The Musée du Quai Branly: A real change of

gaze over non-Western arts?

by Walace RodriguesLic. Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1999

M.A. ThesisSubmitted to the Department of Art History

Of the Leiden University In Partial Fulfilment of the

Requirements for the Degree

MASTER OF ARTS IN ART HISTORY

Walace RodriguesStudent 0624209

2007

The Musée du Quai Branly: A real change of gaze over non-Western arts?

Table of Contents:

Introduction................................................................................................................. p. 2

Chapter I. The Musée du Quai Branly..........................................................................p. 5

I.1 The creation of the museum..................................................................p. 7

I.2 The permanent collection......................................................................p. 8

I.3 The building...........................................................................................p. 11

I.4 The museum interior exhibition space...................................................p. 13

Chapter II. Displaying the objects.................................................................................p. 14

Chapter III. Non-Western arts and the non-Western artist............................................p. 18

Chapter IV. Gaze...........................................................................................................p. 22

Chapter V. Postcolonial theory......................................................................................p. 24

Chapter VI. The Musée du Quai Branly framed by postcolonial theory.......................p. 30

Conclusion.....................................................................................................................p. 38

Bibliography..................................................................................................................p. 42

Websites........................................................................................................................p. 43

DVD..............................................................................................................................p. 43

Annex…………………………………………………………………………………p. 44

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Introduction:

The museum is a place for research, education and pleasure. It is a social place, as its

main function is to provide a dialogue with and a reflection about its collection. Some museums

are very traditional, conservative and silent places, where the object exhibited is treated almost

like “sacred”, an institutionalized object that few can understand. Sometimes, when visiting one

of these traditional museums, the visitor feels like a person not invited to a party, only allowed

to look. This type of museum has the focus only on the object shown, not on the visitor.

Nowadays, there are museums that are not following this traditional vision anymore and

are trying to reinvent themselves. These new museums use more attractive museological

methods, with a large utilization of audiovisuals. They are trying to integrate the visitors into

new educational programs with cultural animations, theater plays, dance, and music, making the

visitor an integrant part of the museum1.

The museums of today want to attract a broad public, they are not only cultural archives,

but a politicized place reflecting the historical moments and changes occurring at this moment

in time. This new museum is a place for cultural discussions relevant to all citizens. They can

be research centers, memorials, contemporary galleries, or site-specific artworks in themselves.

In addition, the way of displaying the objects in this new museum must be different; the

museological approaches must show this newness of exhibition. Anna Neill, cited by Kylie

Message, says that “New museology advocates strategies of exhibition that involve the viewer

interactively, suggesting that history and meaning are constructed and sometimes even

contradictory” (Message, 2006: 37), showing that a new museum needs a new way of telling the

stories of its objects.

The recently created Musée du Quai Branly in Paris finds its place within this new

concept of museum, as a museum planned to house the collection of “artworks from the

indigenous cultures of Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas” (Demeude, 2006: 3), which

once were part of the collections of the Musée de l'Homme and the Musée National des Arts

d'Afrique et d'Océanie (MAAO).

“The Musée du Quai Branly began at the behest of President Jacques Chirac”

(Demeude, 2006: 3), and was opened to the public on the 23rd June 2006. It houses a collection

of 300,000 objects (being 3,500 works in the permanent collection), 7,000 square meters of

permanent exhibition space, 2,000 square meters of temporary exhibition space, a theater, a

library, a book shop, a large garden and other facilities that almost any new museum has today.

Within the contemporary complex of the Musée du Quai Branly, constructed for a non-

1 Paragraph based on the website http://www.revistamuseu.com.br/18demaio/artigos.asp?id=9053 from the 6th

March 2007.

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Western collection, the visitor has the chance to discover different cultures. In this process of

experiencing a new culture and its material production exhibited in the museum, the visitor can

ask him/herself questions about where these artifacts come from, how they were made, by

whom they were made, the intentions of the “collectors” of the objects exhibited, and the value

given to these non-Western objects today.

As these objects find their way into a museum, the manner in which they are seen in this

Western institution (a museum) is not without complexity. Emma Barker stresses in the book

Contemporary Cultures of Display, that “museums and galleries are not neutral containers

offering a transparent, unmediated experience of art. Rather, we need to consider them in terms

of ´cultures of display`, that is, with reference to the different ideas and values that can shape

their formation and function” (Barker ed, 1999: 8), showing that we need to question the ways

in which the museums and galleries present to us an object, its story, and the way in which they

want us (viewers) to see this object.

In add, departing from the question-title of this thesis (The Musée du Quai Branly: A

real change of gaze over non-Western arts?), my aim is to interrogate the Musée du Quai Branly

regarding its discourse (discourse given by the official publications plus the display of the

objects), to try to detect if there is a change of gaze regarding the non-Western objects

exhibited. For this purpose I intend to use postcolonial theory to analyze if the Musée du Quai

Branly contributes, in any way, to distance the objects exhibited from the “male-colonialist-

evolutionist gaze”1 always applied to them.

Because, in the case of this thesis, the field of non-Western object display can be

analyzed via an anthropologic/ethnographic aspect and via an aesthetic aspect, the bibliography

used was a mixture of authors in both fields. I have used many times, passages from Sally Price,

due to the close link between her book Primitive Art in Civilized Places and the specific points I

mention, such as non-Western artist and forms of display of non-Western objects (Primitive

objects in her case of study); Also, I largely used Emma Barker and the writers of the book

Contemporary Culture of Display, due to the aesthetic perspective given by this book when

related to ways of displaying objects, contemporary non-Western artists and artifacts, and non-

neutrality of official institutions such as museums; another important book for this thesis was

New Museums and the making of Culture by Kylie Message, a very actual and practical book,

where non-Western museums are analyzed, and where the term “non-Western” is used very

1 A gaze created by the male explorer, with colonialist and evolutionist views of the world. These views he appliedon the object collected when he chose for specific objects. So, I consider the object, which is in the Musée du QuaiBranly as chosen by the 'explorer' who brought it to France via this specific male-colonialist-evolutionist gaze. 'Togaze implies more than to look at - it signifies a psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superiorto the object of the gaze' (Jonathan Schroeder in Representing Consumers: Voices, Views and Visions, 1998, fromwebsite http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/gaze/gaze02.html ).

4

frequently (something that I have noticed in the more actual publications), despite it being a

problematic term, what I will explain latter on.

The structure of this thesis (see Thesis Diagram on page 46) will be as such: In Chapter

I. The Musée du Quai Branly, I intend to use the official publications to build up the “official

discourse” that the museum wants to pass to the public and to the press. In this chapter, I intend

to be as descriptive as possible, only showing passages from the museum's official publications.

At this point in the thesis, I am trying not to be critical of the publications; In Chapter II.

Displaying the objects I would like to show how I view the display of the objects of the main

collection, recognizing the display as a form of giving meaning to the collection (what I call the

“display discourse”). I intend to use the official publications' discourse, shown in chapter I,

plus the display's discourse, shown on chapter II, as the instruments used by the museum to

create its “specific image”1; In Chapter III. Non-Western arts and the non-Western artist I want

to work on the term “non-Western arts” and its problem of being a term created in the West for

application on the non-West2, and the issues related to authorship of the non-Western object; In

Chapter IV. Gaze I intend to conceptualize gaze and its non-neutrality, and show that the gaze is

my mean of measuring if changes have occurred regarding the acceptance of non-Western arts

within Western culture; In Chapter V. Postcolonial theory I would like to introduce the reader to

the field of postcolonial theory and justify its use related to museum analysis; In Chapter VI.

The Musée du Quai Branly framed by postcolonial theory I want to relate the museum and

postcolonial theory, looking at the museum through postcolonial eyes; finally I will conclude

my argument bringing some suggestions and good points related to the Musée du Quai Branly.

Chapter I. The Musée du Quai Branly

The intention of this chapter is to explore the Musée du Quai Branly from its official

publications and try to understand if this newly created museum is able to contribute to a

change of gaze regarding non-Western arts. This chapter will give us a sample of the “official

discourse” of the museum, how the Musée du Quai Branly wants to be seen by visitors and how

the museum refers to itself. The creation, collection, building, location and museological

features will be analyzed. In this chapter I will try to reproduce the museum discourse and (for

now) not to be critical of the official publications. I intend to let the museum publications speak

for the museum and show us its “official discourse”.

This acclaimed new museum in Paris was created to show to an European public the

1 I believe that any museum uses its official publications plus the form of display objects as tools to construct a“specific image” of the museologic institution.

2 Even being a problematic term, I intend to use it, as it is the best choice of word for this thesis.

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importance and aesthetics of non-Western arts (as is claimed), which were left aside by many

scholars for many years. The publication Masterpieces from the Musée du Quai Branly

collections (2006: 7) gives us the function of this new museum: “This is a museum whose aim

is to be different, while doing what it is expected to do: exhibiting the objects it is called upon

to preserve, sharing information, and enhancing knowledge and understanding” and, on the

same page, “We are aware that a museum is a tool for preserving and transmitting knowledge,

bringing together scattered fragments brought down to us by the twists and turns of fate”. It

sounds like a very conventional discourse, as the aim of any museum is to preserve, educate and

be different in its own way. How is the Musée du Quai Branly different from other museums

that show non-Western objects? Maybe because it tries to appreciate the artistic qualities of the

non-Western objects?

Illustration 1. Musée du Quai Branly, photo by Frans Harren from website http://www.flickr.com.

Some of the main people responsible for the so-called “museum difference” and specific

approaches are: Stéphane Martin, president; Pierre Hanotaux, managing director; Jean-Pierre

Mohen, director of the heritage and collection department; Anne-Christine Taylor, director of

research and education department; Hélène Cerruti, director of the department of cultural

development and the public; German Viatte, museologist and scientific advisor; and Yves Le

Fur, deputy director responsible for permanent collections.

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I.1 The creation of the museum

“The Musée du Quai Branly is a museum of art and civilization dedicated to presenting

beautiful objects, and to promoting a deeper understanding of the cultures that produced them.

The collections are open to a wide range of interpretative approaches, from ethnology to

anthropology, history and the history of art. The museum’s aim and objectives go beyond the

purely aesthetic approach adopted for the display of 100 masterpieces of non-Western art at the

Louvre's Pavillon des Sessions” (Demeude, 2006: 49). It is very clear from this passage that the

museum does not want to be an art museum or an anthropological museum, but a mixture of

both.

The creation of the Musée du Quai Branly was an idea of President Jacques Chirac. “In

1995 a commission was formed to create places for presentation of the “primitive” arts within

the French museological institutions, showing the political need to change the representation

given to the other civilizations” (Lavalou and Robert, 2006: 20).

In 13th April 2000, the Musée du Louvre opened the Pavillon des Sessions (which is

considered part of the Musée du Quai Branly inside the Musée du Louvre) to some

masterpieces from non-Western cultures. It was not without opposition from some scholars,

who believed that these pieces were not made to be exhibited at the Louvre. The president had

acknowledged this point in his discourse at the opening day: “A l'issue de près d'un siècle de

controverses et de débats passionnés, un art aux multiples facettes, aux multiples créations, aux

multiples histoires, un art qualifié tour à tour de "primitif", de "premier, de "primordial" selon

les époques ou les exégètes, sans qu'aucun de ces termes approchent de sa vérité, rejoint enfin et

pour toujours les cimaises de notre plus prestigieux musée”1. The Pavillon des Sessions was

inaugurated with the presence of the president. It shows the art pieces sometimes inside of glass

boxes, in a white atmosphere, and little information, such as any art museum would show their

occidental collection. Many did not want to accept “indigenous artworks” into the Louvrean

hallowed pantheon of beauty (see Demeude, 2006: 6). I believe that the “white-cube” way of

displaying the objects is better known to a museum visitor. The object can speak for itself and

its aesthetic power can be the main information retained by the audience. In this way the art

objects are the ones who “look” at the viewer2.

It is important to note that the political atmosphere of France and the attention given by

1 Passage from websitehttp://www.elysee.fr/elysee/elysee.fr/francais/interventions/discours_et_declarations/2000/avril/discours_prononce_par_m_jacques_chirac_president_de_la_republique_lors_de_l_inauguration_du_pavillon_des_sessions_au_musee_du_louvre-paris.1102.html on 29mar07.

