“Beyond Borders” at UMMA @ Hyperallergic

ANN ARBOR, Michigan — Three years ago, as Laura De Becker prepared to assume her position as the inaugural Helmut and Candis Stern Associate Curator of African Art at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), she did so with the personal determination to create an exhibition that would put UMMA’s expansive, largely historical, African art holdings in conversation with the contemporary art of the continent.

During a tour through the exhibition, Beyond Borders: Global Africa , with Hyperallergic, De Becker, who holds a PhD from the University of East Anglia, characterized UMMA’s African collection as “Starting in the 1930s, [from] mostly local collectors who donated their collections —with especially strong work from Central Africa.” DeBecker is a specialist in Central African art and came to UMMA following a fellowship at Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa.

“The contemporary art market in South Africa is very strong, very vibrant,” she said, “so I really wanted to bring some of that dynamism here.”

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