Material Differences: Art and Identity in Africa reveals the traditions, rituals, and spiritual powers intrinsic to the materials used to create works of art in Africa. The choice of materials, which are profoundly significant, determines the social, economic and religious status of the objects themselves, their owners, and the artists who create them. To understand African art, then, we need to examine the different layers of meaning inherent in the material of each object.

Exhibition and catalogue edited and entries by Frank Herreman with contributions: Sculpting in Wood, Ivory, and Stone by Herman Burssens, A French Perspective on African 'Power Objects': Travel, Philosophical and Anthropological Accounts by Michelle Chadeisson, Earth Renews Earth: Igbo Mbari Houses by Herbert M. Cole, Iron Sculpture in Africa by William J. Dewey, Eravwe: An Ephemeral Urhobo Water Spirit Masquerade by Perkins Foss, "Brass Never Rusts, Lead Never Rots": Brass and Brasscasting in the Edo Kingdom of Benin by Paula Ben-Amos Girshick, Tupele Divination Materials and Their Relataive Symbolic Attributes by Manuel A. Jordan, Kalengula: Ephemeral Masks among the Luntu and Neighboring Peoples of the Democratic Republic on the Congo and Angola by Constantine Petridis, Leaf Masks Among the Bobo and the Bwa by Christopher D. Roy, African Ceramics by Jerome Vogel.

Published and distributed by the Museum for African Art, New York, and Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon, Gent. March 2003. 180 pp.

Cloth: ISBN 90-5349-458-8. Paper: ISBN 0-945802-34-X. LCCN 2003103198.