ART ON VIEW 98 and sacrifi cial residue (fi g. 8), while others reveal gaping holes or cavities where ritual materials have been removed. As a group, these objects not only address questions of creation, but of change over time, including questions about who altered them in their journeys from original context to Western museum collections. The fi nal section of the exhibition shows how researchers use close and comparative looking to develop insights about objects’ production, use, and meaning. A centerpiece of this section is the scholarship of Kathryn Wysocki Gunsch, African curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, who arrived at important new historical insights about Benin plaques by closely examining more than 600 plaques in person.6 Looking at these works in the round revealed a connection between fl anges and plaque size that has prompted Gunsch to make an unprecedented argument about display in their original context. What is more, her attention to the reverse sides of the plaques led her to the conclusion that molds were employed in their production, enabling her to develop plaque lineages and develop new hypotheses about workshops and dating. Visitors are invited to explore these arguments through examination of a plaque in the round (fi g. 10) alongside an animation of plaques installed in a hypothetical palace developed in partnership with Gunsch. That is, they are invited to see what looking again and again, closely and comparatively, has revealed to the specialist and how they can engage this tool and develop perspectives on works of art that might otherwise seem distant. Belgian computer engineer Frederic Cloth’s research on Kota reliquary fi gures is also highlighted in this section. The Penn Museum’s extensive collection of Kota fi gures in addition to two works from the PMA’s collection are installed as a fl oating group on the exhibition’s back wall (fi gs. 3 and 11). This display invites visitors to identify similarities and differences between fi gures and grapple with the challenge of making sense of difference. Similar features suggest basic connections between objects;
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