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Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art Opens April
14 at The Griot Museum of Black History
Grass Roots:
African Origins of an American Art
will be on display April 14 through August 14 at The Griot
Museum of Black History (formerly The Blackworld History
Museum), 2505 St. Louis Ave.
This exhibition
traces the histories of coiled basketry in Africa and
America and explores the evolution of an ancient art.It
features baskets from the low country of South Carolina,
Georgia and diverse regions of Africa.The exhibition traces
the story of coiled basketry from the domestication of rice
in Africa, through the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the
Carolina rice plantation into the present.
Visitors to
The Griot will experience diverse artifacts including
baskets, basket-making tools and historic rice cultivation
artifacts.Grass
Roots
highlights
the remarkable beauty of coiled basketry and shows how the
market basket can be viewed simultaneously as a work of art,
object of use, and container of memory.This exhibition
presents the humble but beautifully crafted coiled basket,
made in Africa and the southern United States, and becomes a
prism in which audiences will learn about creativity and
artistry characteristic of Africans in America from the 17th
century to the present.
Community partners for “Grass Roots,” include the Regional
Arts Commission, St. Louis Art
Museum and
Missouri Arts Council.
The exhibition has been made possible by NEH on the
Road, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the
Humanities. Grass
Roots: African Origins of an American Art was organized
by the Museum for African Art in New York City, and co-curated by Chief Curator
Enid Schildkrout, Museum for African Art, and Curator and
Historian Dale Rosengarten College
of Charleston.
The exhibition is toured by Mid-America Arts Alliance
through NEH on the Road. NEH on the Road offers eight
different exhibitions for small to mid-sized communities
across the country. Mid-America Arts Alliance was founded in
1972 and is the oldest regional nonprofit arts organization
in the U.S.
The Griot is
open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Admission during the Grass Roots exhibition is $7.50
for adults, $3.75 for children 12 and under.
For more information, call 314-241-7057 or visit us
on the internet at thegriotmuseum.com or on Facebook.
For more information, call 314-241-7057 or visit the Griot’s website, thegriotmuseum.com
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