Paa Joe, whose real name is Joseph Tetteh Ashong, is known for making coffins. But not just any coffins. The Ghanaian artist is famous for his fantasy coffins, carved to resemble lions, turtles, rhinos, fish—creations that are now in the collections of major museums. The exhibition “Gates of No Return” presents a series that was commissioned in 2004 and 2005, and consists of seven large-scale architectural models of Gold Coast castles and forts, the long-ago way stations through which Africans were sold into slavery and taken away in ships. These elaborate wood structures are themselves a kind of coffin. —L.J.