Aesthetics, Ethnography, and Exhibition at the Quai Branly

Abstract

A common thread linking the essays in this collection suggests that the surrealist movement's interest in non-Western art and artifacts often placed them in a paradoxical position: Their political opposition to colonialism was at times undermined by their fascination with the opportunity such unfamiliar objects afforded them to interrogate the limits of human experience. In this essay, I explore the extent to which such surrealist aesthetics, encouraging an erosion of the boundary between art and ethnography, have influenced the display of non-Western art in France. In examining specific examples illustrating the tendency of the Musée du quai Branly in Paris to treat non-Western art and artifacts as “aestheticized commodities” symbolizing difference, I argue that this approach, no doubt conditioned by surrealist flirtations with “primitive” art, has persisted until the present day, leaving an indelible mark on the design and exhibitionary practices of what was touted to be France's first “postcolonial museum.”

Keywords:

• colonialism
• ethnography
• exhibition
• Musée du quai Branly
• museums
• non-Western art
• surrealism

Notes

1. In her essay in this issue of Symposium, Meryl Altman cites, for example, Phyllis Clarck-Taoua's pointed critique of Afrique fantôme, Michel Leiris's journal recounting his experiences during the 1931–33 Dakar-Djibouti Mission. For Clarck-Taoua, the journal makes it clear that “the cultural idiom of vanguard primitivism, a colonialist epistemology, and the social institutions of empire were inextricably linked during this period” (quoted in Altman 51).

2. See Martine Antle's “Surrealism and the Orient” in a special issue of Yale French Studies co-edited by Katharine Conley and Pierre Taminaux with the title Surrealism and Its Others, in which she situates surrealist thought and practice in the prevalent popular culture of the period. In her article in this issue, Meryl Altman discusses the difficulties of engaging in historically informed readings of the past, noting that even those who set out to rebel against their cultural milieu are in some ways its products.

3. Among the numerous articles and books that provide critiques of the museum are L’Estoile, Le goût des autres; Price, Paris Primitive; Dias, “Esquisse ethnographique d’un projet”; Lebovics, Bringing the Empire Back Home; and an entire issue of the journal Le débat (Le moment). See also Dana Strand, “Tarzan's (Post) Colonial Misadventures at the Quai Branly.” I would like to express my gratitude to the editors of Contemporary French Civilization for granting me permission to include portions of that essay.

4. In an essay in which he takes Quai Branly director Stéphane Martin to task for catering to the French penchant to view the world through the prism of national essentialism, James Clifford nevertheless praises certain installations and performances by contemporary artists from Africa or the Pacific regions scheduled at the museum since its opening that, he claims, undermine the dominant vision of Chirac, Kerchache, and Nouvel (“Le quai Branly en construction” 38–39).

5. In his convincing analysis of the Quai Branly's failure to situate the objects it displays appropriately in their historical context, the anthropologist Benoît de L’Estoile cites as a counterexample a diorama at the Bristol City Museum in England in which a stuffed Nepalese tiger is placed before a figure representing George V who, seated on an elephant, aims his rifle at the animal. A gift to the museum from King George, who brought it back from one of his many hunting trips to Nepal, the tiger is thus exhibited not only as a natural specimen, but as a reminder of the particular historical circumstances to which its meaning is inevitably linked. For L’Estoile, to display the tiger without the king, thus silencing the story that brought it to the Bristol City Museum, is to deny both history and justice, precisely what he suggests the curators of the Quai Branly have done with the vast majority of the objects in their collection (L’Estoile, “L’oubli” 91–92).

6. For a thorough account of the history of ethnographic museums and the display of non-Western art and artifacts in France, see L’Estoile, Le goût des autres.

7. Clifford reminds us that the Dakar-Djibouti mission was funded in part by a donation from Rivière (“On Ethnographic Surrealism” 555). He goes on to cite Roland Barthes's deconstruction of the word “mission” in his Mythologies as an imperial term that evoked a “heroic, redemptive aura” (140).

8. The summary that follows does not do justice to Levitz's remarkable foray into recuperative history. I highly recommend her essay as much for its ethical grounding as for its intellectual rigor.

9. I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to my colleague, Cherif Keïta, who as an expert on the ceremonial practices of his native Mali, graciously agreed to be interviewed for this project. My thanks also go to Carleton College Romance Languages major Isabel Rodriguez for painstakingly transcribing my interview with Professor Keïta.

10. I say that the presence of Dogon dancers at the Colonial Fair was not surprising, because the booty brought back to France by the Dakar-Djibouti mission included a treasure of artifacts from (and information about) Dogon culture. Put on display in the newly opened Musée de l’Homme, these objects clearly whetted the French appetite for the exotic.

11. See my essay, “Tarzan's (Post) Colonial Misadventures at the Quai Branly.”

12. See Dupaigne; see also L’Estoile, “L’oubli.”