Le Musée d'Art au Hasard

Responses of Black Paris to French museum culture

Bibliographic Data

ID7437409
AuthorsB Jules-Rosette (0000-0002-0649-7359, University of California San Diego), Erica Fontana (University of California San Diego)
Year2009
Volume2
Issue2
Pages213-229
Publication date2009-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAfrican and Black Diaspora An International Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1752-8631 • E-ISSN: 1752-864X
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17528630902981340
OpenAlexW1964405487
LanguageFR
Citations received2
References cited25

During the colonial period, Black Paris began to respond to French museum culture. From the 1930s to the 1970s, Joséphine Baker maintained a close association with French museum culture. Other voices from Black Paris surfaced surrounding the Présence Africaine journal in 1947 and the turbulent debates of the 1950s. In the 1980s, the rediscovery of contemporary and popular arts led to a virtual explosion in French gallery and museum spaces. From the Centre Georges Pompidou to the Musée Dapper, new environments arose for the display of African art. Globalization and commercialization cordoned the gap between 'authentic' collectibles and contemporary pieces in museums and galleries. Museums reflect symbolic conflicts between the metropole and the excolonies and between the center of Paris and the peripheral banlieues. Drawing on case studies from three historical periods, this article examines the influence of new forms of aesthetic display and artistic diffusion. It also explores the roles of cultural brokers and gallery connections in developing a new audience for African art. This audience provides a response to state-sponsored initiatives such as the Musée du Quai Branly and serves as a point of departure for reflecting on the future of African-oriented museum culture in France. Keywords: Quai Branly Museum1931 Universal Colonial ExpositionJosephine BakerBlack ParisAfrican art Notes 1. Bourdieu Bourdieu, P. 1993. The field of production: essays on art and literature, New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar] outlines what he describes as the 'art code' as a system (1993, pp. 223–225). He presents six conditions and procedures for the operation of the system. For the purposes of this discussion, the most important consideration is the level of emission of an artwork. Bourdieu states: 'The only way of lowering the level of emission of a work is to provide, together with the work, the code according to which the work is coded ... by the receiver ...' (1993, p. 225). 2. Baudrillard (1994b Baudrillard, J. 1994b. "The system of collecting". In The cultures of collecting, Edited by: Elsner, J. and Cardinal, R. 7–24. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar], p. 12) uses the semiotic term 'paradigmatic chain' to label the collection, or series, in which objects are presented for museum display. The chain contains the semantic relationships that provide the meaning for the exhibit and the collection as a whole. 3. Husserl (1962 Husserl , E. , 1962 [1913] . Ideas: general introduction to pure phenomenology , trans. W.R. Boyce Gibson . London : Collier Books . [Google Scholar], p. 287) describes the 'picture-object'. The objects in the picture acquire their meaning by virtue of the style and manner in which they are framed. Husserl terms this framing process the 'neutralization' of the object that is framed, or 'neutrality modification'. 4. According to Sartre (1966 Sartre , J.-P. , 1966 [1943] . Being and nothingness , trans. H.E. Barnes . New York : Washington Square Press . [Google Scholar], p. 127), 'contingency consists of the difference between 'what ... is and what it conceives'. The contingency of an ethnographic or an art object relies on its relationship to the context of origin. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1998 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. 1998. Destination culture: tourism, museums, and heritage, Berkeley: University of California Press. [Google Scholar], p. 25) states: 'Indeed, the litmus test of art seems to be whether an object can be stripped of contingency and still hold up'. 5. Congolese artist Chéri Samba's 1995 Samba , C. , 1995 . Hommage aux anciens créateurs , acrylic painting on canvas . Collection of the Völkerkundemuseum der Universität, Zurich . [Google Scholar] painting Hommage aux anciens créateurs depicts Samba himself behind six African statuettes installed in a museum display in which he questions the transformed meanings of these objects. Steiner (2002 Steiner, C.B. 2002. "Art/anthropology/museums: revulsions and revolutions". In Exotic no more: anthropology on the front lines, Edited by: MacClancy, J. 399–417. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. [Google Scholar], pp. 406–407) discusses Fred Wilson's 1991 Wilson , F. , 1991 . Picasso/Who Rules? , installation at Metro Pictures Gallery , New York . [Google Scholar] installation Picasso/Who Rules? in which Wilson inserts an actual African mask into the painting along with a footstool allowing viewers to peer into the holes in the mask. Both of these pieces question the reinterpretation of African ritual objects as art. There are many other examples of similar iconic commentaries by contemporary African artists. 6. These three narrative stages are based on the narrative program of Greimas (1987 Greimas , A.J. , 1987 . On meaning: selected writings in semiotic theory , trans. P.J. Perron and F.H. Collins . Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press . [Google Scholar], pp. 90–93) in which subjects and objects are juxtaposed in terms of confrontation, domination, and the final attribution. In this discussion, the narrative program is applied to the colonial museum, the modernist museum, and the postmodern museum with respect to their approaches to the collection and display of objects. 7. Hargreaves (2005 Hargreaves, A.G. 2005. Black-Blanc-Beur: multi-coloured Paris. Journal of Romance Studies, 5(3): 91–100. [Google Scholar], p. 94) describes the Institut du Monde Arabe as one of France's most visible locations for resources about the arts and cultures of the Arab world. He juxtaposes it with less visible resources for the study of Africa and the Caribbean. 8. Here again, it is possible to return to Sartre's notion of contingency, viewed as 'the horizon of possibility' for interpreting the meaning of objects (1966, p. 129). 