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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