New African art center at Philadelphia Museum of Art

The center will prioritize the study and care of African diasporic art. This is categorized as art made by African people who have dispersed all throughout the world. This allows the Brind Center to collaborate with other departments throughout the PMoA like The America’s department and its works that can be identified as African diasporic art as stated by Roach.

Some artifacts that museumgoers will be able to experience are beadwork hailing from western and southwestern Nigeria, as well as a mask from the same region.

Ira Brind, a Philadelphia Museum of Art Trustee, has donated his collection of African art to the museum for this center. Each piece from his collection has its own story and it took about 40 years to accumulate. The museum made him the namesake of the Center because of this contribution.

Brind has traveled the world to hunt down some of the pieces he now owns. One of the pieces that was collected by Brind is an approximately 250-year-old double ikat that was found in a person’s garage in Bali. An ikat is a textile where its threads were dyed and then woven, rather than the traditional practice of weaving and dying afterward.

Brind says that in conversation with both the museum’s CEO Sasha Suda and Chief Curator Carlos Basualdo, they all agreed that “what this center should be is not just travel artifacts… but really to be art of the diaspora: fine art, modern art, contemporary art. It’s going to try and be fairly broad-based.”

According to Brind, the museum is looking to have an opening exhibition in Spring of 2025, with regular exhibits to come two years later.