A History of European Conceptions of Africa, America and Oceania

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Press File

D'un regard l'AutreA history of European conceptions of Africa, America and Oceania

19 September 2006 21 January 2007

Garden Gallery

Muse du quai Branly

Press contacts:

Dun regard lAutre ExhibitionClaudine Colin Communication / Anne Landrat5 rue Barbette / 75003 Paris+33 (0) 1 42 72 60 [email protected]

Muse du quai BranlyMuriel Sassen

+ 33 (0) 1 56 61 52 [email protected]


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CONTENTS

I. THE EXHIBITION- Dun regard lAutre by Yves Le Fur, exhibition

commissioner p.3

- introduction to the visit p.5- an itinerary in five major sequences p.6

II. SCENOGRAPHY

-the garden gallery p.30

- scenographers: Stphane Maupin and Nicolas Hugon p.30- aims p.30- highpoints p.31

III. PUBLICATIONS

- the catalogue p.32- the photograph album p.34

IV. USEFUL INFORMATION

- the team p.35- opening hours p.35- information p.35- tickets p.35- visits and workshops p.36- getting to the museum p.37

V. PRESS

- contacts p.38- photos available for the press p.38


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I- THE EXHIBITION

DUN REGARD LAUTRE BY YVES LE FUR, exhibitioncommissioner

The exhibition D'un regard l'Autre focuses upon the various conceptions that

Europeans have held of non-Western societies from the Renaissance up until the

present day. Given the period of time covered, any attempt at exhaustiveness

would be in vain, and the exhibition therefore concentrates on cultures originally

encountered through sea voyages Africa and America to begin with (from the 15 th

century on), followed by Oceania, in the 18th

century and leaves aside the vast

regions of the Orient, Asia, and the Mediterranean, whose cultures had long been

in contact with the West when the first major voyages of exploration were made.

The exhibition also highlights the question of distance and rapprochement, of

separation and interaction, both physical and conceptual, whose variations make

up its phrasing, its underlying rhythm.

The need to focus upon so lengthy a period of history led us to distinguish a range

of specific themes centred around major chronological landmarks, themes that

evoke the various different contexts in which exotic artefacts, often similar in

nature, have come to be placed. It is therefore not so much a matter of speaking of

different cultures in themselves, but rather of evoking the diversity of ways in

which they have been viewed in a succession of Western cultural configurations.

The aim here is to lead the public to an understanding of the invariables inherent

in our own cultures way of approaching those of other peoples. Instead, however,

of announcing at the start (in an authoritarian and surely arbitrary manner) what

such invariables might be, the exhibition is designed to help each individual

discover them for himself and in his own way. A range of means have been

employed to this end, including:

- repetition of choices of certain kinds of artefacts (weapons, statuettes, etc.),- systematic return to certain themes (the Savage, Eden, etc.),


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- constants (images of the Other).The exhibitions originality will lie in such intertwining of views bringing into play

the memories and visual experience of each individual and setting in motion a

process of recollection and personal participation. For this reason, thescenographic choice has been of primordial importance.

The experience should incite participants to take a reflexive approach, helping

them understand how relative Western viewpoints on other cultures are.

This is not, however, an occasion for passing ideologically imposed judgements

upon History. No part of the experience should be passed over if it can be viewed,

for example, as countering slavery or racist anthropological theories. Relying

largely upon the richness of the muse du quai Branly collections, along with many

major loans from European museums, the exhibition throws light upon the ways in

which such collections have been assembled over three centuries of history. The

simple presence of so many artefacts allows a whole range of possible new

approaches to be made to these works, beyond those based purely upon

ethnological and aesthetic considerations. Multimedia systems form part of this

mise en abyme of a wealth of viewpoints awaiting discovery.

Yves Le Fur

Exhibition Commissioner

Assistant Director of the muse

du quai Branly Patrimony

and Collections Department


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INTRODUCTION TO THE VISIT

It was by sea that Westerners first discovered the new worlds of Africa, America

and, later, Oceania. Arriving upon their coasts, they came face to face with otherpeoples, other customs, other civilisations, and other cultures, and the ways in

which they represented them have varied over the course of history from the

Renaissance up until the present day mental constructs and projections that

finally have more to say about the societies that came up with them than they do

about those that formed their subject.

A conception is constructed, it is never neutral. A conception is a mirror of he who

forms it. But any viewpoint is also contaminated by what is being viewed.

Confronted by other representations, initial representations vacillate, waver, and

are finally transformed, sometimes shattered altogether.

The opening of the muse du quai Branly is one factor in an overall reflection upon

successive Western approaches to extra-European cultures. This inaugural

exhibition provides an opportunity for chronological evocation of the history of the

construction and fluctuations of European conceptions since the later years of the

15th

century.

