A major new museum is about to open in the heart of Paris. The favoured project of President Chirac, the core of its collection will be comprised of artefacts from Asia, the Americas, the Pacific region and Africa - all regions in which France once had colonies. It was preceded by a prestigious exhibition in the Louvre of sculptures from these regions. But is this an artistic venture or an ethnographic one? That these questions are still being hotly contested, some six years after the project was officially inaugurated by Chirac and as the Museedu Quai Branly is about to open, speaks to how vital they are to the nation’s understanding of, and relationship to, its colonial past.
Jacques Chirac, ‘Introduction’, in Jean Paul Barbier et al. (eds), Sculptures: Afrique, Asie, Océanie, Amériques (Paris, Reunion des musees nationaux; Musee du Quai Branly, 2000), p. 7.
2.
Jacques Chirac , ‘Speech given by Jacques Chirac, President of the Republic’ (April 2000 (cited December 2001)); available from <http://www.quaibranly.fr/02/statique/an/21_disco.htm>.
3.
Chirac, ‘Introduction’, op. cit.
4.
Ibid., p. 8.
5.
Chirac, ‘Speech’, op. cit. (April 2000).
6.
Ibid.
7.
Ibid.
8.
Jacques Friedmann, ‘Intervention de la journee des groupes de travail, le 16 avril 1999, au CNRS, Allocution de M. Jacques Friedmann, 3 (cited December 2001) <http://www.quaibranly.fr/01/statique/pdf/enjeux.pdf>.
9.
Chirac, ‘Introduction’, op. cit., p. 9.
10.
Since some of the internet sources are no longer available online, hard copies are held by the author.
11.
Those interested in tracking developments might visit the official website of the project and note the changes in content and design that periodically occur. This reflects the protean nature of the project, which is its most interesting aspect, and a sincere attempt by curators and politicians to keep those interested informed of developments. See <http://www.quaibranly.fr/?R=2>.
12.
See, for example, Alan Riding , ‘Giving primitive artwork a pedestal: a new museum in Paris inches toward reality’ , New York Times (6 September 2004), section E, p. 1 .
13.
Susan A. Crane , ‘Introduction’, in Susan A. Crane (ed.), Of Museums and Memory ( Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press , 2000), p. 4.
14.
Linda Hutcheon , Irony’s Edge: the theory and politics of irony, ( London, Routledge , 1994), p. 181.
15.
Michael Ames , Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes: the anthropology of museums ( Vancouver, UBC Press , 1992), p. 146.
16.
Susan Vogel , ‘Always true to the object, in our fashion’, in Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine (eds), Exhibiting Cultures: the poetics and politics of museum display ( Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution Press , 1991), p. 192.
17.
Ibid., p. 193.
18.
Ibid., pp. 194-6.
19.
Ibid., p. 200.
20.
Le Monde (14 avril 2000), p. 14. For a complete discussion of the ambiguities of the term patrimoine, see Nicolas Martin-Granel, ‘Malais dans le patrimoine’, Cahiers D’Études Africaine (Vol. 3, no. 4, 1999), pp. 487-511.
21.
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, ‘Objects of ethnography’, in Karp and Lavine, Exhibiting Cultures, op. cit., p. 386.
22.
Michael Ames, Cannibal Tours, op. cit., p. 140.
23.
Ibid., p. 144.
24.
The same rationale is evident in the Tuverain Museum. The museum’s raison d’être in the postcolonial age has become the public display of collections formerly held in storage and hidden from view. See Anne Marie Bouttiaux, ‘Des mises en scene de curiosites au chefs-d’ouevres mis en scene. Le Musee royal de l’Afrique a Tervuren: un siecle de collections’, Cahiers D’Études Africaine (Vol. 3, no. 4, 1999), pp. 595-617.
25.
‘Extracts from the competition programme’ (cited December 2001); available from <http://www.quaibranly.fr/01/statique/an/pdf/14_01pgang.pdf>.
26.
Ibid.
27.
Tony Bennett explains this notion of locomotion in The Birth of the Museum: history, theory, politics (London and New York, Routledge, 1995), pp. 44-7, 77.
28.
Ibid., p. 79.
29.
Ibid., p. 39.
30.
Ibid., p. 47.
31.
Carol Duncan, ‘Art museums and the ritual of citizenship’, in Karp and Lavine (eds), Exhibiting Cultures, op. cit., pp. 88-103.
32.
Ibid., pp. 92, 94.
33.
Ibid., p. 96.
34.
This narrative, it should be noted, is not unique to the Louvre. See, for example, the exhibitions of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada.
