Afrikanische Masken und Skulpturen der Sammlung Karl-Josef Scheideler des Lippischen Landesmuse

Interiors and memorabilia Objects of human creation from sub-Saharan Africa have long fascinated people with their powerful expressiveness. Many of them have found their way into European museums. The small collection presented here, which consists primarily of sculptures and masks from West and Central Africa, was also donated to the Lippisches Landesmuseum Detmold a few years ago. Most of these pieces were made specifically for sale to foreign buyers and therefore belong to the field of "souvenir art". While the objects produced for sale to foreigners were rejected by some Western scholars and curators as "inauthentic" and not worthy of a museum until very recently, today they are recognised as a specific cultural phenomenon with its own ethnographic value. The Lippisches Landesmuseum built up an ethnographic collection in the 19th and early 20th centuries by taking over collections from diplomats, merchants and researchers who had a personal connection to the state of Lippe. Now it would like to fulfil its research and educational mission and use this collection of black African art to examine the hitherto neglected phenomenon of airport art. These objects are not only witnesses to their owners' desire to collect, but also offered travellers a chance to reflect on their experiences at home and keep alive the memory of their encounters with fascinating cultures.