It passes no judgement, for such a history has no end. In this sense, this exhibition

is also a prelude a prelude to visiting the museums permanent exhibition area,

and other exhibitions to be presented in the future. The present-day observer

should come to understand the relative nature of successive conceptions held. The

aim of this approach is not to foster uncertainty and blame, but rather to create a

wider horizon of references.


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AN ITINERARY IN FIVE MAJOR SEQUENCESComplete exhibition contents

Foreword: At the edge of the world

I. The world theatre (1500-1760)A. Visions of the Other

A.1 The image of the savageA.2 The image of the cannibalMultimedia 1: Savages, monsters and cannibalsA.3 The image of the MoorA.4 AmbassadorsA.5 Albert Eckhout

B. The room of wonders from faraway placesB.1 Prestigious exotic artefactsB.2 Legendary curiositiesB.3 Afro-Portuguese ivoriesB.4 Turned ivoriesB.5 VanityB.6 Exotic idolsB.7 Transformed idolsB.8 The Copenhagen KunstlammerB.9 The Weickmann cabinet

B.10 The Molinet cabinetB.11 The Kircher cabinetB.12 Faraway interiors

II. Natural History of the world (1760-1800)A. Expeditions of the Enlightenment

A.1 BougainvilleA.2 The dawn of the worldA.3 Collecting images of the Other

A.4 Exotic balletsMultimedia 2: Exotic balletsA.5 Offerings in EdenA.6 The mourners costumeA.7 Death of the White GodA.8 Collecting the oddA.9 Strange fates of artefacts

B. Aristocratic bibelots

C. Pictures of natural history


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III. The great world herbarium (1800-1850)A. Cabinet of horizonsB. Visions of America

B.1 The Incas panorama

B.2 First mass in AmericaB.3 Georges Catlin Karl GirardetB.4 Jean-Frdric WaldeckB.5 Count Claracs JungleB.6 Wide open spaces (Johann Moritz Rugendas)B.7 Lonce AngrandB.8 Jules-Emile SaintinB.9 Charles Bird King

C. Venus de Milo

D. Visions of OceaniaD.1 Pacific Ocean savages panoramaD.2 John GloverD.3 Jules Louis Lejeune and Joseph-Marie VienD.4 Nicolas-Martin PetitD.5 Nicolas PironD.6 Jacques Etienne AragoD.7 Alphonse Odet-PellionD.8 Voyage of the Rhin

D.9 Charles Alexandre LesueurE. Institutions

E.1 French collections and the Muse de la marine duLouvre

E.2 Muse des Invalides

F. Promises of freedom

IV. The Science of peoples (1850-1920)A. The trophy

B. PhotographyB.1 Races, specimens, and individuals: the gridB.2 Studio portraitsB.3 Studio recreationsB.4 In shot Out of shotB.5 Photography in the field: groupsB.6 Portraits in the fieldB.7 Foreign bodiesB.8 Terra NulliusB.9 Jungles


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B.10 ShorelinesB.11 The pathwayB.12 Colonial buildings

C. Anthropometry

D. The theatre of travels and new discoveriesE. Explorations of taste

F. The crystal skullG. First primitives: Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)

V. Aesthetic transformation (1920-2006)A. The Snake CharmerB. The new savages

B.1 Georges BraqueB.2 Guillaume ApollinaireB.3 Pablo PicassoB.4 Andr DerainB.5 Maurice de VlaminckB.6 The savages studioB.7 Emil NoldeB.8 Dada

C. Distinguished amateursC.1 Stephen ChauvetC.2 Paul GuillaumeC.3 Alberto MagnelliC.4 Roland TualC.5 Andr BretonC.6 Pierre VritC.7 The taste for the primitive

D. Black and white

E. Colonial art

E.1 Colonial exhibitionsE.2 Colonial art salons

F. UniversalismF.1 Matisse-PicassoF.2 Universal conceptionsF.3 Daniel Buren and the magicians of the earthMultimedia 3: History of ethnographic collectionsmuseographies


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FOREWORD: AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

The exhibition opens with Charles Quints wonderful automated ship and one of the

earliest known terrestrial globes, so evoking its central theme of cultures discovered from

the 15th

century onwards as a result of voyages to Africa and the Americas, and later to

Oceania. The sea, that blue desert that had to be crossed, is a recurrent leitmotiv in the

interplay of rapprochement and distance between Europe and the Others, in the evolution

of conceptions in a world that was thought to have an edge.

