Highlighting the strong bond between a collector and an art dealer, Shared Passion explores a remarkable collection of African art assembled in the twenty-first century This book documents and celebrates the patience and perseverance of, and the friendship between, the Belgian collector Michel Vandenkerckhove and the Belgian art dealer and gallerist Didier Claes, and the exceptional African art collection that is the result of their collaboration.  Alongside stunning black and white images of masks, figures, and utilitarian objects from numerous sites across the African continent and from a variety of time periods, essays by art historian Bruno Claessens expound on the most interesting aspects of this collection. Four separate topics are examined in depth: the abstract guardian figures of the Kota, the power statues of the Kongo, the enigmatic art of the Lega, and the much-loved ikhoko pendants of the Pende. An innovative graphic design, featuring photography by Hughes Dubois, shines a light on this extraordinary collection, available to the public for the first time through this publication. Distributed for Mercatorfonds

The Baule people of the Ivory Coast are renowned for their refined sculptural work of masks and figures. This book is the first to focus exclusively on an antithetic aspect of Baule culture-rough zoomorphic sculptures representing monkeys. These awe-inspiring bowl-bearing figures evoke invisible powers and serve their communities through the mediation of diviners. Investigating the creation, forms, and usage of the sculptures, the authors shed light on the cultural and ritual contexts in which they operated. Beautifully illustrated with over 55 full-page color images of works in public and private collections, this important publication also includes many unpublished field photographs. Distributed for Mercatorfonds