2 In believe that the objects exhibited in a museum are “almost alive”, waiting to interact with the viewers,inversing the gaze.

7

president Chirac to the non-Western arts can be related to the present incidents (riots) in the

suburbs of Paris. Within this political atmosphere the Musée du Quai Branly was created. This

historic French moment shows the growing conflicts in the suburban areas of Paris, mainly

involving the immigrant population, the “other” of contemporary France. It is clear that the

president wants to value the non-European cultures, as we can see from his speeches when

opening the Pavillon des Sessions in the Louvre and the Musée du Quai Branly.

An international competition for an architectural project was launched and the winner

was Jean Nouvel. The museum was inaugurated in 2006. As Demeude says: “The Musée du

Quai Branly, which opened on June 23 2006 on the Left Bank of the Seine in Paris, represents

the culmination of an ambitious project pursued for almost a century by a dedicated community

of enthusiasts. From Mollien to Breton, Malraux, Lévi-Strauss, and Kerchache, numerous

amateurs and experts have lent their support to the campaign for the creation of a prominent

national museum in France, housing artworks from the indigenous cultures of Asia, Africa,

Oceania and the Americas” and “These remarkable artworks have now found a fitting home”

(Demeude, 2006: 3).

I.2 The permanent collection

One of the most important aspects of a museum is its collection. All arrangements of

architecture, displays, lighting, labels, audiovisuals, depend on the collection it houses. It is not

simply the curator or the person responsible for the museological approach, or the public, who

will interrogate the collection, but it is the collection itself that will interrogate back as it gets

“own life” in the exhibition.

The person in charge of the museological project in the Musée du Quai Branly is

Germain Viatte, who participated in the creation of the Centre George Pompidou. He was

director of the Musée National d´Art Moderne and he was also involved in the creation of the

Musée des Arts Africains, Océaniens et Amérindiens in Marseille, among other important

functions in the French museological world. The interview on the DVD Quai Branly. L'Autre

Musée, Augustin Viatte, 2006, shows the creation of the museum, points out that Germain

Viatte was very much busy with the approaches given to the pieces. He needed, with the help of

other specialists, to select the exhibits, to catalogue the objects, to organize them in

geographical areas, to relate them to their specific areas, to deal with different materials and

different objects in different stages of conservation, to give equilibrium to the displays, to deal

with the fragility of the objects, to research the quality of the pieces, to cohabitate the object

with its neighboring objects, among other points, and finally present these objects to the public.

8

Because the objects were so many and from such different places, research was

important to discover how the objects were produced, and where, and what they were used for.

In this way he could discover how the pieces must be viewed. According to the interview on the

DVD, his main aim is to show the object in such a way that the audience can get an

unforgettable aesthetic reaction, as the object would impose its visual power to the viewer.

The permanent collection was mainly brought from the Musée de l´Homme and the

Musée National des Arts d'Afrique et d'Oceanie (MAAO). It contains a huge range of all sorts

of objects, from sculptures to musical instruments. The permanent collection has around

300,000 objects in total, with 250,000 from the Musée de l´Homme alone, but only 3,800 are

exhibited permanently. The approaches given by the museums, where most of the permanent

collection came from, were very distinct. In the Musée de l´Homme “the display and study of

the artworks concentrated primarily on the socio-cultural contexts in which they were created.

The curators and the art historians at the MAAO, on the other hand, focused on the artistic and

aesthetic qualities of their collections of 25,000 works” (Demeude, 2006: 6).

The objects brought to the Musée du Quai Branly were displayed in a very old fashioned

way at the Musée de l´Homme and, sometimes, with not much attention to conservation. In the

new museum, at the banks of the Seine, the objects are being extremely well taken care of, with

much attention given to cataloguing and conservation. These objects are masks, totems, musical

instruments, statues, costumes, adorn objects, painted leathers, altars, jewelry, paintings, doors,

vases, dishes, bottles, ceremonial pieces, carpets, etc. Such diversity of objects was transferred

to the Musée du Quai Branly. I use here a passage from journalist Michael Kimmelman, from

The New York Times. He has a valid point about the collection, a point that will be discussed

later on this thesis, but he shows that the variety of objects have no link among them: “What

links Vietnamese textiles with contemporary Aboriginal paintings with pre-Columbian pottery

with Sioux warrior tunics with Huron wampum? Only the legacy of colonialism and the

historical quirks of French museum collecting, which Quai Branly's design blithely plays for

entertainment”. It is indeed a huge collection with very different sorts of objects.

The main collection is constituted of objects from Oceania, Africa, Asia and Americas,

and the formation and content of the main collection is described in the book Masterpieces

from the Musée du Quai Branly collections, where I took the following passages.

The objects from Oceania were from the “late 18th century art collectors as the Marquis

de Sérent and Dominique Vivant Denon, and on those of French seafarers such as Jules Dumont

d'Urville and of the 19th century missionaries. They were much enriched in the 20th century by

scientific expeditions undertaken on behalf of the Musée de l´Homme and the Musée d'Afrique

et d'Oceanie, as well by the recent acquisitions made by the Musée du Quai Branly”

9

(Masterpieces from the Musée du Quai Branly collections. 2006, 13).

The objects from Africa were mainly brought by “explorers during the last quarter of the

19th century. Following in the footsteps of these adventurers, and also of the artists, ethnologists

and collectors who have gradually built up this field of reference...” (p. 37). These objects were

housed at the Musée d'Éthnographie du Trocadéro, the Musée de l'Homme, the Musée de la

France d'Outre-Mer and the Musée National des Arts d'Afrique et d'Oceanie, and were collected

until the first half of the 20th century.

The objects from Asia are “composed of antique and historical items (from royal

embassies, and for universal and colonial exhibitions). The earliest collections were assembled

by great travelers at the turn of the 19th century: the Lapicque mission abroad the Sémiramis in

the 1890s; Josep Martin, who was present at a number of shamanic ceremonies in Siberia;

Jacques Bacot in the Tibetan Marches, Alexandra David-Néel in Tibet; Auguste François in

China and Vietnam; and the members of the “Croisière jaune” in 1931 and 1932. The missions

undertaken by Bernard Dupaigne in Afghanistan, Jacques Millot in India, and Sominique

Champault in the Near East enriched the collections with new items -some so unique- bearing

witness to the cultures from which they originated” (p. 61).

The objects from the Americas were “inherited from the King's Cabinet constituted in

the 16th and 17th centuries, they were enriched by 19th century explorers and scientists, then by

researches missions on behalf of the Musée de l'Homme, before being completed by recent

acquisitions” (p. 85). Some of these objects in the collection are pre-Columbian stone sculptures

and ceramics from Mesoamerica, the Caribbean and the Andes, along with wooden masks from

Alaska, paintings from Mississippi and feather adornments from the Amazon.

At the same time, there is a huge amount of objects not on display. Some of these

objects, like the musical instruments shown besides the ramp which goes to the main exhibition

space, are “exhibited” as the audience walks on by the ramp.

Here I use a passage from the Sydney Morning Herald1, a newspaper from Australia, on

the 19th November 2006, which describes the collection as follows: “Carved masks, feather

headdresses, shell jewel, shields, elaborately beaded tunics and ceramic bowls were delicately

lit and suspended in glass cases to highlight their inherent beauty. Majestic wooden statues and

stone sculptures looked down on us as we wandered through each of the four areas devoted to

the arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. An organic leather "snake" (a creature

revered across many indigenous cultures) meandered alongside the exhibits with rest spaces and

multimedia touch screens offering a dynamic picture of relevant cultural and artistic practices”.

1 The Sydney Morning Herald was one of the few newspapers that “accepted” the official discourse of the Muséedu Quai Branly. In opposition, The New York Times does not agree with the official discourse and forms ofdisplay used by the Musée du Quai Branly.

10

As we can see from this passage, the variety of objects is huge, what raises issues of displaying

such diversity of artifacts in a comprehensible way.

Relating to the variety of objects from Oceania, the same newspaper describes: "Out of a

collection of more than 1600 Aboriginal works, 107 items are on display, including 70 bark

paintings, shields, throwing sticks and Tiwi poles. Fifteen acrylic paintings on canvas from the

central and western desert regions are the only contemporary pieces in the entire museum. With

the commissioned frescoes, they highlight how traditional Aboriginal motifs have, perhaps

uniquely, transcended the "indigenous" divide and stand as remarkable pieces of contemporary

art1”.

The great quantity and quality of the permanent objects housed by the Musée du Quai

Branly represents a gathering process of many centuries, and has passed through different hands

until they arrived to this new museum. The most important asset of a museum is not the

building which houses its collection, but the collection itself. As it is said in the Museum Guide

Book, “one of the fundamental aims of the Musée du Quai Branly is to exhibit a wide selection

of remarkable works of art in its permanent collection2” (2006, 28).

I.3 The building

The building which houses the collection was designed by Jean Nouvel, who won the

international architecture competition of 1999 which was created to select the project for the

new museum. 110 designs were submitted to the international jury of architects, artists and

museum curators. The building was built in “a site on the banks of the Seine in Paris's seventh

arrondissement, at 29-55 Quai Branly – one of the French capital's last remaining significant

vacant lots” (Demeude, 2006: 9); a site approved by the Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in 1998, a

very prestigious location.

The project of Nouvel was chosen due to the “highly original landscaping and gardens,

its intelligent relationship to the urban setting, its functional response to the competition's

program, and its powerfully striking architecture. The jury also praised Nouvel's plan for a

diverse range of spaces, open-plan areas, and flexible lighting to reflect the sophistication of the

collections and the cultures represented” (Demeude, 2006: 12).

Nouvel had previously designed the Institut du Monde Arabe in 1987 and the

Foundation Cartier in 1994, bringing the total number of his big public projects in the French

1 It is important to notice that here, the author of the article calls pieces of “aboriginal art” as “contemporary art”,because they “transcended the "indigenous divide”.This passage shows the Eurocentric view of the author as heidentifies what is “indigenous” as not having aesthetic qualities.

2 It is important to note that not all objects exhibited are works of art.

11

capital to three, including the Musée du Quai Branly. It is obvious to say that Nouvel has a large

experience designing buildings for public use and that the Musée du Quai Branly is one of the

most prestigious institutions designed by him.

The Musée du Quai Branly occupies an exceptional two-hectare area on the left bank of

the Seine. The building follows the natural curve of the Seine and the gardens were conceived

as an extension of the neighboring Champ de Mars. The gardens, with 18,000 square meters,

have 178 trees and 30 different plant species. The “Green Wall” has 800 square meters, 15,000

plants and 150 different species (Demeude, 2006: 63).

Illustration 2. Musée du Quai Branly, photo by Frans Harren from website http://www.flickr.com/.

The museum also has a theater named after Claude Lévi-Strauss, a 120 seats cinema, a

library with about 20,000 books and 100 different periodicals, an archive and documentation

center, the Jacques Kerchache reading room, mediatheque, restaurant, administration offices,

book shop and an 80 seat café.

I utilize a passage from journalist Robert Campbel, from the Boston Globe newspaper,

written on the 15th October 2006. He wrote one of the many journalistic reviews about the

museum. In this passage he writes about the architect Novel and his previous works: “The

Branly is a museum of 'the arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas,' in other words,

everything that isn't Europe. Its architect is Jean Nouvel, a Frenchman and one of a clutch of 20

or so celebrated so-called "starchitects" who now seem to get most of the prize architectural

jobs around the world. His Guthrie Theater recently opened in Minneapolis. Musée Branly

makes you question the whole concept of starchitects. It's been designed in the manner of a

World's Fair pavilion. By that I mean it's a hey-look-at-me-I'm-an-architect building, intended

to grab your attention by upstaging everything around it”. The building is considered to be an

attraction on its own rights, as its monumentality in size and its privileged location (close to the

12

Eiffel Tower, the most important tourist site of Paris) make this building one more “tourist

attraction” in Paris.