At the edge of the world sequenceAutomaton clock in the form of a ship, known as

Charles Quints shipAttributed to Hans Scholttheim

Made in Germany in the late 16th

centuryAcquired by the Muse de Cluny in 1857

Muse national de la Renaissance, Ecouen

At the edge of the world sequenceGreen globe

Attributed to Martin WaldseemllerMade at Saint-Di, France circa 1507

Bibliothque nationale de France, Paris


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I. THE WORLD THEATRE (1450-1700)

This first sequence presents the beginnings of conceptions of Otherness, starting in the

Renaissance, with the gradual descent of Portuguese vessels along the African

coastline, and ending with post-Cartesian cartographic and anatomical explorations.

I. A Visions of the Other

European visions of the Other were based both upon imaginary constructs (the mysterious

forest world and its legends) and upon realist images.

During the Renaissance, the image of the savage appeared with increasing frequency,

highlighting the opposition of culture and nature. Although the notion of the primitivebarbarian given up to all forms of dissoluteness and moral turpitude was commonly

reproduced, it was more difficult to accept the idea of socialised cannibalism. Finally,

contact was also established with these far-off lands through the arrival in Europe of

ambassadors therefrom. The image of the Moor and the dignified offices of such

representatives form an early gallery of portraits of human types invested with nobility.

Image of the savage sequenceFemale savage on a unicorn

Strasburg circa 1500-1510Historisches Museum, Basle

The untameable unicorn could only be approached by apure young maiden, above all by the virgin savages withwhom it shares its Edenic sylvan existence.

Image of the Moor sequenceMoors head in the Borghese Moor style

Nicolas Cordier, Rome, circa 1610Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden


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These newly discovered peoples were also to be understood through the worlds they

inhabited, which began to be described and inventoried. The Others were depicted in their

botanical and zoological environments. The portraits of Brazilian Indians in their natural

surroundings, commissioned from Albert Eckhout by the Prince of Nassau, and on special

exhibition here, depict, for example, degrees of civilisation by gradual interbreeding

towards the Dutch ideal, from the cannibal state to the half-caste resplendent in European

dress, and are filled with accurate details of fauna, flora and landscape.

Albert Eckhout sequenceAngolan woman and child

Albert Eckhout, 1641Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen


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I. B The room of wonders from faraway places

Rooms of wonders multiplied in this world theatre, thanks to collectors who brought

together the first artworks as curiosities from the Americas and from Africa. Far from

being haphazard, such collections were occasions for exercise of the art of memory and

became the matter of poetic correspondence. The artefacts themselves, come from

faraway places and composed of precious, sometimes supposedly magical materials, were

often transformed or mounted by silversmiths, their very strangeness highlighted by their

settings. A network of European collections came into being through exchanges between

the cabinets of learned amateurs.

Prestigious exotic artefactssequence

Coconut shell carved with thefigure of an African

South Africa, 18th

century (?)

Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum-Kunstmuseum des Landes

Niedersachsen, BraunschweigLike rhinoceros horn, the coconut

was considered an efficaciousantidote to poison

Afro-Portuguese ivoriessequenceSaltcellar

Sapi-Portuguese, Sierra LeoneBrought to Europe in the first

half of the 16th

centuryGalleria Estense, Modena

Transformed idols sequencePre-Columbian mask transformed

into an item of silverwareCentral America and Europe

17th

century

Museo degli Argenti, Florence

Legendary curiosities sequenceRhinoceros horn cup

Made in Prague, circa 1610Kunsthistorisches Museum, ViennaIn the early 17

thcentury, in Baroque art,

the auricular style was very much infashion

Turned ivories sequenceSpice bowl

Made in NurembergLate 16

thor 17

thcentury

Private collection

The Molinet cabinet sequenceCeremonial staff from Guyana,Arawak with Marajo influenceBrought to Europe before 1687

Bibliothque Sainte-Genevieve, ParisThis staff, decorated with the figure of a

naked man, his hands resting on

decapitated heads, is one of the oldestsculptures from northeastern SouthAmerica


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Focus: World theatre / The room of wonders from faraway placesFaraway interiors sequence

In the late 17th century and the 18th century, anatomy and cartography represented two

major fields of exploration. Knowledge opened up new horizons on the bodys interior and

on far-off lands. The leaf-girt loins of a savage Eve and African Adam endured in

representations in the face of new realities regarding the universality of the human body.

Faraway interiors sequenceAnatomical Eve17

thcentury

Private collectionThis polychrome wooden statue was used for

teaching anatomy. It can be taken apart, and showsformation of the foetus.

The leafy belt is a distant reference to thefigure of Eve and the image of the savage.


