountable otherness.

Swahili Coast: Exploration by French Captain Charles Guillain, 1846-1848. Part 2, Campaign Description

VoyageaYlacoYteAtlaBayo_0113The blog post, second of three, was written by Xavier Courouble, research assistant for Sailors and Daughters: Early Photography and the Indian Ocean, an online exhibition part of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art’s Connecting the Gems of the Indian Ocean: From Oman to East Africa. Read the first post in the series here.

From 1836 to 1848, successively in command of the corvette “La Prévoyante,” “La Dordogne,” and finally the frigate “Le Ducouëdic,” Charles Guillain (1808-1875) navigated the Indian Ocean from the Cape of Good Hope to the western coast of the Indian sub-continent.  During his several missions he accumulated extensive knowledge on Zanzibar, Madagascar, the Comoros, as well as the Swahili and Somali coast of Africa.  Accounts of these expeditions were all published and gave this St. Simonien a solid reputation of ethnologist and geographer.  Yet a certain degree of confusion remains of the political and commercial purposes of his ambitious campaigns of exploration, influenced by personal convictions, regional aspirations, and France’s global interest in the region.

A Visit from Co-op City and an Artists’ Book for the Collection

 

The full artists' book displayed
Over 30 feet of the artists’ book displayed

This summer the Warren M. Robbins Library, National Museum of African Art (AfA) and the American Art Museum/National Art Museum Library (AAPG) hosted a group of 54 visitors from Co-op City in the Bronx, NY to recognize the acquisition of an artists’ book into the AAPG Library’s collection.