9. Mannheim (1952 Mannheim , K. , 1952 . Essays on the sociology of knowledge P. Kecskemeti K. Mannheim . New York : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar], p. 73) states: 'The crucial question is how the totality we call the spirit, Weltanschauung, of an epoch, can be distilled from the various objectifications of that epoch – and how we can give a theoretical account of it'. Within this discussion, we explore how particular forms of art, politics, and museum culture reflect the general ethos of the periods in which they emerge. 10. Strother (1999 Strother, Z.S. 1999. "Display of the body Hottentot". In Africans on stage: studies in ethnological show business, Edited by: Lindfors, B. 1–61. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [Google Scholar]), pp. 29–40) provides a detailed account of the ideologies behind Georges Cuvier's experiment with Saartjie Baartman, the Hottentot Venus. The imagery associated with her in 1814 continued to influence popular culture decades later. 11. Both Africans and African-Americans were featured at the Universal Expositions of 1900 and 1925. W.E.B. Du Bois organized a famous exhibit for the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris (Hodeir 2002 Hodeir , C. , 2002 . Decentering the gaze at French colonial exhibitions . In : P.S. Landau D.D. Kaspin Images and empires: visuality in colonial and postcolonial Africa . Berkeley : University of California Press , 233 252 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 248). 12. Hodeir (2002 Hodeir , C. , 2002 . Decentering the gaze at French colonial exhibitions . In : P.S. Landau D.D. Kaspin Images and empires: visuality in colonial and postcolonial Africa . Berkeley : University of California Press , 233 252 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 244) points out that Africans who participated in the colonial expositions from 1889 forward were engaged on a contractual basis and received a weekly salary. They were also rehired and often developed 'family businesses' as exposition performers. 13. Lamine Senghor, an early Sénégalese activist and editor of La Voix des Nègres, along with Tiemeko Garan Kouyaté of La Ligue de la Défense de la Race Nègre represented voices of African dissent against the Universal Colonial Exposition of 1931 (Hodeir 2002 Hodeir , C. , 2002 . Decentering the gaze at French colonial exhibitions . In : P.S. Landau D.D. Kaspin Images and empires: visuality in colonial and postcolonial Africa . Berkeley : University of California Press , 233 252 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], pp. 247–248; Edwards 2003 Edwards, B.H. 2003. The practice of diaspora: literature, translation, and the rise of black internationalism, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], pp. 284–285). 14. Elsewhere, Jules-Rosette (1998 Jules-Rosette, B. 1998. Black Paris: the African writers' landscape, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. [Google Scholar], pp. 19–48) has written in more detail about the tension between French anthropologists and the founders and authors associated with the Présence Africaine publishing house as well as the editorial committee of the Présence Africaine journal. 15. Baudrillard (1994a Baudrillard , J. , 1994a . Simulacra and simulation , trans. S. Faria Glaser . Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press . [Google Scholar], p. 62) contrasts the mobile exterior of the Beaubourg with a more rigid interior. He argues that the Beaubourg must learn to bend. Baudrillard (1994a Baudrillard , J. , 1994a . Simulacra and simulation , trans. S. Faria Glaser . Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press . [Google Scholar], p. 69) concludes: 'The success of the Beaubourg is no longer a mystery: the people go there for that, they throw themselves on this building whose fragility already breathes catastrophe, with the single goal of making it bend.' See also MacCannell (1989 MacCannell, D. 1989. The tourist: a new theory of the leisure class, New York: Schocken Books. [Google Scholar], pp. 122–130) for a discussion of museums as touristic sites, semiotic signs, and historical markers. 16. In 2001, the Musée Dapper, headed by Christine Falgayrettes-Leveau, remodeled and expanded its exhibit space. Originally devoted purely to African art, the reorganized museum was reconfigured to include more contemporary pieces and diasporic art. The Musée Dapper has worked with the Musée du Quai Branly on special projects and exhibits (Jules-Rosette 2002 Jules-Rosette , B. , 2002 . Musée Dapper: new directions for a postcolonial museum . African Arts , 35 (2) , 20 29 , 90–92 . [Google Scholar], pp. 22–23). 17. French leaders and presidents have used grands projets and grands travaux as a way of denoting their uniqueness and cultural contributions. The Musée du Quai Branly, Chirac's grand projet, was preceded by his collaboration with François Mitterand in 1986 (Schneider 1998 Schneider, A.K. 1998. Creating the Musée d'Orsay: the politics of culture in France, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. [Google Scholar], pp. 2–4). 18. Glorieux-Desouche (2006 Glorieux-Desouche, I. 2006. Comment parler des arts premiers aux enfants, Paris: Le Baron Perché. [Google Scholar]) has prepared a guide to teach school children visiting the Musée du Quai Branly about the first arts. The first 49 pages of the guide describe ideas about art and theories of collecting. The remaining 129 pages contain suggestions for art projects based on the permanent collection. 19. Lebovics (2007 Lebovics, H. 2007. Echoes of the 'primitive' in France's move to postcoloniality: the Musée du Quai Branly. Globality Studies, 4: 1–17. [Google Scholar], p. 14) describes the contemporary trend of linking French museum exhibits to the mass media. He offers as an example the Louvre's production of The Da Vinci Code maps and a tour to coincide with the opening of the movie. In May of 2008, the Musée du Quai Branly exhibited the Paris Crystal Skull to coincide with the opening of the Indiana Jones film. 20. The mediathèque and video exhibits of the Musée du Quai Branly are intentionally separated from the main permanent exhibits, which are intended to display only 'authentic' art (Naumann 2006 Naumann, P. 2006. Making a museum: 'it is making theater, not writing theory': an interview with Stéphane Martin, Président-Directeur Général, Musée du quai Branly. Museum Anthropology, 29(2): 127–188. [Google Scholar], p. 125

African art · Cultural Identity and Heritage · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · North African History and Literature

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