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II. NATURAL HISTORIES OF THE WORLD (1700-1800)

In the 18th century, representations of the world were based upon identities and

differences, upon what could be measured. Explorers of unknown oceans and junglesset about inventorying, enumerating, mapping and classifying. Taxonomy and the

painters art were applied to Natural History, to which natural man and his products

were long attached. The recent discovery of Pacific peoples inspired Edenic visions

peopled with Noble Savages Antiquity revisited.

II. A Expeditions of the Enlightenment

Enlightenment expeditions are typified by the first French circumnavigation of the globe,

accomplished in 1768 by Louis Antoine Bougainville, and by Captain Cooks voyages of

exploration between 1772 and 1775. The painters and naturalists who sailed with them

undertook wonderstruck description of the worlds they discovered, and the images they

produced transmitted the myth of societies centred around the pleasures of life, fostering

the fashion for presentation of exotic spectacles, which was further encouraged in Paris

and London by the presence of Tahitians such as Auturu and Mai.

Artists accompanying expeditions, William Hodges in particular, brought back images of

their encounters with Pacific peoples that oscillate between being scientific documentation

of human types and sensitive portrayals of individuals.

Dawn of the world sequenceTahiti, Bearing South-East

William Hodges1776

National Maritime Museum, London

Collecting images of the Other sequenceEaster Island Woman

William Hodges1775

National Library of Australia, Canberra


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Focus: Natural History of the world / Expeditions of the EnlightenmentOfferings in Eden sequence

Taumi were pectoral ornaments worn by high-ranking Tahitian warriors, given them by

women during ceremonial dances. They could also be exchanged with important visitors

such as the earliest European explorers. The myth of the Tahitian and the ways in which it

was represented gave gradual rise to images of dancers bringing continual offerings for the

delight of their men.

Offerings in Eden sequencePlastron from Tahiti, TaumiBrought back by Captain CookIn the late 18

thcentury

Institut fr Ethnologie, Universitt Gttingen

Focus: Natural History of the world / Expeditions of the EnlightenmentMourners costume sequence

There are ten or so mourners costumes contained in European collections. Travellers were

much struck by the strangeness of the mourning ceremony and the appearance of the

mask; and both were featured in the Pacific mime shows fashionable at the time.

Mourners costume sequenceMourners costume from Tahiti,hevaBrought back by Captain CookIn the late 18th centuryInstitut fr Ethnologie, Universitt Gttingen


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Focus: Natural History of the world / Expeditions of the EnlightenmentStrange fates of artefacts sequence

Scientific ambition, religious ideology, circumstances, and taste all went to determine the

choice of items to be included in collections. Changing their meanings along with the

contexts in which they found themselves, artefacts could appear outlandish or

unclassifiable. Passing from one culture to another, from one continent to another, many

lost their way and met with strange fates.

Strange fates of artefacts sequenceSacred dish from the Taputapuatea Marae

Brought to Europe in the late 18th

centuryMuseo nacional de antropologa, Madrid

Between 1772 and 1774, three Spanish expeditions left Peru for Tahiti,seeking to set up an evangelical mission and to counteract the Frenchand English presence in the Pacific by taking possession of the island.

The project met with little success, the missions two priests demanding early repatriation.They brought this sacred dish back with them to Peru, an artefact they had purchasedfrom one of the great chiefs of Tahiti. In 1788, the item was sent to the King of Spain,and found its way into the collections of the National Museum of Archaeology before

being transferred to the National Museum of Anthropology in Madrid.


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II. B and C Aristocratic bibelots / Pictures of Natural History

Some 18th

century aristocratic collections brought together exotic artefacts, continuing the

cabinet of curiosities tradition either to didactic ends or through interest in the natural

sciences. The allegory, representing an idea or entity in human form, provided

opportunities for intellectual and artistic interplay on the image of the Other and of the

world embodied in its four continents. Many collections were confiscated during the

Revolution.

Aristocratic bibelots sequenceBust of a black woman

18th

century (?)

Muse du Louvre, Paris

Aristocratic bibelots sequenceAllegory of America

18th

century

Muse national de Cramique, Svres

Pictures of natural history sequenceSelection of shells

Alexandre Isidore Leroy de Barde (1777-1828)Muse du Louvre, Dpartement des Arts

graphiques, ParisKing Louis XVIIIs First Painter of Natural History, Viscountde Barde owned a cabinet of curiosities in Paris containing

natural history specimens, vases, antique artefact, andaround 300 savage curiosities from the South Seas.

Aristocratic bibelots sequenceAllegory of France liberating America

Jean Suau, 1784Muse national de la Coopration franco-amricaine,

Blrancourt


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III. THE GREAT WORLD HERBARIUM (1800-1850)

The encyclopaedic spirit opened the way to methodical classification,

inventorying and indexing, and to cartography and atlases. The earliestinstitutions, based on collections put together as a result of the great sea

expeditions, saw the light of day. Exotic artefacts began to find their way

into museums. Other cultures, only encountered along the shorelines,

were examined, and looked upon as specimens to be gathered up into a

single great work containing the entirety of universal creation. The image

of the Other developed in a period which heralded the coming of the

abolition of slavery...

