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"I Am the Shark"

Liminal Beings in African Cultures

  • Date iconFebruary 15 2026
  • Curator: Yael Eshel
  • Designer: Eyal Rozen
  • Faith-Dorian and Martin Wright Gallery for African Art

This exhibition focuses on figures whose defining characteristic is a perpetual state of liminality – beings for whom “in-between” is not a temporary condition but a constant one. Supernatural entities, kings, and spiritual specialists live between realms. Their liminal state is often expressed visually through symbols and objects that reflect their fluctuating existence.

A hallmark of these beings is the fluidity of their identity, which shifts between categories: Human and animal, mortal and divine, outsider and insider, chaos and order. Many of them act as intermediaries between the human and divine realms and are linked to physical sites of transition and choice – such as crossroads, markets, or thresholds. Their indeterminate nature is often expressed through symbols that traverse worlds. For instance, animals that live both in water and on land, or on land and in the air, embody passage between the earthly and the divine. The objects shown here reflect an effort to engage with distinctive socio-cultural phenomena governed by their own laws in which notions of power and danger are closely intertwined.

 

Banner
Fon people, Dahomey Kingdom, present-day Republic of Benin
20th century
Cotton appliqué
Gift of Audrey Kaplan Scher and Harvey Scher, Jerusalem
Photo: © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Elie Posner and Zohar Shemesh
Royal Procession
Fon people, The Republic of Benin
20th century
Brass and wood
Gift of Terry and Lionel Bell, Los Angeles, to American Friends of the Israel Museum
Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Elie Posner
Plaque with a depiction of a mudfish
Benin Kingdom, present-day Nigeria
16th–17th century
Brass
Bequest of Benjamin Weiss, New York, to American Friends of the Israel Museum
Photo: © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Elie Posner and Zohar Shemesh
Medicinal compound containers with animal-shaped stoppers
Tsonga-Shangaan people, South Africa, late 20th century
Gourd, horn, wood, glass beads, leather, secret materials, string and pigments
Gift of Natalie Knight, Johannesburg
Photo: © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Elie Posner and Zohar Shemesh
Figure of the deity Eshu
Yoruba people, Nigeria
Late 19th–early 20th century
Wood, cowrie shells and leather
Gift of Cedric H. and Daisy Marks, New York
to the America-Israel Cultural Foundation
Photo: © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Elie Posner and Zohar Shemesh
Diviner’s bag (apo Ifá)
Yoruba people, Nigeria
Early 20th century
Cloth, glass beads, leather
Gift of Lisa Bradley, New York,
to American Friends of the Israel Museum,
in memory of Adam Bradley
Photo: © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Elie Posner
Museum Admission Tickets