This group show hopes to provide an insight into the  landscape and wildlife as well as the culture of individual countries on the African continent. Some of this work is familiar, such as Leni Riefenstahl's excellent work for the beautiful tribe of the Nuba. That said, problematic contemporary social circumstances are not ignored, like the photo reportages by Thomas Billhardt, Robert Lebeck and Oliver Jannsen show. They focus on the social upheavals after the colonial rule, in particular that of Congo, or the impact of the HIV pandemic.

The American artist Kurt Markus concentrates on the widths of the Sahara desert with a series of dune landscapes. Nick Brands' portraits of African animals are quite good, notably the Elephant seires. Moroccan born Magnum-photographer Bruno Barbey produced a color series on Morocco and elements of Islamic architecture.

Riefenstahl's  photographs of the Sudanese native people in the 1960's are supplemented with portrait studies of Ethiopian tribes, the "Surma" and "Kara" photographed by Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher. Another highlight in this context is the work by Irving Penn that had been commissioned by Vogue in 1967 showing the "Dahomey Girls".

© Leni Riefenstahl
Nuba-Dorf, Sudan, 1962-1969
Photo courtesy of Camera Work Gallery

This exhibition celebrates the occasion of the recovery of the painting Ruth and Naemi by Julius Hübner (1806-1882). In 2005, after 60 years of being listed as a work lost during the War, the painting was discovered in a Berlin flee market. It was returned to the Nationalgalerie and restored.

Julius Hübner, who today is rarely known for more than his connection with the Düsseldorf school of painting, is introduced with a selection of his works. A second part of the exhibition illustrates the origins and the history of the painting as well as its reception in the context of 19th century art.

Georg-Kolbe-Museum
Sensburger Allee 25
14055 Berlin-Charlottenburg

Ivory and bronze sculptures from the West African Kingdom of Benin, in present-day Nigeria, are among the continent’s most important and valuable works of art. The detailed workmanship and outstanding aesthetic quality of Benin’s royal sculpture has been compared to the work of the celebrated Renaissance artist, Cellini. Its wealth of iconographic detail conveys the sumptuousness of the royal court and its historical importance as a regional powerhouse in West Africa from the 16th through the 19th centuries.

In Benin – 600 Years of Court Art from Nigeria over 300 selected objects offer a broad survey of the royal arts and culture of the Kingdom of Benin from its inception in the fourteenth century to its overthrow by British forces in the late nineteenth century; the exhibition further documents the kingdom’s reconstitution during the colonial period and its continuity into the twenty-first century.

After Berlin, this show travels to the Art Institute of Chicago:  June 27 – September 21, 2008.

Ethnologisches Museum
Lansstrasse 8
14195 Berlin
Germany

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major 
Berlioz: Te Deum 

Berliner Philharmoniker
Claudio Abbado, conductor
Maurizio Pollini, piano
Marius Brenciu, tenor
Iveta Apkalna, organ
Rundfunkchor Berlin
Simon Halsey Chorus Master
Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Robert Blank, Chorus Master
Knaben des Staats- und Domchors Berlin
Rundfunk-Kinderchor Berlin
Berliner Mädchenchor
Mädchenchor der Sing-Akademie zu Berlin
sowie weitere Kinderchöre
Kai-Uwe Jirka