III.A Cabinets of horizons

The arrival and exhibition of collections put together by sailors and soldiers, of

archaeological, and soon of ethnological collections brought up the question of the status

of such material witnesses to other cultures, and of how such cultures were to be

represented. Artists with the job of bringing back images continued to mix fantasy with

reality, and persisted in seeing their subject through neo-Classical eyes, depicting peoples

out of a dream version of Antiquity. The desire to know and understand mankinds place in

Natures panorama brought a universalist and positivist European vision up against a crop

of different cultures.

Cabinets of horizons sequenceThe coasts of New HollandExtract from the Personal journal ofPost Captain Baudin1800-1804Archives nationales, Paris


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III. B Visions of America

Beyond the shorelines existed landscapes and peoples. Pictures and documents brought

back from America and Oceania fed an imagination that ran riot in picturesque

panoramas. From jungle to mountain range, a romantic approach to nature produced

works that had a lasting effect on mental images of the New World. Exotic images went

from the phantasmagoric to the documentary, each of the two extremes considering itself

as the truth.

Wide open spaces sequenceA landslide near El JuncalJohann Moritz Rugendas

1838Staatliches Graphisches Sammlung, Munich

Les Incas panorama sequenceThe Incas wallpaper

1818

Muse des arts dcoratifs, Paris

III. C Venus de Milo

Jules Sbastien Dumont dUrville was often wont to recall that it was he who had the

honour of bringing this paragon of neoclassical artistic creation back to Europe.


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III. D Visions of Oceania

Bringing the neoclassical heritage of the Davidian school along with them, artists

rediscovered the ideal forms of antiquity, there before their very eyes, in the naked New

Caledonian warriors and Tasmanian aborigines. Such was the case with Nicolas Petit,

trained in Jacques Louis Davids studio and chosen by Nicolas Baudin to produce

ethnographic drawings.When he sent his descriptive drawings to the publishers, physical

faults and diseases were corrected so as to produce images acceptable in travellers

atlases.

Nicolas-Martin Petit sequencePortrait of a native from the coast of Mozambique

Nicolas-Martin Petit, 1804Musum dhistoire naturelle, Le Havre


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III. E Institutions

The concept of the museum and of the public collection took shape in the early 19th

century. The many artefacts brought back by maritime expeditions and explorers

underwent changes in status. Designed for use in the education of naval engineers, the

Louvres Salle de Marine housed ethnographic items from such major missions as that of

Jules Dumont dUrville, as well as from colonisation expeditions, the Kings cabinets at

the Royal Library and at the Jardin des Plantes, and Vivant Denons cabinet, which was

purchased by the State in 1826. From 1850 onwards, ethnographic collections were

exhibited separately from marine collections and, in 1881, some artefacts were transferred

to the Muse dEthnographie du Trocadro, which had been set up in 1878.

French collections and the Muse de Marine du LouvresequenceHei-tiki sculptureBrought to Europe in the late 18

thor early 19

thcentury

Former collection of Dominique de Vivant-Denon (1747-1825),Former collection of the Muse de marine du LouvreMuse du quai Branly, Paris

III. F Promises of freedomSlavery was denounced in the Enlightenment, and theoretically suppressed in French

colonies by the 1794 Convention. Reintroduced by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802, it was not

abolished in France until 1848. By placing a Black at the top of the human pyramid in The

Raft of the Medusa, Thodore Gricault declared his abolitionist commitment.

Promises of freedom sequenceStudy of a group for the Raft of the Medusa

Thodore GricaultFirst quarter of the 19

thcentury

Muse du Louvre, Dpartement des Artsgraphiques, Paris

Promises of freedom sequenceStudy of a Negro

Thodore Chassriau1836-1838

Muse Ingres, Montauban


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IV. THE SCIENCES OF PEOPLES (1840-1920)

With Positivism, the Western man fixed for himself what should be believed and what

there was to know. After Darwin, the white man descended from the ape, but

considered himself at the pinnacle of the evolutionary ladder. Under the impulsion of

learned societies founded in the early 19th century, anthropology and ethnology turned

themselves into sciences in a context of colonialism. Awareness of disappearing

cultures led to a frantic spate of collecting. Collections were ambiguous in nature, and

might be viewed as a new form of booty become treasure. Weapons trophies and early

photographs are both symbolic of this idea of capture.