The building, seen from outside, is an impressive and eye-catching edification, supposed

to be one of the many tourist attractions in Paris, in a site of huge symbolic importance in the

French capital. The interior main hall of exhibition is a theatrical space, trying to mimic the

“primitive” atmosphere of the places where the objects exhibited came from. The natural light

is controlled and the objects are lit by spots. The “serpent like” corridor parallel to the Seine and

the earth colors contribute to the “naturalist”1 interior aspect.

I.4 The museum interior exhibition space

The museum interior space has 7,000 square meters of permanent exhibition space,

2,000 square meters of temporary exhibition space, the “bridge” gallery has 210 meters in

length, 10 meters above ground level and 29 “boxes” (smaller cubes or “cabins” for special

exhibitions) (Demeude, 2006: 63).

The permanent exhibition space has 300 display cases of unobtrusive transparent glass

rising directly from the floor. “The museum's organization and interior are designed to give the

impression of a natural setting. Wood is the predominant material, as seen in the crossed

supports on the north facade, or the carved sun-blinds used to shape the main gallery. The walls,

and specially the pillars, are coated with rough-cast ochre-tinted plaster. Some of the surfaces

are decorated with designs reminiscent of tattoos. The furniture features tobacco-colored

patinated leather, while the floor is covered with plastic finish evocative of sand” (Demeude,

2006: 45).

It is important to note that the outside light in the main exhibition space is controlled by

a system of Persian blinds, as the amount and quality of lighting makes reference to the way in

which one sees the object2. These blinds have the function of regulating the light in the premises

of the room “to protect the objects against the excessive light”, as said by Jean Nouvel (in

Lavalou and Robert, 2006: 40). The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, one of the few

newspapers which wrote positively about the museum, on the 19th November 2006, describes

the lighting inside the building: “The $388 million museum, which opened in June, is a

mysterious space, partly transparent on the outside, dark and enveloping on the inside. His goal

was to create the illusion of a place without walls that could cradle these "primary" arts and

1 Referring here to the “copy of nature”.2 Not much light can give a mysterious and exotic aura to the object, and too much light can difficult the

apprehension of the object. So, lighting is a point of importance in a museum display.

13

allow their poetry to shine through”. Here we can see that the museum chose not to use much

light on the objects. It is an important piece of information for this thesis, as I will show later

on.

The main exhibition space is divided into four different geographical areas: Africa, Asia,

Americas and Oceania. Most of the external boxes of the building house African works and

have a specific theme: votive objects, sculptures, objects linked to death, etc. The artificial light

is directed via spots on the objects, and it is not very strong, creating a “mysterious darkness”,

and most of the glass cases amount a certain number of objects related in a specific way

(geographical or cultural), apart from the lateral boxes where the exhibited objects are more

spaced from each other.

Chapter II. Displaying the objects

How the Musée du Quai Branly displays its objects in the permanent collection is a key

point for my analysis of the museum, as it is the presentation of the collection that I am trying to

interrogate in this chapter. At this point, it is important for my argumentation to use some

passages by Emma Barker in the book Contemporary Cultures of Display that really are related

to the issues of museums' displays. She stresses that we must be “concerned not simply with the

arrangement of objects in space but also with the politics and economics of institutions. The

context of display is an important issue for art history because it colors our perception and

informs our understanding of works of art” (1999: 8). What she calls the “context of display”1 is

for me an essential factor to analyze the Musée du Quai Branly, as the “context of display” will

reinforce or oppose the “official (publication's) discourse” of the museum. And this passage

clearly shows that displays are not neutral, but play a role in the “image” that the institutions

want to pass to viewers.

Thus, that “the condition of being on display is fundamental to the construction of the

category ´art` in the modern western world” (p. 13), a very significant idea about displaying

objects. In the Western institutions, objects that are displayed to public view get a “special”

type of recognition, they enter in the pantheon of “art” or “special object”.

We can consider essential the way in which the non-Western objects are presented in a

museum such as the Musée du Quai Branly, as “museums first and foremost impose meaning

on objects by classifying them” (p. 13). Then, the meaning given by the museum to the objects

presented is an important issue in this thesis. In this sense, the way of displaying an artifact in a

museum already represents a form of classification, as the exhibit “has being distinguished from

1 I refer to it as “display discourse”.

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others on the basis of its authenticity, originality or some other quality” (p. 13).

In the Musée du Quai Branly the pieces are shown in 550 non-reflective glass cases,

within a geographical classification. The museum has divided the displays according to the

continents (excluding Europe), exhibiting the objects under spotlights, in dimly-lit spaces,

giving them an air of mystery. Most of the displays have black a background. The textiles

displays (mainly from Asia) are better lit, and the presentation of clothes (mainly sorts of

female dresses) is showed with the help of horizontal support. Audiovisual elements show the

rites of passage of some specific group, always close to the objects mentioned. There is a great

accumulation of objects in the same glass case, which makes it difficult for the viewer to make

sense of the artifacts. The labels are not well illuminated, and they are in French, Spanish and

English, giving emphasis on geographical location of the pieces. There are some narrow

corridors, mainly in the African section, between some display cases. The labels that refer to the

African objects called such objects as 'Art', like Arts Igbo or Art Yoruba, for example. While

the illumination gives a mystic, magic and even supernatural effect, the room with the Masques

Dogon (Dogon Masks from the savannas and Sahel sub-Saharan) is in a “white-cube” type of

room with better lighting, this gives a much better result in order to appreciate the forms and

designs of the masks. On the labels sometimes one can read some unusual terms like Art Rural

(Rural Art), relating to the works of wool, or Arts du Corps (Corporal Art), relating to the

groups which paint their bodies (corporal painting is very common among the societies in the

Amazon and Polynesia areas). Regarding the former French colonies, all of them are

represented in the museum. There are always references to “voyageurs” (travelers), even an

electronic globe showing all the naval expeditions (from the 15th up to the 19th centuries),

starting in 1492 with the arrival of Columbus in Central America.

Such globe shows the European naval expeditions as an act of bravery and inventiveness

of Europe. It is a “strange” piece of audiovisual technology in the exhibition hall. It is not

related to the objects displayed, but to European history. Such a globe should not be sharing the

same space as a non-Western artifact. If The Musée du Quai Branly was made to display non-

Western art objects (as said in the official publications), so why to install a piece that is 100%

related to Europe?

Some specific types of display are used for different types of approaches the museums

show towards their collections. Here I am using once more a passage by Barker to define the

different aspects of art versus anthropologic display: “...Careful spacing and lighting isolate

works of art for the sake of more concentrated contemplation. Alternative strategies of display

seek, by contrast, to recontextualize works of art in the world outside the museum. This can

mean recreating the material setting in which they might once have been seen. In the case of

15

exhibitions, it typically involves attempting to evoke their historical context with the help of

information panels, documents, photographs, etc” (p. 14). As in the case of the Musée du Quai

Branly, the art objects in some glass boxes from the main hall are exhibited together with many

other sorts of objects, making it difficult to gain an aesthetic appreciation of them. The museum

does try to recreate the settings where the artifacts came from, using the earth-like colors on the

walls, leather, and other materials.

I make use of Barker's passage below to analyze if the displays of the Musée du Quai

Branly show any aesthetic aspects when exhibiting non-Western objects: “...the fundamental

aim of an art museum is to display works of art for the sake of their aesthetic interest. For

contemporary museum critique, the particular significance of the aesthetic approach lays in the

way that it seeks to bracket off or ´neutralize` the wider world beyond the museum” (p. 14). In

this case, the Musée du Quai Branly fails to show the objects as art pieces, as the objects are set

in a hall that tries to recreate the colors of the sites where they are originally from. Also, the

accumulation of objects in only one case gives them a less attentive approach, causing the

viewer to look at them as a part of a whole, not as an object that deserves full and particular

attention. However, a problematic situation can occur when displaying non-Western objects as

art objects, as Barker explains: “...by isolating objects for purposes of aesthetic contemplation,

it encourages the viewer to project on them meanings and values that have no real basis in the

object themselves” (p. 15). In such case, the good labeling and audiovisual information about

the object and its maker, avoiding the over-informative schemes, gives room for an aesthetic

appreciation as well.

At this moment, I would like to make the differentiation between two distinct forms of

displays: the aesthetic display and the ethnological (or anthropological) display. I intend to use

passages by Sally Price to clarify these differences: “For most displays presenting objects as

ethnography, information about technical, social, and religious functions is elaborated, thus,

erasing the notion that the aesthetic quality of the work is able to “speak for itself” - or rather,

erasing the entire notion that the object possesses any aesthetic quality worthy of transmission.

In this mode of presentation, the viewer is invited to form an understanding of the object on the

basis of the explanation text rather than to respond through a perceptual-emotional absorption

of its formal qualities. In terms of the nature of the text, an emphasis on the object's cultural

distance replaces the focus on its place within a documentable historical framework” (Price,

1989, 2nd ed: 83). And in “the explanation text” (label), mentioned by Price, is part of the

“display discourse”. The Musée du Quai Branly uses extensive labels to explain the objects

showed. In the labels, as in the official publications of the museum, the Musée du Quai Branly

is informing and “forming” for the viewer an idea about the object. In doing so, the museum

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tries to create an “self-image” that is supported by the “official discourse” plus the “display

discourse”. In this way, no institution is neutral, and also the Musée du Quai Branly.

Being the label such an important part of the construction of the “display discourse”, I

would like to employ a passage by Price where she explains the form in which the labels inform

us: “In the case of Primitive Art ['non-Western Art'], a kind of either/or situation thus seems to

constrain the composition of most labels. Exhibits tend to present objects either as work of art

(in which case it is standard to supply a “dog collar” text, giving its owner's name and address)

or as ethnographic artifacts (in which case the object's geographical origin, fabrication, and

esoteric meaning are elucidated at length)” (p. 83-84). The ethnographic labels are the ones

more current in the Musée du Quai Branly. Such labels make it difficult for the viewer to

understand the aesthetic aspects of a non-Western object and relate only to the 'esoteric'

meaning of them, dissociating the viewer from the object.

Now, analyzing the Musée du Quai Branly, in the way the objects are displayed, shows

that the museum has different approaches relating to exhibiting formulas: first, it shows the

objects in the glass cases of the main hall very close to each other, avoiding an aesthetic

interpretation of objects; second, the statuary objects are displayed in a more isolated way,

making an aesthetic view easy; third, the objects in the lateral boxes of the building are shown

isolated, but with a very magical tone, helping the viewer to enter this “strange” world of the

object exhibited; and fourth, the aboriginal paintings are shown in a more contemporary way,

hanging on panels.

As Emma Barker shows a more aesthetic line display, Sally Price shows a more

anthropologic line of display. This is maybe due to their areas of study, as Barker is an art

historian and Price is an anthropologist. But both approaches are useful in the analysis of the

Musée du Quai Branly, as the Musée du Quai Branly is a museum in a sort of “frontier”

between art and anthropology, where both approaches can be used.

So, in relation to the question of spacing and labeling we can define the displays of the

Musée du Quai Branly in a more “in between” stage from ethnographic (anthropologic) to

aesthetic, depending on the display. In opposition to the mode of displaying of the Musée du

Quai Branly, the Pavillon des Sessions (which is part integrant of the Musée du Quai Branly)

within the Louvre gives a more clear aesthetic display alternative for the objects exhibited. In

the Pavillon des Sessions the objects are displayed very well distanced from each other, with

short label information, and in good lighting environment, propitiating the aesthetic

appreciation of the objects.

Elements of display lighting in today's museums often include requirements for a more

dramatic style of presentation which sometimes require theatrical lighting techniques and

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equipment to provide particular points of emphasis, or dynamic moving effects to bring more

attention to the presentation of displays. With these techniques, lighting can perform an

interpretive or context providing role in displays. About the light applied by museums on

objects exhibited, Emma Barker explains: “...the now standard practice of placing objects under

spotlights in otherwise dimly-lit spaces so that they seem to glow of their own accord,

endowing them with an air of mystery and preciousness. The problem here is that this kind of

lighting is typically used for ancient and ´primitive art` - in other words, precisely those objects

that are most alien to a modern western viewer – and can thus inhibit any engagement with the

meanings and values they would have had in their original context. This does not mean that

such lighting should not be used but rather, it can be argued, makes it important to ensure that

the display as a whole fosters a degree of self-consciousness on the part of the viewers about the

cultural distance between themselves and the objects on show” (p. 15). From this passage we

can see that Barker is critical of this kind of display. And this is exactly the main type of display

used by the Musée du Quai Branly.

