Wooden Kwele MaskThe objects we categorise as African art have not always been regarded as art. Indeed, most of them were not made to become subject to aesthetic contemplation in Western art museums. They were usually made to serve a particular function in the everyday life of an African community, or in a particular ritual in such a community: in initiation ceremonies, in masquerading, in divination practices, in ancestor veneration, or to enhance the authority of leadership. However, once they were collected by European travellers, missionaries, ethnographers or colonial administrators, and transposed to public or private collections in Europe, they acquired new meanings. These meanings largely depended on the context in which they were located: artists' studios, ethnographic museums, art museums, etc. The modes of display determined how we looked at these objects. In other words, once these objects were taken out of their original context and recontextualised, their meanings radically changed as well. It has therefore been argued that objects have a social life (Appadurai 1986). Throughout their social lives, objects can have various stopovers, and are part of a sequel of diverse collections. Each of the objects we now consider art therefore has a biography, which can sometimes be documented. In the majority of cases, however, little is known about the biographies of objects.