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Heroes
Principles of African Greatness
"A person is a person because [they] recognize others as persons."
-- Desmond Tutu, upon his election to Archbishop of Cape Town
"There is no story that is not true."
-- Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Be your best. This is the quest that the greatest of heroes model for us. Through their journeys, struggles, and triumphs, exceptional individuals exemplify values that we celebrate in tales of heroic accomplishment -- epics that outlast heroes themselves. Africa's history abounds with such tales.
Through art, artists tell such stories -- stories of the world's current complexity, but also visions of a world that could yet be. Heroes features a selection of permanent-collection works from the National Museum of African Art that tell the story of key heroic principles and personages in Africa's arts and history.
Consider the core values of leadership -- justice, integrity, generosity, and empathy among them -- and the types of leaders represented in the works on view here. You will find that each artwork is also paired with a specific historic African person who embodies the value expressed in the selected work. In Heroes you are invited to discover a wide range of Africa's heroes -- some well-known, others perhaps surprising -- and to see art works in new ways.
Heroes expresses the National Museum of African Art's commitment to the dignity, complexity, and universally accessible excellence of African art history, and to the telling of unique, compelling, and specific historical African stories. The artists assembled here invite us to imagine our roles in building a new future. |