In my view, the Musée du Quai Branly fails to put the object as close as possible to the

viewer, making it difficult for the viewer to make sense of the object. Also, the “mystic”'

influence that the dimmy-lit display has on the viewer creates distance towards the objects. For

a museum that is trying to bring the viewers close to the “other”, this sort of lighting seems a

mistaken approach. The objects exposed were produced in day light, which means that the

museum should use the natural light as much as possible.

The Musée du Quai Branly fails as well in relation to the authorship of the objects. In

the Musée du Quai Branly the name of the author of the object is “forgotten”. It is very difficult

to find on the labels the author of an object, not because of the lighting, but because of its

absence. It is understandable that the objects in the collection come from different museums,

and entered in the collections of these former museums long ago, but some objects are not that

old, which means that maybe the authors are still alive. Some scholars say that it is possible to

find the author of some non-Western objects in Western collections. I believe that if the author

is found and announced on the labels, it would put the object in a “less mysterious” situation,

and a “less mysterious” situation does not fit in the Western idea about non-Western objects.

Chapter III. Non-Western arts and the non-Western artist

My intention in this chapter is to work on the term “non-Western art” and its problem of

being a term created by the West for application on the non-West, and the issues related to

authorship of the non-Western object.

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The term “non-Western art” was chosen because it embraces a wide range of other

names given to art objects not produced in Western or based on the Western mentality. Here we

use the words of Sally Price to describe what this term “Western” relates to: “Western” signals

an association with European-derived cultural assumptions” (Price, 1989, 2nd ed: 3). The

difficult situation here is that the term “non-Western art” was created by the West to relate to

the non-West aesthetic production, it is an European invention, charged with pre-conceptions. It

is problematic as the “non-West” represents the biggest part of the world, what supposes

generalizations among very different cultures. And the particle “non”, in non-Western,

represents a separation, like dividing what is based on European cultures and what is not

European, in this sense excluding the “other”.

Although the term “non-Western arts” is problematic, it is the best term for the purpose

of this thesis, as “non-West” cultures are exactly the cultures represented in the Musée du Quai

Branly.

Different terms are given to the works of art not based on European cultural tradition,

some of them are: primitive arts, tribal arts, ethnic arts, indigenous arts, aboriginal arts, African

arts, Asian arts, Islamic arts, native North American arts, native South American arts, etc. The

non-Western civilizations are designated as: Africa, Middle East, India, China, Central Asia,

Southeast Asia, Japan, Oceania, Native North America and Native Central and South America.

The division in “Western” and “non-Western arts”1 is very much linked to a Eurocentric

feeling, that started to appear in the anthropological and artistic fields of the nineteenth-century,

influenced by the Social Darwinism2. How to classify the “unknown” societies and its artifacts?

That was a difficult question to answer. Colonialism had produced images of exoticism and

wonder about the newly discovered cultures. Not much has changed regarding our appreciation

to non-Western artifacts, the West still looks at these cultures with “Eurocentric eyes”, with

polarized views: the pure and the cannibal, the innocent and the savage, the wonder and the

fear, the curiosity and the ghost, and rejection and recognition. In this sense, the (male-

colonialist-evolutionist) gaze over the non-Western has not changed much from the colonial

times.

The non-Western arts are still not fully recognized as real forms of artistic expression of

other cultures. Maybe they just don’t fall easily into classifications, as they are not part of a

Western culture and can not be easily explained by Western concepts. Maybe because this

1 Both terms, Western and non-Western, started to appear in literature more frequently in the 1980s, very muchlinked to postcolonial theory. The term “non-Western” is becoming more and more currently used in the actualpublications with interest on “other cultures” not based on European models.

2 “Social Darwinism is an application of the theory of natural selection to social, political, and economic issues”,passage from website http://www.allaboutscience.org/what-is-social-darwinism-faq.htm

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entity called “art” was invented in the Western tradition and can not deal with subjects out of its

cultural boundaries. The dualistic ideas regarding non-Western artifacts are very much into the

field of discussions today: are these objects artistic or anthropological (ethnical) pieces?

To refer to the ambiguities that the non-Western artifacts are involved in, I employ a

passage from Sally Price where she explains about ambiguity of opinions regarding the “other”

and his/her artistic production: “The Noble Savage and the Pagan Cannibal are in effect a single

figure, described by a distant Westerner in two different frames of mind; portrayals of Primitive

Man [the non-Western man] can be tilted either way in their recognition that he is at once a

“brother” and an “other”. The imaginary used to convey Primitive Artists' otherness employs a

standard rhetoric of fear, darkness, pagan spirits, and eroticism” (Price, 1989, 2nd ed: 37). This

ambiguity of discourse is constantly used to refer to the non-West and its cultural production,

such as the artistic production.

The different opinions about the non-Western art objects are everywhere to be found.

The way in which the museums deal with this problem is what we are trying to understand in

this thesis, especially, how the Musée du Quai Branly works out this issue. Despite the little

information of the public of where these objects come from, these artifacts are still capable of

having an effect on the audience. As the Musée du Quai Branly tries to inform the public about

the cultural background of the objects exhibited, it at the same time puts itself in between an

anthropology and an art museum.

This information about the cultural background most of the times excludes the non-

Western artist. Here I use a passage by Sally Price to understand the issue of recognition of the

non-Western artist: “I would probably be reasonable to characterize the academic study of art as

focusing on the life and work of named individuals and on the historical succession of

distinctive artistic movements. Like music, literature, and drama, the story of the visual arts is

presented as a mosaic of contributions by creative individuals whose names are remembered,

whose works are distinguished, and whose personal lives and relation to a particular historical

period merit our attention” (p. 56). With this passage we can understand that names of artists

are important for the formation of the tradition of art history. The artist is a great example of

his/her time; his “craftsmanship”1 is admired and integrates the art talks of the time. The intense

Western focus on the artist as a person, his childhood, his relationship with his country of

origin, his religion, his political leanings, all distract attention from what could be the focal

point: the talent of the artist and the work he/she produces. As the non-Western artist is denied a

name and recognition, his/her work seems minor, inferior, according to Western conceptions.

And what happens to the non-Western artist's name? Apart from the “contemporary

1 The word “craftsmanship” used here to demonstrate that every artist needs his manual abilities to build hisartwork, even if this work is a piece of conceptual art.

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native artist”1, the non-Western artists whose works are in the museums, in anthropological,

ethnographic, historical or art museums, don’t have their names mentioned. Maybe because the

person who took the object during colonial times did not have access to the artist; maybe the

“collector” of the objects did not care about the artist's name; or maybe because inside the

colonizers' mind that specific object was just a beautiful object produced by a skilled craftsman.

Maybe nobody can answer these questions, but the objects which are today in the museums are

only referred to as objects of a specific tribe, culture, or tradition. Some scholars believe that

naming (displaying the artist's name) a non-Western object's artist can be possible, as long as

money is given to research the authorship of these objects.

There is a sort of “resistance” in the West in relation to name author of a non-Western

object. I use Sally Price's passage to show how Western vision about the non-Western artist can

be understood: “In Western understanding of things, a work originated outside of the Great

[European] Traditions must have been produced by an unnamed figure who represents his

community and whose craftsmanship respects the dictates of its age-traditions” (Price, 1989, 2nd

ed: 56). This absence of authorship can still be seen today in the short official publication

which introduces the Musée du Quai Branly, Art Spaces, where Hugues Demeude does not

mention the names of the “eight acclaimed Australian Aboriginal artists (four women and four

men)” (Demeude, 2006: 21) who painted the ceilings and facade of the buildings on Rue de

l'Úniversité (the back side street of the Musée du Quai Branly).

Also, the Museum Guide Book (2006: 174) tries to justify the absence of authors' names

on its displays, but the guide does not give a solution for it: “It is extremely rare that a work can

be attributed to a particular artist, although the distinctive style of some objects makes it

possible to identify their author. Miniature protective masks, anthropomorphic spoons or

commemorative statuettes are closely linked to their owner, so much so that they can be

compared to idealized portraits. These objects are made for individual use and reflect the

personal style of the artist more than the masks or sculptures for group use”. To complicate the

issue even more, this “official” passage assumes that the person who uses a particular object (as

said: “objects are made for individual use”) is the same who produced it. Analyzing from the

point of view of the Amazon indians, there are few artists in the tribe and the personal styles are

recognized by the group, which means that it is not so difficult to find out the author of an

object2.

1 Artists who produce today the art objects in a non-Western tradition. Example: the Australian aboriginal artistslike Judy Napangardi Watson, Shorty Jangala Robertson, Lucy Napaljarri Kennedy, Emily Kngwarreye, GingerRiley Munduwalawala,etc

2 See Summa Etnológica Brasileira. Ribeiro, Darcy ed, Petrópolis, Editora Vozes, 1987, Chapter Arte Índia.

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Chapter IV. Gaze

A concept that is basic for this thesis is “gaze”. I intend to conceptualize gaze and its

non-neutrality, and show that the gaze is my tool for measuring if changes have occurred to the

appreciation of the non-Western arts within the West.

“Gaze” (sometimes called ‘the look’) is a technical term which was originally used in

film theory in the 1970s, but is now more vastly used by media and visual art theorists when

referring to the ways in which viewers look at images of people in any visual medium and to the

gaze of those depicted in visual texts. For this thesis an important type of gaze is the spectator’s

gaze: the gaze of the viewer at an image of a person (or animal, or object), due to the close

relation between the spectator's gaze (how the viewer gazes at an object) and the ways museums

want us to look at objects.

In a museum the objects of art can be approached via visual and tactile means1.

Communication via the visual sense has a direct relation with the optical perception of the

elements such as lights and colours. The person who, for instance, appreciates the art object

(whether this art object is Western or not) is a “spectator”. This “observer” has been given

various names according to the circumstances: viewer, spectator, beholder, and audience are the

most common ones.

I would like to use the definition of gaze given by Margaret Olin in the book Critical

Terms for Art History: “Gaze’ is a rather literary term for what could also be called “looking” or

“watching”. Its connotation of a long, ardent look may bring to mind the intensity in which

knowledge and pleasure mingle when I behold a work of art. While most discourse about the

gaze concerns pleasure and knowledge, however, it generally places both of these in the service

of issues of power, manipulation and desire” (in Nelson and Shiff ed., 2003: 319). The act of

gazing is the act of looking with attention and getting impressions, sensations or feelings from

the work of art. The gaze is tremendously non-neutral as we look at something being very much

influenced by our cultural background and boundaries.

The gaze of the explorer of the nineteenth century, who brought the objects into the

French colonial museum collections, was framed via his 'male-colonialist-evolutionist' vision of

the world. Also, the term 'the male gaze' is very used by feminists when referring to the

voyeuristic way in which men look at women and to the way men represent woman. The male-

evolutionist-evolutionist gaze has large reference to power playing between colonizer and

1 Some scholars of anthropology of the senses say that all types of sensuous means can be used to approach anart object. And that knowledge goes further than “textualism” and “ocularcentrism”. See Edwards, Gosden andPhilips, 2006: 199.

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colonized. This specific way of looking to other cultures and their objects, in the nineteenth

century, can be related to the gaze that the museumgoer of today experiences when exploring

the collection of the Musée du Quai Branly.

Museums, when showing objects in an exhibition, always want to tell a story in a

specific way. The museum wants us to look at the objects in a certain manner, with a specific

gaze. In this sense, museums can influence the way in which we see the objects, without even

making the audience aware of this mechanism of gaze construction. So, has the traditional way

applied by official institutions of art and anthropology (like museums and galleries) of looking

at a non-Western object changed from the male-colonized-evolutionist to other different form of

gaze?