IV. A The trophyEvidence of the diversity of technologies and their protection, weapons bear witness to

varying degrees of progress up the evolutionary ladder. Their exhibition in the form of

trophies also marked the conquests and defeats of subject peoples.

IV. B Photography

Possibilities of visual capture increased with photography, which shows so well the

surfaces of things. The grid table (19th

century race typology) in common use for displaying

collections, is also an image of human diversity.

Studio portraits sequenceTagale woman from Manilla in gala costume

Alfred Marche collectionLast quarter of the 19

thcentury

Bibliothque nationale de France, Dpartementdes estampes et de la photographie, Paris

Photography in the field: groups sequenceDanakis Afarwomen and girls

19th

centuryBibliothque nationale de France, Dpartement

des estampes et de la photographie, Paris


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IV. F The crystal skull

Collection of fetishist artefacts, also significant of political ideology and religion, enjoyed

considerable favour in its turn, its aim being to demonstrate the irrational practices of

indigenes. Some such items, such as the crystal skull, were to be found in almost every

drawing room.

Crystal skull sequenceRock crystal skull

Pre 1878

Donated by Alphonse Pinart to the Muse du Trocadro, muse du quai BranlyEugne Bobans uneven collection included this crystal skull, long considered as an Aztec

masterpiece. Even though it was found to have been sculpted with European toolsout of Brazilian crystal, this 19

thcentury imitation still retains its powers of fascination intact.

IV. G First primitive: Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)

Such favourable ground acted as inspiration to Western art, as it did with Paul Gauguin, for

example, who set off for Polynesia.


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V. AESTHETIC TRANSFORMATION (1900-2006)

At the turn of the century, artists were assembling collections of Negro art that, whenput on the market by dealers, contributed to fluctuations in taste. Between the two

World Wars, the cultural and social elite developed a fad for artefacts arriving in

Europe as a result of colonial peacekeeping expeditions and missions, and stylistic

considerations came to overlie ethnological interpretation. Exotic arts found their

place in art history in 1947, with the concept of the Imaginary Museum put forward by

Andr Malraux, for whom Western conceptions should seek out the universal in

creation, an idea that took shape around the notion of the masterpiece.

V. A The Snake Charmer

Douanier Rousseau painted primitive, exotic scenes that impressed Picasso and the

surrealists, were admired by Gauguin, Seurat, Jarry and Apollinaire, and were adopted by

the Fauvists.

Snake Charmer sequenceThe Snake Charmer

Henri Rousseau1907

Muse dOrsay, Paris


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V. B The new savages

Artists, art critics and poets collected Negro or savage artworks, which influenced their

own creations and the displacement of vision that they generated. Everything about these

artefacts, which were selected for their primitivism and expressiveness, stood in opposition

to academic and bourgeois naturalism.

Pablo Picasso sequenceGrebo mask, Ivory Coast

Former collection of Pablo PicassoMuse Picasso, Paris

Maurice de Vlaminck sequencePunu mask, Gabon

19th

centuryFormer collection of Maurice de Vlaminck

Muse du quai Branly


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V. C Distinguished amateurs

Primitive art remains anonymous but its forms are ever fresh. Little by little, a stylistic

hierarchy developed, which, paradoxically, harked back to the cubist, expressionist,surrealist and colonialist sensibilities that they inspired.

V. D Black and White

Man Ray came to Europe in 1921, and took part in exhibitions that intermingled surrealist

works with Oceanian, Amerindian and African artefacts.

Black and White sequenceBlack and WhiteMan Ray, 1926

Centre National dArt et de Culture Georges Pompidou, Paris

V. E Colonial art

From 1883 up until the 1930s, the empire was celebrated through organisation of colonial

exhibitions very much in the tradition of the 19th

century Universal Exhibitions. Artistic

taste for exoticism and faraway places was stimulated by the artistic prizes brought back

by travellers and by official orders exalting the brotherhood that existed between France

and her colonies.

Colonial and international exhibitions sequenceHead of a Negro girl

Pierre Meauz, (1913-1978)Circa 1930Muse du quai Branly


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V. F UniversalismAndr Malrauxs notion of the Imaginary Museum took shape in 1947 the arts should be

united to reach for the Universal. Major exhibitions sought to bring primitive and modern

art forms together with a view to demonstrating the formal similarity of the works

concerned. Primitivism came to be seen as an original source, while interchanges andinfluences were matters of dispute. Aesthetic criteria reformulated by abstract art became

the order of the day.

