ASSIGNMENT:

Please write a critical analysis paper on "Ife Head Brass Statue, from Nigeria", addressing TWO of the following points:

• How do we, today, understand the meaning of your object? Do we need to understand its intended meaning to value it?

• How does it measure our common humanity? Or how does it illustrate our differences?

• What does this work tell us about the role of the artist or maker in society?

• What is the significance of trade, travel and migration in the making of your object and in its reception? How do these factors affect its meaning and value?

• How does your visual object advance ideas of power?

• Discuss ideas of representation (abstraction, naturalism, realism)in the understanding of your object? How did these choices address or reflect larger cultural traditions?

• What questions would an art historian ask about this object? What questions would an anthropologist or an archaeologist ask of it?

• What are the politics surrounding the collection and display of your object?

• Are we to consider this object an artwork or an artefact and why?