Museum of African Art - THE NIGHT OF MUSEUMS 2010 AT THE MUSEUM OF AFRICAN ART

Find out what Hairdresser and Barbershop Signs in Africa are like..?
Be brave: allow us to comb you, plait you, dread-lock you, decorate you... experience the enthusiasm and verve of Horkestar and their performance of revolutionary African songs...
and the talented young musicians from Jazz Caravan Academy 28.

The Museum of African Art will be participating for the fourth time in the pan-museum event NIGHT OF MUSEUMS, with an exhibition-based programme; the exhibition is Hairdresser and Barbershop Signs in Africa, by Nataša Njegovanovic Ristic, senior curator.

The Hairdresser and Barbershop Signs in Africa is the first exhibition to deal with the social importance of hair and hairstyles in Africa, the simultaneous presence of traditional and most popular hairstyles, and finally the appearance of advertising boards that have become a key segment of the urban landscape of almost every larger African city. Hair and hairstyles have positioned themselves in an ever-changing and dynamic African contemporaneity – the need to decorate remains, it is only the ways in which harmless human vanities and the wish for confirming one’s status and identity, that offer the opportunity for business exploitation and continue to reveal new forms and ways of visual communication.

The Museum of African Art aims at creating programmes that involve different forms of artistic potential and engagement, and in particular of younger artists thanks to who the program of this year’s Night of Museums will be made possible. The Jazz Caravan/Academy 28 takes to the spotlight first, starting at 7 p.m. The talented young musicians, aged 15 to 20, will perform Jazz standards. After the Caravan, at 9 p.m., the stage goes to the bold Horkestar (word play in Serbian combining Choir and Orchestra), whose “playlist” for this occasion is comprised of African revolutionary songs. Counting 30 members as an average number of performers, the Horkestar has grown out of an experiment and proven that it is possible to be creatively and socially engaged through team work in the form of choir.