Universal conceptions sequenceKwele mask, Gabon

19th

centuryFormer collections of Charles Ratton, Madeleine

Rousseau,Charles Lapicque, and Andr Fourquet,

muse du quai Branly, Paris

Universal conceptions sequenceSculpture from the Caroline Islands

Brought to Europe before 1886Museum fr Vlkerkunde, Hamburg

Museums bear witness to these transformations, their concerns divided between

ethnographic study and aesthetic pleasure an opposition that will eventually surely be

overcome with the aid of historical perspective.


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II- SCENOGRAPHY

THE GARDEN GALLERYThe gallery inaugurated by the exhibition Dun regard l'Autre forms occupies an essential

part of the museum plan. With a surface area of 2000 m2, it is located at the garden level,

and is overlooked in the background by the ramp leading to the collections area, taking its

shape from the ramps curves and counter-curves, and devices which serve to bathe it in

natural light.

The area is designed to accommodate major, internationally co-produced temporary

exhibitions drawing upon the museum collections and upon loans from leading foreign

museums or from private individuals, and devoted to inter-cultural fertilisation in a

contemporary context.

THE SCENOGRAPHERS: STPHANE MAUPIN & NICOLAS HUGON

Each exhibition calls for a specific scenography and, in this case, the architects Stphane

Maupin and Nicolas Hugon were selected after careful consideration.

AIMS

First of all, the designers set about examining the exhibitions central question of

conception for themselves they had to come up with one of their own. Persuaded that

emotions brought into play by the artefacts were not simply the result of any special form

of sensibility, but stemmed rather from a projection originating both in personal

admiration and in the cultural heritage contained within each individual, they wished to

create a contemporary setting that not only housed but gave also rise to pleasure.

To be contemporary meant to respect the structure of a facility that already was so, tocreate in harmony with it rather than in opposition to it. They designed the chronological

itinerary required for the exhibition by following the gallerys geometry and exploring its

possibilities to the full. The exhibitions five sections, preceded by a prologue and

completed by an epilogue, succeed one another in areas of alternating narrowness and

breadth, in line with the movement of the ramp. Organisation of sections makes use of

already existing spatiality, while interpreting it in its own way. The itinerary thus aligns

arrangement of the sequences around which the exhibitions theme is centred with the

gallerys own spatial structure.


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To have the setting give rise to pleasure of itself meant acting in complicity with Yves Le

Fur, the exhibition commissioner, in playing upon the effect that the works he had brought

together would have upon the senses and upon the imagination of beholders. Without

resorting to metaphor, they have created scenes designed to amplify the echoes they

arouse, ensuring that sense of intimacy between artefact and visitor which is also essential

to pleasure, while keeping a certain distance of their own, giving the exhibition a discreetly

ironical touch.

HIGHPOINTS

The prologue, not only puts the pair of artefacts it presents (the ship and the globe)en abyme, but conceptions along with them, by virtue of a play of mirrors.

Cabins in which scenes of cannibalism are evoked in secret reflection of theobserver.

Inspired selections of artefacts collected by 20th century artists. The trophy room, which accommodates some 620 weapons. Extensively collected in

the 19th

century, weapons not only bore witness to the diversity and varying degrees

of technological advancement of the peoples who fashioned them and to their

safekeeping by museums that conserved them, but also, by presenting them as

trophies, to the conquests and defeats of those who were subjugated. The setting

created by Stphane Maupin and Nicolas Hugon is certainly that of a trophy room,but one in which the visitor is contemplated and in a sense dominated by the

artefacts: the beholder enters a frustum-shaped room in which the weapons are

arranged around him in successive tiers. The room, whose walls are made of

acoustic foam, is also soundproof not a whisper escapes it. It is in exactly this type

of anechoic chamber that present-day arms dealers exhibit their products, in order

to ensure their negotiations with prospective buyers remain undetected

Multimedia systems are used discreetly, while following a form of technological

progression as the visitor advances along his itinerary and in time. Scenes of cannibalism

are mechanically produced, but following them, he enters areas where projected images

surround him, becoming increasingly immersive, and the exhibition ends in a corridor

where views of ethnographical museums are projected, in which images of visitors are

projected in real time.


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Contents

- Foreword by Stphane Martin, President of the muse du quai Branly

- The world theatre, 1500-1760: Visions of the Other; the room of wonders

- Natural history of the world, 1760-1800: Bougainville; the dawn of the world; Collecting

images of the Other; Expeditions of the Enlightenment; Aristocratic bibelots (expatriate

collections); Pictures of natural history

- The great world herbarium, 1800-1850: Cabinet of horizons, Visions of America, Casting the

Venus de Milo; Visions of Oceania; Institutions; Promises of freedom

- The science of peoples, 1850-1920: The trophy; Anthropometry: series of ethnographic

busts; The theatre of travels and fresh discoveries; Explorations of taste; Archaeological

accumulation; The crystal skull; The first primitive: Gauguin (1848-1903)