We have seen that the gaze is known to be culturally influenced, hence non-neutral, and

can be manipulated. Also, the spectator can refuse to participate in the mechanism of the gaze

by neglecting the object or showing indifference to it. Then, we can assume that museums are

aware of the formation of the gaze when organizing and creating displays, audiovisuals and

labels for the exhibitions. It is important to make clear that the gaze can be manipulated, and

that museums have a huge responsibility for creating ideas about other cultures, when showing

objects from non-Western societies. The museums, like the Musée du Quai Branly, which

shows non-Western artifacts (or the “other” societies who produced these artifacts), must give

great attention to the way in which they present these objects and to the way they want to tell

the story of this object and of the people who produced it. In this sense, the gaze can be changed

in a museum, via the official publications and the displays presentation.

Museums are spaces of exhibition and representation of history, where the gaze can be

influenced and manipulated. Where the audience should be guided in a way that will show

clearly in which direction they are expected to “look at”, so the public can be aware of the

mechanisms of the gaze formation. In this sense, gaze can be considered as a “mean[s] of

measuring power asymmetry” between museum and viewer, or even, between European culture

and “other” cultures. As Gerard McMaster tells us in his text Museums and Galleries as Sites

for Artistic Intervention, from the book The Subject of Art History: “Spaces, as social

constructions, are where identities are produced and negotiated” (in Cheetham, Holly and

Moxey ed, 1998: 250). This passage brings up the social importance of the museum when

creating identities via the gaze. We go to a museum to learn something, to hear the story told,

but we must be aware of the mechanisms of manipulation used in the museological discourse.

Has the Musée du Quai Branly changed the direction of the male-colonialist-evolutionist

gaze into a sort of gaze where the “other” is looked at with “different eyes”? Maybe including

the women's vision and the “other’s vision”, or showing the unequal power relationship

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between the Western and non-Western cultures?

Chapter V. Postcolonial theory

From the discussion of power relations observed via the gaze, I intend to start this

chapter showing postcolonial theory, a theory that is very much interested in the recognition of

the non-Western “other”. Postcolonialism refers to a set of theories in philosophy and literature

that “fights” against the legacy of the colonial rule. This theory started to appear in the 1970s

with the book of Edward Said called Orientalism. Postcolonialism is concerned about the (ex)

colonies, the aspect of the formation of a national identity for these (ex) colonies, the

justifications of colonialism, and the power systems between colonizer and colonized, among

other issues related to the identities in the (ex) colonies. Postcolonial theory started to be

recognized as an important field of study due to the serious works of the Palestinian Edward

Said (former University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia

University, and regarded as a founding figure in postcolonial theory, 1935-2003) and the

Indians Gayatri Spivak (born in 1942, a literary critic, feminist and theorist; she teaches at

Columbia University) and Homi K. Bhabha (born in 1949, a postcolonial theorist; he teaches

English and American Literature and Language at Harward University) all publishing in the

United States. Many other authors have written about postcolonial issues, such as Frantz Fanon

(French author from Martinique, and a preeminent thinker of the 20th century on the issue of

decolonization and the psychopathology of colonization, 1925-1961), Antonio Gramsci (Italian

writer renowned for his concept of cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining the state in a

capitalist society, 1891-1937), Amilcar Cabral (African agronomic engineer, writer and

nationalist politician, he participated in Guinea-Bissau's independence movement, 1924-1973),

Kwame Nkrumah (founder and first President of Ghana, one of the most influential Pan-

Africanists of the 20th century, 1909-1972), José Carlos Mariátegui (Peruvian journalist,

political philosopher, and activist, considered one of the most influential Latin American

socialists of the 20th century, 1894-1930), among others.

I use the accurate definition of postcolonial theory given by Mark Crinson: “...a body of

work that is concerned with what has been distorted or excluded by imperialist conceptions of

the world – including the representation of cultures or subjects outside the European traditions,

forms of Eurocentrism, and the effects of globalizing power on those subordinated to its ends”

(in Jones ed, 2006: 450). This definition shows clearly that postcolonialism turns against

Eurocentric conceptions about the non-European cultures.

In this thesis, I intend to apply postcolonial theory to the representations of the non-

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Western “Other” in the Musée du Quai Branly. The Musée du Quai Branly is a new museum for

non-Western objects, created during a period when cultural diversity, globalization and

multiculturalism should be the main focus of any institution responsible for the making of

culture. In a multiracial France the issues of national identity and Frenchness are questions that,

in my opinion, cannot be forgotten by the official institutions. In this sense, the modes of

historical representations inside an actual museum, like the Musée du Quai Branly, need to be

verified to ensure that the most accurate and diverse narratives are represented.

The issues of representation are more current than ever. An example is the riots in the

streets of Paris. These riots can be a sign of the multicultural minorities' insurgency, as

immigrants from the ex-colonies want to have a voice and participate in this “Frenchness”.

Spivak says that “...subaltern insurgency, and this is a moment of that, is an effort to involve

oneself in representation, not according to the lines laid down by the official institutional

structures of representation” (in Landry and MacLean ed, 1996: 306). So, in the sense of

representation of the “other”, the Musée du Quai Branly can not just be an average museum, as

it aims to present the artifacts of the people from the ex-colonies, people who live nowadays in

the suburbs of Paris.

As postcolonial theory “invades” all areas of knowledge, Kylie Message stresses that the

new museums “...reflecting on their own relationship to colonialism and aiming to give

something back to communities that have been exploited in the past, contemporary

anthropologists have made important contributions to the study of museums and the practices of

collecting” (Message, 2006: 19). This new ethics of collecting objects is an important point

when forming a museologic collection today. Nowadays anthropologists are expected to bring

home the objects offered as a gift by the populations visited, anthropologists are not supposed to

try to buy objects if they are not for sale or simply steal them, what occurred very often during

colonial times.

Western curators must be very careful in the way they present objects that are not part of

their cultures. In this sense, the manners in which these objects are displayed are always

questioned by well-informed and experienced museumgoers. Because postcolonial studies deal

with the representation of colonialism's products in a postcolonial era, important issues are,

such as, the creation of identity in the ex-colonies; the discourses of race, class and sex; the

issues of Eurocentrism; the historical differences between the Old and New World; issues of

power; and the gaps in the history records written by Europe; and decolonization are part

integrant in the analysis of a museum that exhibits objects with such a extended colonial past.

In relation to arts, the first exhibitions that started to bring non-Western arts closer to the

Western public were “Primitivism in Twentieth-Century Art, held at the Museum of Modern Art

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in New York in 1984, and the Magiciens de la Terre, held at the Georges Pompidou Center in

Paris in 1989, both centered on the relation between artists from North America and Europe and

those from the less economically privileged southern continents of the world” (Crison in Jones

ed, 2006: 451). Crinson remarks that “Both exhibitions systematically ignored the development

of modernism within these areas of the world, the New York show in particular generating a

storm of critique and much revisionist writing about “primitivism” and its relation to

colonialism, while the Paris show staged an imagined relationship between “indigenous art” and

Western modernist art across a globalize world. The third important exhibition was the 1989

The Other Story, held at the Hayward Gallery in London. This show was crucial in establishing

a genealogy for diasporic art in Britain and making the distinctions less rigid between

European-style modernist art and this new work by postcolonial theory” (p. 451). The actuality

of these exhibitions shows us that the study of the field of non-Western arts by the Western

institutions is a recent issue that still needs lots of attention from the universities around the

world and their scholars.

Also, about the responsibility of postcolonial theory in relation to visual arts, James D.

Herbert, in his essay Passing between Art History and Postcolonial Theory, alert us to the fact

that “...postcolonial theory would seem to have the capacity, indeed the responsibility, to

identify and turn against aspects of colonialism rooted in art works and in the art-historical

practices that study them” (in Cheetham, Michael and Moxey ed, 1998: 213). So, using this

responsibility, some postcolonial theorists have turned against Modernist artists (mainly

Picasso, Matisse and Breton) who used Primitive Art pieces as inspiration, but never questioned

the conditions of imperialism from the colonies where the objects came from. As if the artists

just ignored the political situation and the struggles of the people who produced such artifacts.

As James Herbert continues: “...modern artists appropriated (or alternatively, allowed

themselves to the influenced by) primitive art for the purpose of advancing the cause of modern

art in the face of its detractors; any reference to the politics of colonialism would plainly be

beside the point in such an account” (p. 213). In this sense, the Modernist artists applied non-

Western aesthetics to advance in their art projects, but denied them the recognition deserved.

The collection of the Musée du Quai Branly has many objects that belonged to these Modernist

artists, like Breton, for example.

We can criticize the absence of the colonial politics in the formation of the Musée du

Quai Branly collection, as we know that most of the objects were brought from the Musée de

l'Homme and the Musée National des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie (MAAO); objects which tell

the story of French colonialism, but never the story of the colonized. As the Museum Guide

Book demonstrates: “The history collections comprise close to 10,000 works relating to voyages

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of exploration and discovery and colonial history. Prints, watercolors, paintings, sketches and

notebooks, as well as sculpture, furniture, maps and medallions, show the knowledge and

different views that the Western world had of “other” from the 16th century up until mid 20th

century” (p. 286). Here the book shows that from the mid 20th century there was an appreciation

of the colonized (non-Western) objects, maybe due to the use of, mainly, African objects as

inspiration for Modernist artists. This assumption is not entirely correct as from the mid 20th

century these objects started to be more noticed, but that did not warrantee an effective change

of vision about the aesthetic qualities of the non-Western objects or the people who produced

them.

Also, the Museum Guide Book gives a “Genealogy of Views of the Other” without

mentioning the struggles of the native populations against colonial domination. The book says

that “The Enlightenment changed the way in which “otherness” was viewed, with scholar-

travelers who brought new objectivity to bear but who also propagated the belief in the idea of

the “Noble Savage” as symbolized by the people of the Pacific islands”, and “The idea of the

Pacific islands as a Garden of Eden was well entrenched throughout the 19th century, as shown

in the works of Paul Gauguin” (p. 286). The Indian nativist argument (figuring the Indian native

as pure, virginal, innocent and chaste) is said by Spivak to reproduce a fantasy of the origins of

man that is purely Western, which means, it reproduces the European fantasy about the

European origins, projected over the native society of the other1.

The Museum Guide Book, also, gives no views from the slaves' point of view, and tries

to justify the collection of the Musée du Quai Branly as a significant source of documentation

into the subjects of slavery and the end of slavery, as seen in the following passage: “The

Enlightenment is also represented by a major iconographic collection on the subject of slavery.

The works depict ships arriving at the coasts of Africa, and the capture, transport and life of

slaves on plantations, as well as its abolition in Haiti and later on other French islands. Scenes

from Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's novel Paul et Virgine, which played a major role in turning

public opinion against slavery, are featured on pottery and landscape wallpapering, as well as in

works of embroidery and numerous engravings. Trans-Saharan slavery is above all represented

by paintings from the late 19th century” (p. 286-7). One can imagine that after seeing such brutal

representations of the slavery the people of the time would turn against this cruelty. What is

important to notice from this passage is that at no moment the slavery is seen as a mistake, and

there is no clear turn against slavery in the text. It is seen as part of French history, the same

history that some postcolonial theorists try to rewrite.

Spivak explains about postcolonialism that we can relate to the cruel and violent

1 See Spivak's “Can the Subaltern Speak?”.

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processes of slavery and subjugation of the colonized populations: “I have talked a lot about the

concept of enabling violation. The child of rape. Rape is something about which nothing good

can be said. It's an act of violence. On the other hand, if there is a child, that child cannot be

ostracized because it's the child of rape. To an extend, the postcolonial is that. We see there a

certain kind of innate historical enablement which one mustn’t celebrate, but toward which one

has a deconstructive position, as it were” (in Landry and Maclean ed, 1996: 19). This

deconstructive position must be practiced on these historical documentation about slavery and

domination that the Musée du Quai Branly mentions in the official publications. Also, the slave

and the colonized can be compared to the “child of rape” mentioned by Spivak. The slaves

suffered inhumane cruelty. Like cattle, slaves were overcrowded in ships with sparse, poor

quality food and no sanitation. The mortality in these trips was very high. The slaves had no

idea about their destination, lacking identity in their exploited nakedness. At arrival on

destination they were sold to work very long hours without payment. It took centuries until the

slavery was ended.

