MoMA Explores Africa’s Independence Era

MoMA is shifting its focus toward African modernisms. With “Architects of Liberation: Modernism in Western Africa,” on view through January 2, 2027, the museum reexamines West African architecture through the lens of decolonization, Pan-Africanism, and Africanization policies, featuring some 450 drawings, models, photographs, and archival materials. In the summer of 2027, “Freedom and Futures: Emancipatory Art in Africa, 1956–1982” will expand on this reinterpretation. Focusing on Zimbabwe, Senegal, Algeria, Nigeria, and South Africa, the exhibition will examine how artists accompanied the independence movements and shaped new national narratives, drawing in particular on the major Pan-African congresses and festivals of the era. These two exhibitions confirm the growing interest of major institutions in African modernisms, which have long remained on the margins of global art history.

Senegal International Foreign Trade Center (CICES), Dakar, designed in 1971–1974 by architects Jean-François Lamoureux and Jean-Louis Marin. Photo © Michel Fegyveres
Senegal International Foreign Trade Center (CICES), Dakar, designed in 1971–1974 by architects Jean-François Lamoureux, and Jean-Louis Marin. Photo © Michel Fegyveres

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Toni Maraini teaches art history at the Casablanca School of Fine Arts, 1965. Photo: Mohamed Melehi, courtesy of the Toni Maraini Archives.

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Louisa Babari, AFRICA, 2025. Based on “Fragment of a Statue of a Woman,” Constantine, Algeria. © Louisa Babari

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