- Aesthetic transformation: The Snake Charmer; The New Savages; Distinguished amateurs;

Black and White; Colonial art; Universalism

- Bibliography

Format: 220 x 280 mmForm: Bound with dust jacketNumber of pages: 352Number of colour illustrations: approx. 400

Number of copies printed: 5000Price (provisional): 49 eurosMuse du quai Branly/Runion des muses nationauxco-publicationPublication date: September 2006

Press contact at Runion des Muses nationaux: Annick Duboscq, Tel.: 01 40 13 48 51 [email protected]


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IV- USEFUL INFORMATIOND'un regard l'Autre

A history of European conceptions of Africa, America and Oceania

19 September 2006 21 January 2007

The team:

Exhibition Commissioner: Yves LE FUR, Assistant Director of the Patrimony and

Collections Department, responsible for the muse du quai Branly permanent

collections

Architects: Stphane MAUPIN, Nicolas HUGON

Photographic advisor: Christine BARTHE

Exhibition assistants: Maureen MURPHY, Aurlie COUVREUR

Opening hours:

Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6.30 p.m.

Reserved entry for groups from 9 a.m.

Thursday evenings until 9.30 p.m.

Information:

Telephone: + 33 (1) 56 61 70 00

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.quaibranly.fr

Admission tickets:

Full rate: 8.50

Reduced rate: 6 (under 25 years of age, students, and muse du quai Branly

researchers)

A day at the museum tickets Collections area (including the anthropology

exhibition and special theme exhibitions) + international exhibitions:

Full rate: 13 Reduced rate: 9.50


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Free entryUnder 18 years of age, the unemployed, those receiving RMI, disabled ex-servicemen and the seriously handicapped, handicapped persons with a companion(upon presentation of proof of invalidity) journalists, culture cardholders, Friendsof the Museum, holders of muse du quai Branly Passes, and members of ICOM

and ICOMOS.

MembershipMuse du quai Branly Passes give unlimited access to all museum areas, priorityaccess during busy periods, and discounts on shows at the theatre.Passes are available for young people (15 ), for single adults (45 ) and for duos(70 ), and also for groups (35 ).

Tickets may be purchased in advance through Fnac or Ticketnet (by telephone, onInternet at www.quaibranly.fr or at distribution network ticket-offices).

Visits and workshops

Guided tours of the exhibition are organisedDuration: 1 hourFull rate: 8 / reduced rate 6 (excluding admission charge)

ActivitiesThese activities bear upon the theme of conceptions of extra-European cultures,but are not directly to do with the exhibition and to not include visiting it.

Become an ethnologist workshopsWorkshops on understanding and trying out ethological investigation methodology.Duration: 2 hoursIndividual children and schoolchildren.Childrens workshop rate: 8

In every sound music as the voice of culturesDuration: 2 hours

Adults / Young people / Senior citizens / Families / Schoolchildren / Visuallyimpaired personsAdult workshop: Full rate 10 / reduced rate 7 Childrens workshop: 8

Reservations:Tel: 01 56 61 71 [email protected]


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Getting to the museum

On footEntry to the museum is via rue de lUniversit or quai Branly.

Universit entrance218 rue de lUniversitBassins entrance206 rue de lUniversitAlma entrance27 quai BranlyDebilly entrance37 quai Branly, facing the Debilly FootbridgeBranly entrance51 quai Branly

MtroRER C Pont de lAlmaline 6 Bir Hakeimline 9 Alma-Marceauline 9 Ina

River shuttleEiffel Tower stop (Batobus, Bateauxparisiens and Vedettes de Paris).

Busline 42La Bourdonnais or Bosquet-Rapp stoplines 63, 80 and 92Bosquet-Rapp stopline 72Muse dart moderne Palais de Tokyo stop

By carPaying car park accessible via 25 quai Branly.Pedestrian exit is in rue de lUniversit, alongside the Garden.520 places on three levels, including 12 reserved for persons of reduced mobility.


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V- PRESS

Contacts

Dun regard lAutre exhibition:

Claudine Colin Communication / Anne Landrat

tel.: + 33 (1) 42 72 60 01 - [email protected]

Muse du quai BranlyNathalie Mercier, museum communication advisor

tel.: + 33 (1) 56 61 70 20 [email protected]

Anne-Sylvie Capitani, deputy communication advisor

tel.: + 33 (1) 56 61 52 64 [email protected]

Muriel Sassen, press relations officer

tel.: + 33 (1) 56 61 52 87 - [email protected]

Photos available for the press:

Ymago base, registration on line at: http://ymago.quaibranly.fr

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A History of European Conceptions of Africa, America and Oceania

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