We can relate the cruelty of slavery to the cruelty of the holocaust, and the products of

material memory of both that make rememberance to these facts. Jeffrey David Fieldman

relates colonialism and holocaust as follows: “The difficulty of documenting and theorizing an

industrial genocide is similar to the problem of documenting and theorizing colonialism” (in

Edwards, Gosden and Philips ed, 2006: 260). “The significance of the relics [from holocaust or

colonialism] cannot be reduced to their roles as visual signposts to the past or tourist destination

in the present. They are vestiges of the violent act of biological racism layered onto history, and

a material journey from personal belonging to museum piece. The shoes, eyeglasses, or hair that

one observes in Holocaust museums never appeared “in real life” as they appear in Holocaust

exhibits. They are not mere images of the past, but are the sensory products of the brutal

genocidal encounter. They are, in other words, the discarded body-objects of a once celebrated,

now abhorred, colonial industry – the waste that remained after the body had been harvested,

sorted, and destroyed” (p. 263). In accordance to these observations, many objects shown at the

Musée du Quai Branly can be seen as vestiges of the colonial past and a reminder of men's

cruelty.

A group that had suffered tremendous cruelty during colonial times is the aboriginal

from Australia. Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford, John Mawurndjul, Ningura Napurrula, Lena Nyadbi,

Michael Riley, Judy Watson, Tommy Watson and Gulumbu Yunupingu produced the

contemporary Australian aboriginal paintings exhibited in the Musée du Quai Branly. The

museum calls these paintings as “Arts of Australia”. These works are defined as art, maybe due

to the formal proximity to Western standards of painting. These abstract paintings are composed

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of colorful dots and combinations of curved and straight lines and circles; representing

mythological maps and routes taken by ancestral beings. As a contrast, the first engravings and

paintings decorating rocky shelters, which can date back from 30,000 years, can still be seen in

Australia. I wonder about the differentiation of the expressions “Arts of Australia” and the

paintings decorating rocky shelters, as the artists from 30,000 years ago or today still follow the

same traditions when painting. If the basic differences from the “decoration” of the past and the

“arts” of today are just about the materials used. Due to the fact that today the aboriginal artists

paint with materials invented in the West and we, Westerners, think that we can grasp the

meaning of such paintings, does not make the “decorations” of 30,000 years ago so different

from the “paintings” of today.

The Eurocentric differentiation of terms when related to Western and non-Western arts

maybe can be explained by the “art” versus “craft” dichotomy. I use a passage by Elsbeth Court

to explain this dichotomy in African arts: ´art` is defined in terms of its content, the ideas that it

conveys; ´craft` in terms of process, the skills that produced it” (in Barker ed, 1999: 150), and

“...the art/craft divide has served to deny Africans the status of artist, recognizing their manual

dexterity but implying that they lack the capacity for creative, intellectual endeavor. Both the

´authenticity` prejudice and the ´craft` label can be said to perpetuate the colonialist stereotype

of Africans [non-Westerns] as the ´primitive` cultural ´other`: childlike, irrational, instinctive”

(p. 150). The Modernist painters, for their own works, largely applied this idea of “instinctive

tribal beauty” of the African art objects. This dichotomy not only tries to empty African art of

meaning and value of inventiveness, but also disregards the brilliancy of the author of the

objects.

This dichotomy between “art” and “craft” in relation to non-Western arts can be connec-

ted to the concept of mimicry of Homi Bhabha. Both concepts (dichotomy between “art” and

“craft” and mimicry) can be used to show that the ambivalence of the colonial discourse is still

being used in relation to African art. Mimicry is characterized by the dual use of words, like

“slave”, for example. Homi Bhabha says that “...mimicry emerges as the representation of a dif-

ference that is a process of disavowal [repudiation, denial]. Mimicry is, thus, the sign of a

double articulation: a complex strategy of reform, regulation, and discipline, which “appropri-

ates” the Other as it visualizes power. Mimicry is also the sign of the inappropriate, however, a

difference or recalcitrance which coheres the dominant strategic function of colonial power, in-

tensifies surveillance, and poses an immanent threat to both “normalized” knowledge’s and dis-

ciplinary powers” (in Desai and Nair, 2005: 266). Comparing the concept of mimicry seen in

nature to the relation of power in the colonial times, we can say that mimicry is one of several

anti-predatory devices found in nature (and in colonial power relations between colonizer and

29

colonized). Specifically it is a situation in which one species called the mimic (compared to the

colonized) resembles in some ways another species called the model (compared to the colon-

izer). In so doing, the mimic (colonized) acquires some survival advantage. The colonized, to

survive the hard colonial times, pretended to behave and fell like the colonizer (to mimic the

colonizer), but this was just an external cover, a way of cohabiting with the colonizer. The typ-

ical Western thought of classifying things by opposition (dichotomy) was used to control the

colonized, but this mechanism of thinking was also appropriated by the colonized as a new

strategy of survival during colonial times.

We need, nowadays, to be alert to the strategies of mimicry and cultural imperialism as

forms of new colonialism intended by many countries to show “superiority” in technological

and cultural terms. What demonstrate, as well, that the flux of people from the ex-colonies can

be related to new waves of segregation and racism, very common in Europe and USA. It is

important to notice that today the economic power of the USA and Europe is being threatened

by the large developing economies, mainly the giants of the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India

and China), changing drastically the world commerce and the practices of trade of art pieces (art

as a form of exchange value). This cultural displacement from the USA and Europe challenges

concepts of empowerment via cultural domination, and strengthens concepts such as

globalization, internationalism, multiculturalism and free trade, as Pauline de Souza noted in

two points: “...firstly, the experience of economic interdependence between North America and

Europe caused changes in world power and cultural consumption; secondly, with the shifts of

late capitalism and global communications networks, national or state boundaries no longer act

as economic and cultural barriers as they did in the past. Freedom of movement and interaction

has created a new symbolic order of time and space that has provided a new framework for joint

cultural experiences, redefining cultural relations of power” (in Jones ed, 2006: 363).

This change in vision about cultural empowerment brings us to the objects presented in

the Musée du Quai Branly as they are still looking to “...'renegotiate terms of recognition and

legitimation' regarding continuing quasi-colonialist desires, including the consumption of

otherness according to those fantasies of racial 'authenticity' so common in the colonial

imagination” (Crinson in Jones ed, 2006: 452). This is like the objects exhibited in the Musée

du Quai Branly, as such objects are asking for an open-minded approach about their aesthetic

aspects, asking from the public for a real change of opinion about colonialism and its visual

production, and informing us about the actuality of this discussion.

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Chapter VI. The Musée du Quai Branly framed by postcolonial theory

According to postcolonial theory, it is not difficult to argument that the Musée du Quai

Branly has failed to provide a change of gaze regarding non-Western arts. The main points for

failing to accomplish this objective are:

First, the ways in which the Musée du Quai Branly displays the objects are not very well

defined. There is no clear direction of the museum in preferring an aesthetic or anthropologic

form of display. Some objects are displayed alone and some objects are displayed in groups.

Some objects are exhibited against a white background, some against a black background, some

in glass boxes, some standing alone, and some sharing the display with other artifacts. Most of

the objects are not well illuminated, giving an aspect of “mysteriousness” to them, what does

not help to “bring the object to life1” and does not help us to understand what it meant to the

people who produced it. Some sculptures are exhibited in a “white cube” gallery, as others are

exhibited in the corridors with not much light on them.

This lack of clear choice of display can be seen in the articles written about the museum.

The press, present at the opening of the museum, was negative about the displays, like Michael

Kimmelman, from the New York Times: “The place simply makes no sense. Old, new, good,

bad are all jumbled together without much reason or explanation, save for visual theatrics. Quai

Branly's curator of Asian collections, Christine Hemmet, who was furious about the dismantling

of the Musée de l'Homme, took me to find a Vietnamese scarecrow, circa 1970's, on the back of

which was painted an American B-52 dropping bombs. She said she had wanted to install a

mirror in the display case, behind the work, so the scarecrow's back would be visible. But she

was told it would spoil the mise-en-scène” (New York Times, ART; A Heart Of Darkness In

the City Of Light, 2 July 2006).

A good example of the differences between an aesthetic and an anthropologic form of

display of non-Western object is given by Elsbeth Court, when analyzing displays of African

artifacts: “The dominant paradigm operates through dialectic between modernism, which

approaches African art through formalist aesthetics, and anthropology, which offers an

ethnographic approach. This means that an African object may be understood and displayed

either as work of art or as an ethnographic artifact. On the one hand, the modernist conception

of the autonomous, universal art object requires works of African art to be well spaced and

carefully lit so that the viewer can concentrate on their formal qualities. On the other, the

ethnographic method considers a wide range of artifacts (including items of personal

adornment, domestic use, etc.) and seeks to place them in their cultural context. In ethnographic

1 To show the beauty and life of the object.

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museums an object is displayed along with others of similar function or arranged according to

ethnic or regional origin, 'Contextualization' is provided by means of explanatory labels and

visual aids (such as photographs). Historically, such displays have been characterized by dense

placement of objects in large cases” (in Barker ed, 1999: 152-3) and “Nowadays, it is standard

museum practice for African objects to be displayed as art in uncluttered, spot-lit cases with

brief explanatory labels and grouped by origin...” (p. 153). I shall use these passages by Court

to analyze the display used in the Musée du Quai Branly.

Comparing the display analysis of Elsbeth Court and the way in which the Musée du

Quai Branly shows most of its objects, one can clearly say that the Musée du Quai Branly

chooses a more anthropologic (ethnographic) approach, as the objects are in groups; spot-lit,

there is much information on the labels, as well as with the help of videos and photos; the

objects are arranged in a geographical way of origin; most of the objects are exhibited in large

display cases; and the emphasis is in the ethnic cultural display. This form of display chosen by

the Musée du Quai Branly shows that the displays are just retelling the story of French

colonialism within a “neocolonial” perspective, as the displays are not informing about the

present situation of the cultures displayed or their ability to produce aesthetic beautiful objects;

and that the Musée du Quai Branly just reproduces the ethnographic approach of the Musée de l

´Homme, but now with more technological advances and in a better building. In a way, the

objects just moved from one museum to other without being challenged.

I suggest the aesthetic approach as being the most suitable for a change of gaze

regarding non-Western artifacts, as this approach is closer to a Western public perception1 than

an anthropologic approach. A good example of a display of non-Western arts is given by the

Musée du Louvre in the Pavillon des Sessions (the Pavillon des Sessions is part integrant of the

Musée du Quai Branly inside of the Musée du Louvre), a space that is “...understated and

elegant, and it enables visitors to circulate with ease, while the works themselves stand out in

uncluttered space. An indirect lighting system complements the area's natural light sources, in

order to cast a subdued aura over the sculptures in a play of light and shadow” (Musée du Quai

Branly. Museum guide book, 2006: 297).

The creation of the area designed to house non-Western “masterpieces” within the

Pavillon des Sessions occurred under resistance of some specialists from the Louvre. Michael

Kimmelman, from the New York Times, informs us about the creation of the Pavillon des

1 Western museumgoers are very familiar with the “white cube” type of displays. Western viewer will have lessdifficulty to analyze an object in an environment that he/she is familiar with. The recreation of the “primitiveatmosphere” when displaying non-Western artifacts just reinforces the idea of racial “otherness”, estrangementand inferiority. There is a limitation of the traditional art historical perspective in dealing with non-Westernobjects due to the too culture-bounded Western concepts of what art is. So, the appreciation of a non-Westernobject on a white environment will bring the viewer closer to the object, as it is the way the Western viewers“see better”.

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Sessions and the emphasis on the aesthetic form of display: “Several years ago Mr. Chirac

overruled objections from Louvre officials that their museum was for European art, not a

universal museum, and he ordered the Louvre's Pavilion des Sessions turned over to 100

historic works of African, Asian, Oceanic and American art. They were installed in a setting of

pure aesthetic bliss. The galleries, nearly empty the day I went, are spare, serene and beautifully

lighted, enshrining each object behind almost-invisible sheets of glass. Every work is given the

dignity of its own space, which seemed to me a metaphor for how to treat all civilizations”

(New York Times, ART; A Heart Of Darkness In the City Of Light, 2 July 2006).

