Perspective Angles of African Art

For most people living in the Ivory Coast it is a symbol of modernity and advancing technology because it is the logo of Energie Electrique de Cote d'lvoire, the national electric power company. There are, of course, myriad examples of similar radical, unplanned shifts in the meanings of works of art, most of them not African. There is every evidence that in Africa for centuries art forms have moved from one ethnic group to another without retaining their original meanings. Thus a masquerade whose main significance was the exposition of clan histories and relationships was adopted by a neighboring people who, having no clans, altered it slightly, and attributed to it a new meaning relevant to hierarchies