Maastricht's eagerly awaited annual antique and fine art fair, widely acknowledged as the supreme event of its kind, promises a wide and interesting range of tribal art this year. TEFAF regulars Anthony Meyer and Bernard De Grunne will be joined by Entwistle Gallery this time around, and in the salon's Showcase section, Gallery Dierking of Cologne will also be showing African art. In addition, Polak Works of Art, one of the last generalists, will present a selection of ethnographic art as per usual.

Maastricht Exhibition & Congress Centre
Forum 100
6229 GV Maastricht
The Netherlands
Tél: +31 43 383 83 83

Paris auction house Rossini will present a diverse sale of tribal art and archaeological artifacts at the Hôtel Druout on March 16. The tribal works on offer will represent a wide range of world cultures, including objects from the pre-Columbian Americas, Oceania, Africa, the Himalayas, and many quarters of Asia. A selection of natural history specimens will round out the eclectic sale, along with archaeological items from the Classical world and the Near East.

7 rue Rossini
75009 Paris
Tél: +33 01 53 34 55 00

Auctioneers Zemanek-Münster will present their sixtieth sale of tribal art on March 13. Amidst a group of over 400 lots emphasizing the traditional arts of Central Africa, Nigeria, and Côte d'Ivoire, the highlight will be a Fang-Betsi figure from Cameroon with a high estimate of 150,000 euros.

Zemanek-Münster
Hörleingasse 3-5
D-97070 Würzburg
Tel: +49 931 17721

Sotheby's Paris will inaugurate its calendar of tribal art sales for 2010 with a presentation of the Rosenthal Collection of Oceanic Art on March 24. Over thirty outstanding objects will be put before the bidders, including a series of eight sculptures from New Ireland, the largest and most important assemblage of art from this region offered in recent years. Bidding is expected to be particularly intense for a number of the objects on offer, including a New Ireland malanggan figure once owned by Eluard de Vlaminck, two pieces by New Guinea master carver Mutuaga, a pair of Easter Island figures, and a large Maori hei tiki.

A new exhibition showcasing the traditional arts of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia opens at the Bowers Museum on February 20. Featuring more than 150 tribal objects, Spirits and Headhunters vividly presents the complex and exquisite blend of artistic sensitivity and spiritual essence found in the art of the Pacific, strikingly suffused in each artifact the installation has to offer. Associated with the esoteric men's house of the Sepik River region, the works on display include shamanic items, beautifully crafted ornaments, weaponry, shell and feather currency, splendid feast bowls, and the most precious of human trophies––the human skull––taken in a spirit of retribution and reverence.

Confluences in Clay presents something of an aesthetic experiment, commingling traditional African ceramics from several Spanish private collections with modern and contemporary ceramics drawn from the reserves of the Museu de Ceràmica. Differing vastly in the conceits which underlie their realization––anonymity and functional calculus in the case of the African works; subjectivity and dedication to the pure celebration of the Beautiful as regards Western ceramics––there nevertheless exists a current of formal correspondences between these two realms of art. A phenomenon of convergence or of direct influence? Such is the question that motivates the exhibition, inspiring a meditation on the universal character of the Object.

The third great anthropological exhibition at the Musée du Quai Branly welcomes visitors to discover a "factory of images" that touches all the world's inhabited continents. Featuring 160 traditional works, the exhibition invites audiences to contemplate and decode humanity's great artistic and material creations, to delve deeper and reveal in an image what can't initially be seen.

This winter, Galerie Ángel Martín of Madrid is hosting an exhibition on a subject seldom tackled: the use of color in the traditional arts of Africa. Visitors will discover an ensemble of forty-five objects at the gallery––including masks, sculptures, utilitarian objects, and more––with surfaces colored by the addition of pigments, metal plates, or glass. Beyond the objects themselves, the event also provides an occasion to consider the symbolic value system of color and the evocative force of the principal colors employed in African ritual art.

A new landmark exhibition at the Museo di Santa Giulia in Brescia offers visitors a chance to witness the greatest assemblage of ancient Peruvian art yet conceived. Featuring goldwork, feathered objects, ceramics, and more, the show boasts over 270 items drawn from the collections of the most important museums in Peru, presented in a display of spectacular museography that aims to dazzle the viewer. The material on exhibit is also accompanied by a range of multimedia content, allowing deeper investigation into the enchanting world of the ancient Inca.

Currently on view at the Musée Barbier-Mueller, this exhibition presents an array of objects and ornaments that emphasize the beauty of the gemological and natural materials from which they were created. Treasures from all world regions and eras, fashioned of gold and silver, encrusted with stones or pearls, forged of bronze or iron, crafted from ivory, wood, shells, feathers, or jade, these jewels of the Barber-Mueller collection are presented in dialogue with amazing crystalline and mineral specimens of astonishing beauty.