Also, giving other passage where the author is in favor of the aesthetic approach and the

long life of the “white cube”, Christoph Grunenberg remarks: “...the white cube as a mode of

presentation has demonstrated a surprising longevity, as it continues to be constantly reinvented

and transformed to fit the latest developments in contemporary art and the latest museum

concepts” (in Barker ed: 1999: 48) With this remark he makes clear that the white cube mode of

presentation can be used for various purposes, such as exhibiting non-Western arts. And he

continues saying that “The white walls and simple structures of modern architecture provided

an appropriate context for the display of art that emphasized simplicity of means, clarity of

expression and purity of ideals” (p. 28).

The second argument why the Musée du Quai Branly did not succeed in a change of

gaze over non-Western arts is because the museum was not much worried about the authorship

of the artifacts exhibited, as the artist's name is almost never mentioned. The “unnamed” object

just reinforces the idea of the “tribal” object, playing a part in the empowerment of the

differentiation idea of European (civilized) versus primitive (non-civilized, non-European). It

appears as though the name of the author is not mentioned because the object must remain

“primitive”, “tribal”, and “savage”, and if we know the author of the object, this object will start

to enter in the canons of authorship of Western art. This would bring difficulties to Western

scholars and curators in classifying this object. As the Western man has named everything in his

surroundings, naming is a form of taking possession, of knowledge, of closeness. This cultural

exoticism of the unnamed artist's object explicitly is enhanced by “anonymity”.

To reinforce this argument I use a passage from Sally Price, talking about the anonymity

of the non-Western artist, where she says that “In the Western understanding of things, a work

originating outside the Great [European] Traditions must have been produced by unnamed

figure who represents his community and whose craftsmanship respects the dictates its age-old

traditions” (Price, 1989, 2nd ed: 56). She thus shows the connection between “tribalism” and

“anonymity” within the Western art tradition. A connection that the Musée du Quai Branly

could not weaken, even having a chance to do so.

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Inside of this “Great European Tradition of Art”, Judith Zilczer, cited by Sally Price,

about the New York Dada artists toward Primitive Art remarks: “For artists and critics who

found merit in the naiveté of children’s art, the African Negro represented the cultural

childhood of mankind. Beneath their discussions about modern art and primitive art flowed an

undercurrent of pseudo-scientific theories about race and culture” (idem: 33). This naiveté of

the unnamed artist is still preserved in Western minds, as reinforcing the ideas about race and

culture differentiation, which are an European creation, and a point for postcolonial critic

attacks.

Still relating to the ways the West 'understands' non-Western arts, many Westerners still

believe that non-Western artists are people who just follow tradition to create their objects and

that they are not really creative. Sally Price notes that “The popular image of Primitive artists as

the unthinking and undifferentiated tools of their respective traditions – as people who are

essentially denied the privilege of technical or conceptual creativity – raises interesting

questions about the ways in which “exotic” people are used to legitimize Western society and

culture. Labeling such portrayals racist or patronizing would oversimplify, but I believe a case

can be made that the “anonymity” (and its corollary, the “timelessness”) of Primitive Arts owes

much to the needs of Western observers to feel that their society represents a uniquely superior

achievement in the history of humanity” (p. 60). In this way, the objects of the Musée du Quai

Branly lack authorship of the objects, a problem that could be solved.

Spivak says that the Europeans use the idea of the noble savage paradigm because it

brings the nostalgia of the European origins as chaste, pure, virginal, and innocent. So, this

“primitivism” argument of the unnamed non-Western object, created by the West, “justifies”

the idea of cultural evolution and European past. The “nativist” argument reinforces the

colonialist-evolutionist gaze, as a form of looking for the objects and cultures exhibited.

It is important for this “nativist” argument to add that the objects, even the ones related

directly to the women, lack of a feminine “regard”. This absence of a critical approach given to

the “feminine” pieces exhibited just reinforces the male gaze over the objects, not helping a real

and broad change of perceptions about the non-Western artifacts.

The third argument about the Musée du Quai Branly failing to provide a change of gaze

is related to the formation of the main collection of the museum, that raises many issues linked

to colonial times and the “acquisition” of such objects. In a sense, the Musée du Quai Branly

uses the objects produced by others to tell the colonial history of France, as it is in Kylie

Message words “...a long Western colonialist tradition of exhibiting the national self thought the

exhibiting of otherness” (Message, 2006: 201). The absence of representation of the colonialist

dynamics in the Musée du Quai Branly makes it very difficult to understand the cultures where

34

the objects come from. Moreover, the half-globe exhibited at the Musée du Quai Branly,

showing the “Great Navigation” period (from Christopher Columbus to James Cook), just

reinforces the European idea of great explorers' nations, conquerors, and “superior” to the

cultures they are exhibiting. If the Musée du Quai Branly is engaged in showing the artifacts of

the “Other”, than the history must be the history of the other, not the European history. But the

implications for France’s image of remembering a dramatic colonialist past are avoided. There

is no mention about the politics of the colonies what so ever.

This half-globe showing the naval expeditions has no direct relation to the objects

exhibited in the museum. If the collection is about non-Western objects, why is this multimedia-

paraphernalia, which is only related to Europe, exhibited among the objects of the “other”

cultures? The presence of this 'alien' object is a proof that the Musée du Quai Branly is telling

the French colonialist story via “other” cultures, and not being critical about colonialism.

The absence of the colonial critic discourse and the origin of the objects exhibited in the

Musée du Quai Branly must be stressed. The journalist Alan Riding, of the New York Times,

published on the 22nd June 2006 an article about the Musée du Quai Branly where he remarks:

“The imperial past of France also hovers over the museum. Although $28.7 million was spent

acquiring about 8,500 works, much of the museum's collection came originally from French

colonies. And while the museum faces no claim for restitution of works gathered by 19th- and

early-20th-century explorers, administrators and military officers, a debate about the colonial

past is gaining strength here, fed partly by tensions over immigrants from developing nations”.

This passage reinforces the argument that the museum is using its collection for the benefit of

French colonialist story.

Pauline de Souza explains how non-Western objects started to reach European

institutions: “The development in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western cultures of

the natural sciences, ethnology, and anthropology provided methods for the documentation of

the non-Western peoples. Many nineteenth-century institutions, from universities to natural

history museums, developed programs, methods, and concrete architectural structures to assist

in the project of collecting, organizing, and displaying the cultural artifacts of the countries

invaded by the West. The aim of such institutions was to quantify and thus control the people

they governed by systematically and unfavorably comparing their cultures and ways of life to

the cultural achievements of the West. Under the guise of furthering knowledge, cultures

outside the Western European traditions were classified as primitive, degenerate, and stagnant,

thus reinforcing the fantasized superiority of European culture” (in Jones ed, 2006: 358). In this

way, many objects exhibited in the European ethnographic museums came to enter into the

collections charged with this stigma of “cultural inferiority”. And the Musée du Quai Branly

35

has inherited many objects of previous ethnographic museums such as the Musée de l'Homme

and the Musée National des Arts d'Afrique et d'Oceanie (MAAO).

For a museum full with objects from various ethnic groups, we could say that people

from minority groups are still under-represented in museums, and that this under-representation

was a key point for the creation of the Musée du Quai Branly. In this sense, the Musée du Quai

Branly have a great opportunity to value, for example, contemporary black artists and their

production, but the museum misses this opportunity and prefers to tell the colonial history of

France. Kylie Message remarks that “Museums have always juggled diverse agendas (even as

they have attempted to assert authority over difference), and despite producing difference, they

have not altogether been able to control the silent subject positions of minority and

marginalized groups that have historically been represented within the museum but given no

voice” (Message, 2006: 200-1). Also, this is exactly what happens to the Musée du Quai

Branly, as the objects exhibited and the groups involved have no say about how their history,

objects or independence insurgency against the colony are re-presented1. The once-colonized

minority in France needs greater recognition of the role that their cultures played in the past and

present French society and greater acknowledgement of non-European perspectives on

historical events and arts. This means that, if the Musée du Quai Branly was build as a political

project to calm down the excitable minorities in the suburbs of Paris, the museum has failed it

completely.

The exhibits should have been displayed with collaboration of museums experts together

with indigenous populations. In this way, the groups represented could have voice about the

ways their objects are re-presented in the Musée du Quai Branly. In this sense, the arrogance of

the European expertise about the non-Western objects had prevailed in the Musée du Quai

Branly. The Musée du Quai Branly tries, on the “rich-in-words-speech” literary form of

catalogues, to produce an image of the “museum of the other”, while it is a “French museum

using the other to tell the French colonial history”. As Message says: “...more and more

museums aim to present themselves as nuanced cultural institutions with practices that are

interdisciplinary, multipurpose, collaborative and cross-cultural. This objective reflects attempts

by indigenous groups to control the way they are represented, responding also to the assertation

of self-sovereignty within complex processes of decolonization and multiculturalism that is

privileged in many cases by the dominant state” (p. 201). In a way, if the Musée du Quai Branly

is a museum of the “other”, why not let the “other” to have a say and participate in the way they

are going to be represented?

A good example for the Musée du Quai Branly could be the Tjibaou Cultural Centre

1 Presented again, but in a different way.

36

(http://www.adck.nc) in New Caledonia (Pacific), which is an institution funded by the French

government and which shows postcolonial aspects of dialogue in the formation of a national

Kanak identity. It documents the racism of the French and the violence of New Caledonia’s

colonial history, and the objects exhibited are chosen by the Kanak group represented in the

museum, where the political is overlaid with the cultural, rather than positioned in opposition to

it. “The CCT benefited further from the popular 'hearts, minds and pockets' policies of the then

Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, so that the French government not only covered the 90 million

dollars initially required for building the CCT but agreed to support substantially the ongoing

administration costs of the site” (Message, 2006: 155). The centre has objects from the past and

present, but it focuses mostly on the contemporary creations of Kanak artists, as they believe

that their identity lies ahead of them. The CCT is “...concerned with creating a very particular

relationship with the postcolonial politics of image-construction – a point that is significant in

relation to the centre's official publicity and rhetoric, as well as for Kanak communities that

aims principally to represent and engage with” (p. 150).

The CCT has a unique approach relating to the objects shown, as the exhibits must

participate in the representation and creation of New Caledonia's self image. In opposition, the

Musée du Quai Branly does not relate to the political struggles of the groups represented, such

as the creation of a national identity and revision of colonialist past.

The objects exhibited are closely related to the colonial past and the mechanisms of

power playing between colonized and colonizer. These objects are “trophies” brought by the

colonizers and explorers, a sign of superiority over the subjugued colonized. Constance Classen

and David Howes remark that “Collecting is a form of conquest and collected artifacts are

material signs of victory over their former owners and places of origin [a trophy]. From an early

age non-Western artifacts brought home by soldiers, travelers, and antiquity hunters had played

the role of spoils. What the modern museum particularly developed, in conjunction with this

paradigm of conquest, was a model of colonization, of foreign dominion” (in Edwards, Gosden

and Philips ed, 2006: 209). In the Musée du Quai Branly the bravery of these missionaries,

explorers, soldiers, travelers and antiquity hunters has been praised over the manner in which

the objects were “obtained”, showing that the Musée du Quai Branly is not really representing

the cultures where the objects exhibited come from, but talking about France and the French

glories of colonial times. I can say, using their words, that the Musée du Quai Branly is

“...clearly more a case of the West trying to create a satisfying and self-fulfilling identity for

itself through institutional display than a meaningful depiction of the cultures of other” (p. 209).

37

Conclusion

To conclude my thesis I would like to suggest some options for improvement of the

vision regarding the 'other' cultures exhibited in the Musée du Quai Branly:

I suggest the introduction of more contemporary art works of the societies in display. As

it is done with the aboriginals from Australia. Such works will corroborate to change the vision

regarding the non-Western societies, as the viewer can realize by him/herself that every ethnic

group on the world, in past and present, has forms of aesthetic expressions. Also, contemporary

art of the non-Western countries are as vibrant as any other one in the West, and they are full of

search for national identity, diasporic topics, hybridism (or mixture of races), and feminist and

gay engagements. The use of contemporary art in the main collection would politicize the

debate over non-Western and would intensify the recognition of the “other”.

