Even after European modernists discovered African art, it remained outside the global art-historical canon. And that word—discovered—is itself problematic. The Brooklyn Museum has placed 20 works from the African continent alongside 13 objects from around the globe. This visual dialogue explores how faith, modernism, and portraiture developed in Africa, as compared to other continents. Among the pieces on display: a magnificent 18th-century Kuba sculpture, 14th- to 16th-century Ethiopian Orthodox processional crosses, and a mid-20th-century Sierra Leonean Ordehlay. —E.C.