Micro Monumentality. A Tribute to Miniature Works of African Art. The Pierluigi Peroni Collection.

Micromonumentality is the first title in a series, Micro-Africa, that highlights the artistic and cultural value of miniature objects created in Africa. The first volume introduces the concept behind the series, offering a broad overview of objects and materials created and used by a large number of different African ethnic groups. With superb full-page photographs and close-ups of individual details, Micromonumentality extols the wealth of expression found in talismans, weights, boxes, containers, fetishes, jewels, and other objects made from wood, ivory, bone, bronze, iron, aluminum, and stone. None of these exceed 6 inches in height or length, and though they are indeed “microscopic,” they are as expressive as much larger works, and “monumental” in their own right. Here, approximately 150 objects from a unique collection of 20,000 pieces represent the quintessence of African thought, religiosity, and prodigious formal inventiveness.

A graduate from the École du Louvre et de lettres classiques at the Sorbonne, Bérénice Geoffroy-Schneiter is an art historian and journalist who specializes in archaeology and ethnology. She has published many books on the art of costume and the primal arts and has been editor-in-chief of the review Tribal Art.