The Performance of Authenticity: Issues in the Market of African Tribal Art

The art market depends on determining a fair-market value of an object, but it is difficult to place monetary value on objects that were originally created for non-commercial purposes. Value is highly correlated with authenticity, but because of the nature of tribal arts, the notion of authenticity is vague and difficult to define because there is no real measurement. For African tribal art, one of the determinants of the art object's authenticity is the object's perceived contextual usage. Older objects were more likely to be produced specifically for rituals and not to be bought and sold; therefore, there would have been no need for creators to attribute their work. Tribal objects that have a substantial record of use in cultural events are almost guaranteed to be more valuable than an object that has no such track record. This thesis discusses the prevalent problems with regards to authenticity that arise in the pre-colonial African art market.