Contemporary non-Western arts can show that non-Western artists are as creative as any

other Western artist, helping to change Western conceptions about the non-Western “other”. In

this respect, Susan Vogel, cited by Elsbeth Court, explains: “...while my back had been turned

studying traditional African art, contemporary African art had become a large and fascinating

domain, one that condensed both ancient and new traditions and tasted of both Africa and

West” (in Barker ed, 1999: 157). Showing that are lots of opportunities for the person interested

in contemporary non-Western arts.

In the same line of thought about contemporary art made by non-Westerner artist, Sandy

Nairne sees a change in contemporary art systems and praises the non-Western artists of today:

“The assumptions of most western museums and galleries that the artists of Europe and North

America are those of greatest interest have been challenged over several years. Those artists

who have crossed borders themselves, critics and magazines broadening debate, and the

struggles for recognition and self-determination by the indigenous artists of the American and

Australian continents have all been influential” (Barker ed, 1999: 119).

Also, I suggest that the illumination of the museum should be changed to allow more

natural light on the objects, as the darkness of the dimly-lit ambiance created by the spotlights

just produces an atmosphere of mystery and distance that does not propitiate the change of gaze

over the non-Western object, but enforces the Eurocentric vision of primitivism and exoticism

that postcolonial theory wants to rewrite. And, as the objects exhibited were produced in natural

light, they should be better appreciated with natural light.

The reporter Michael Kimmelman, from the New York Times, has arrived to the same

conclusion: “A spiral ramp, light and open, segues into a darkened tunnel that delivers visitors

to a realm where the walls are black, the floors red, and everything's very, very dark, except the

38

objects, installed by global region willy-nilly, under spotlights. Windows are scrimmed with

photographs of trees to evoke the underbrush. A pathway (Mr. Nouvel calls it the ''river'')

meanders between curvy leather walls, a motif continued in those leather-clad pods with the

touch-screens and the benches. He calls this motif the ''snake''; and “Jean-Pierre Mohen, the

director of collections, has explained that the jungle theme is meant to seem mysterious and

chaotic, but, like the jungle, to slowly reveal its logic, symbolizing the complexity of non-

European societies that are closer to nature than we are. It is the old noble-savage argument.

Heart of darkness in the city of light. Whatever. The atmosphere is like a discothèque at 10

a.m.” (New York Times, ART; A Heart Of Darkness In the City Of Light, 2 July 2006).

The recreation of a “natural site”, where the theatric approach is heavily used, as

preparing the scenery for the objects exhibited, just places visitors more distant from the

artifacts. I can compare this theatric approach to a night out in the theater: one goes and sits

comfortably in his/her seat and watch the play. No one goes on stage, as the stage is for the

artists, not for the audience. The same happens in the Musée du Quai Branly. The non-Western

viewers do not live in a jungle and they do not need a “jungle-like” museum to show objects not

very familiar to them. All this theatric paraphernalia just distances the public from the exhibits,

when the intention of a museum is to do the opposite. Also, the earth-like colors and leather

corridor should be rethought.

Another suggestion for the Musée du Quai Branly is that the use of the senses could be a

good way of finishing with the “who can see have no need to touch” approach given by the

Musée du Quai Branly. Can anyone imagine the smells that would come from an African

ceremonial object? Or feel the texture of a Pacific wood mask? So, that is what the

anthropology of the senses can offer, helping us to take a step forward from the ocularcentrism

and textualism of museums. As we are accustomed to believe, as Diane Losche observes, “...the

visual is more readily associated with fact, truth, and science than with the other senses” (in

Edwards, Gosden and Philips ed, 2006: 224).

Here I defend that the Musée du Quai Branly should have rooms for experiencing the

objects exhibited via all the human senses. Rooms where the people could touch the objects

smell the objects, etc. As babies who have their first contact with the objects via their hands and

mouths. Who can say that it is not a human approach for knowledge gaining? Not only the

Musée du Quai Branly should allow objects to be experienced by other senses, but any

museum. For example, visitors, in any museum, could touch a contemporary sculpture for a day

or two. As long as the security and guiding personnel are trained and can orient properly the

visitor, there will be no risk for the piece.

And my last suggestion is that there should be no omission about the history of the

39

objects and their producers. As Jeffrey David Feldman explains, there are some dangerous

intellectual and ethical points about the ocularcentrism in a museum such as the Musée du Quai

Branly: “...the visual emphasis of museums can often limit or confuse the visitor's ability to

remember the colonial past. This point is a crucial one. Museums do not eliminate contact

points so much as they leave their sensory complexity unarticulated. In this respect, museums

displays risk reinscribing the silences and eliminations that gave rise to the contact point in the

first place. When left unexplored, contact points in museums risk becoming sites where

memory is subverted, similar to the way in which memorials in other aspects of the public

sphere risk becoming passive “sites of memory” (in Edwards, Gosden and Philips ed, 2006:

247). And this is exactly what happens in the Musée du Quai Branly. The objects are exhibited

as if they had no history, no past, no author. The absence of information of the colonial past of

the objects can be closely related to the method of deconstruction of Gayatri Spivak, where the

absences give the meaning for the literary postcolonial (deconstructive) analysis.

Yet, Jeffrey David Feldman shows an interesting concept as objects as contact points:

“When museum objects are treated as contact points, the senses become historical links between

histories and representation, thereby opening onto unexpected discourses of domination,

agency, and material value that might otherwise be silenced or excluded by critiques of

museums as markets” (idem, 255). Following Feldman analysis, the objects in the Musée du

Quai Branly could perform as wonderful contact points to help changing the gaze over non-

Western arts and cultures.

To finish this thesis I would like to show some positive remarks about the Musée du

Quai Branly:

First, the exhibition of the textiles and cloths are very well done, as the pieces are

hanging, usually exhibited alone, and sometimes with artistic effect. Maybe due to the

experience in the fashion industry and textile handling, the French museums are the most

specialized in exhibiting such types of objects.

The Museum guide book gives an overview of the collection of the Musée du Quai

Branly's textiles: “Although the museum's textile collections include examples from

archaeological and historical collections, in particular from America, they mainly date from the

19th and 20th centuries. They reflect the main focus of interest of individual collectors whose

different approaches provide a collection that is richly varied, and which reveals the technical,

social and aesthetic values of different times and places” (p. 278).

Second, the conservation activities that were needed to bring such a collection to its best

stage are one of the merits of the Musée du Quai Branly. The best technologies available to

40

conserve materials were used to make sure that the objects would be exhibited in their former

glory. It is understandable that such objects being passed from museum to museum should have

a huge work of conservation required, which the Musée du Quai Branly did very well. But this

conservationist vision should not interdict the viewer from interacting with the objects in the

collection, via other senses than the visual. However, Constance Classen and David Howes

remark that this excessive worry about conservation is not natural: “... the increased concern

over conservation in modernity is not a “natural” museological development, but is itself the

expression of a changing ideological and sensory model according to which preserving artifacts

for future view is more important than physically interacting with them in the present” (in

Edwards, Gosden and Philips ed, 2006: 216).

And finally, I hope it is clear from this thesis that the Musée du Quai Branly has failed

to influence in a positive way the gaze regarding non-Western arts, even if not all the exhibits in

there can be called art. I use Michael Kimmelman to finish my argument: “The Pavillon [des

Sessions, in the Louvre], prizing aesthetics above all, clearly isn't the only way to show things,

but it's true to its purpose, and it works. Quai Branly doesn't - if success means something

beyond novelty and theatrics”. Even with all the earth-like and jungle-like effects, the Musée du

Quai Branly does not give a step forward in the direction of changing the ideas and prejudices

about non-Western cultures and their specific arts and objects.

41

Bibliography

Barker, Emma (ed.). Contemporary Cultures of Display. London: Yale University Press, 1999.

Campbel, Robert. Article Paris museum is no work of art, in The Boston Globe newspaper,http://www.boston.com .

Cheetham, Mark A; Ann Holly, Michael and Moxey, Keith (ed), The Subjects of Art History.Historical Objects in Contemporary Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1998. Chapters 11, Passing between Art History and Postcolonial Theory; Chapter 12, ArtHistory and Museums; Chapter 13, Museums and Galleries as Sites for Artistic Intervention.

Demeude, Huges. The Mussée du Quai Branly. Art Spaces. Paris: Éditions Scala, 2006.

Desai, Gaurav and Nair, Supriya (ed.). Postcolonialisms, an anthology of cultural theory andcriticism. Oxford: Berg, 2005. Chapter 1: Christopher Columbus, “The letter of ChristopherColumbus on the discovery of America”; chapter 3: Frederik Lugard, “The value of British rulein the tropics to British democracy and native races”; chapter 7: Edward W. Said, “Introductionto Orientalism”; chapter 19: Homi Bhabha, “Of mimicry and man: the ambivalence of colonialdiscourse”; chapter 24: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Three women's texts and critique ofimperialism”.

Edwards, Elizabeth; Gosden, Chris and Philips, Ruth B. (ed). Sensible objects. Colonialism,Museums and Material Culture. Oxford: Oxford International publishers Ltd, 2006. Part 3:Museums.

Jones, Amelia (ed). A Companion to Contemporary Art Since 1945. Oxford: BlackwellPublishing, 2006. Chapter 18: Implications of Blackness in Contemporary Art; chapter 22:Postcolonial Theory.

Kimmelman, Michael. Article A heart of darkiness in the city of light. In The New York Timesnewspaper, http://www.nytimes.com .

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Lavalou, Armelle and Robert, Jean-Paul. Le Mussée du Quai Branly. Paris: Service éditorial duMusée du Quai Branly, 2006.

Le Palais des Colonies. Histoire du musée des arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie. Paris: Éditions de laReúnion des musées nationaux, 2002. Introduction by Germain Viatte.

Masterpieces from the Musée du Quai Branly collections. Paris: Musée du Quai Branly, 2006.

Message, Kylie. New Museums and the making of culture. New York: Berg, 2006.

Musée du Quai Branly. Museum guide book. Paris: Musée du Quai Branly, 2006.

Nelson, Robert S. and Shiff, Richard (ed.). Critical terms for art history. London: TheUniversity of Chicago Press, 2003. Chapter 22: Gaze; chapter 27: Collecting/Museums; chapter29: Postmodernism/Postcolonialism.

Price, Sally. Primitive Art in Civilized Places. London: The University of Chicago Press, 1989

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(2nd ed. 2001).

Riding, Alan. Article Imperialist? Moi? Not the Musée du Quai Branly. In The New York

Times newspaper, http://www.nytimes.com .

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Websites

http://www.quaibranly.fr/ Musée du Quai Branlyhttp://www.rmn.fr/index.html Réunion des musées nationauxhttp://www.adck.nc/ The Tjibaou cultural centrehttp://www.elysee.fr/elysee/elysee.fr/francais/accueil-presidence_de_la_republique.2.htmlPresidence of the French Republic http://www.boston.com The Boston Globe newspaper http://www.nytimes.com The New York Times newspaperhttp://www.smh.com.au The Sydney Morning Herald newspaperhttp://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/gaze/gaze.html Aberystwyth, The University ofWales.

DVD

Viatte, Augustin. Quai Branly. L'Autre Musée, 2006, 52 minutes.

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Annex

Annex 1:Thesis Diagram

OFFICIAL DISCOURSE OFFICIAL DISCOURSE OFFICIAL DISCOURSE OFFICIAL DISCOURSE + DISPLAY DISCOURSE DISPLAY DISCOURSE DISPLAY DISCOURSE DISPLAY DISCOURSE

(Discourse of the publications) (Exhibition of the objects' discourse)

GAZEGAZEGAZEGAZE

(The mean to measure the changes)

POSTCOLONIAL THEORYPOSTCOLONIAL THEORYPOSTCOLONIAL THEORYPOSTCOLONIAL THEORY

(The frame)

CONCLUSIONCONCLUSIONCONCLUSIONCONCLUSION

44