35.
Le Monde (16 septembre 1996), p. 22.
36.
Le Monde (avril 2000), p. 28.
37.
See Le Monde (28 novembre 1997), p. 31; (15 juillet 1998), p. 15; (14 avril 2000), p. 28.
38.
Susan Duncan, ‘Art museums and the ritual of citizenship’, op. cit., p. 101.
39.
Bouttiaux, ‘Des mises en scene’, op. cit., pp. 596-7.
40.
See, for example, Le Monde (8 octobre 1997), p. 32.
41.
Le Monde (10 aout 2001), p. 11.
42.
Le Monde (14 avril 2000), p. 29.
43.
Le Monde (10 aout 2001), p. 11.
44.
Le Monde (14 avril 1000), p. 29.
45.
Chirac, ‘Speech’, op. cit.
46.
‘Power to enchant’ (cited December 2001) <http://www.quaibranly.fr/02/statique/an/21_recon.htm>.
47.
Ibid.
48.
See Stephen Greenblat, ‘Resonance and wonder’, in Karp and Lavine (eds), Exhibiting Cultures, op. cit., pp. 42-56.
49.
Stephane Martin, ‘Introduction’, in Barbier et al. (eds), op. cit., p. 11.
50.
Of the 114 sculptures currently on display in the Salle des Sessions, forty-six represent Africa, six represent Asia (‘not the continent of the Great Empires, but the Asia of people without writing’), twenty-eight represent Oceania and thirty-four represent the Americas (cited December 2001) <www.quaibranly.fr/o2/statiqu/an/21_recon.htm>.
51.
‘Genesis of the project’, (cited December 2001) <http://www.quaibranly.fr/01/statique/an/11_genes.htm>.
52.
Germain Viatte, ‘Intervention de la journee des groupes de travail, le 16 avril 1999, au CNRS, allocution de M. Germain Viatte’, 11 (cited December 2001) <http://www.quaibranly.fr/01/statique/pdf/enjeux.pdf>.
53.
‘History of the project’ (cited December 2001). <http://www.quaibranly.fr/01/dynamique/dist/12_chrono/an>.
54.
Ibid.
55.
(9 octobre 1996), p. 20.
56.
Le Monde (16 juin 2001), p. 24; see also ‘Working on the collections’ (cited December 2001) <http://www.quaibranly.fr/03/dynamique/34_chanti.htm/an>.
57.
Le Monde (15 juillet 1998), p. 15.
58.
Ibid.; see also Le Monde (13 octobre 1996), p. 20.
59.
Le Monde (10 decembre 1999), p. 31.
60.
Le Monde (9 octobre 1996), p. 20.
61.
Le Monde (28 novembre 1997), pp. 1, 31; (25 mars 1997), p. 25.
62.
Ibid.
63.
Le Monde (15 juillet 1998), p. 15.
64.
Viatte, op. cit., p. 11.
65.
See ‘Rapports: Asie and Oceanie’, in ‘Intervention de la journee des groupes de travail’, op. cit., pp. 36-63.
66.
Le Monde (25 mars 1997), p. 25.
67.
‘Glossary’ (cited December 2001) <http://www.quaibranly.fr/10/dynamique/10_glossa.htm/an>.
68.
Friedmann, op. cit., p. 3.
69.
‘Extracts from the competition programme’ (cited December 2001) <http://www.quaibranly.fr/01/statique/an/pdf/14_01pgang.pdf>.
70.
Ibid.
71.
Chirac, ‘Introduction’, op. cit., p. 7.
72.
Herman Lebovics, True France: the wars over cultural identity, 1900-1945 (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 62.
73.
See, for example, Le Monde (16 septembre 1996), p. 1; (13 octobre 1997), p. 23.
74.
‘Budgetary information’ (cited December 2001); <http://www.quaibranly.fr/03/statique/an/31_etat.htm>.
75.
Le Monde (9 juillet 1999), p. 28.
76.
Le Monde (10 decembre 1999), p. 31.
77.
Le Monde (16 septembre 1996), p. 22.
78.
Le Monde (28 novembre 1997), p. 31.
79.
Le Monde (14 juillet 2001), p. 11.
80.
Le Monde (19 janvier 1999), p. 31.
81.
Le Monde (19 avril 2000), p. 18.
82.
Le Monde (31 mai 2000), p. 18.
83.
Maurice Godelier, op. cit.
84.
Quoted in Jean-Luc Aka-Evey, ‘De l’art primitif a l’art premier’, Cahiers D’Études Africaine (Vol. 3, no. 4, 1999), p. 580.
