ABSTRACT
Africa is a key issue on the Israeli public agenda. The chapter argues that the consumer's gesture is derived from the wish to avoid judgmental ethnocentricity in relation to the value of 'primitive' objects, in much the same way that African art is embraced by Euro-American art. The Israeli spectators and readers are geographically distant from Africa, yet they observe the objects, 'study' them, categorize and consume them, appropriate them for daily use and include them in the process of producing cultural hierarchie. The 'Africa Awakens' curriculum indicates that 'at the core of the instruction are the geographical regions of the evergreen forest and the desert, as well as the human problem of Negro peoples struggling to obtain independence'. The author would like to suggest that the familiarization of African primitive art was associated with the desire to discover Israeli 'local art'.
