Result of the research : 'kingdom'
Artists Abomey
dialogue on an African Kingdom
Mezzanine East
Tuesday 10 November 2009 to Sunday, January 31, 2010
Commission: Gaëlle Beaujean, head of collections Africa Branly
with the collaboration of Joseph Adande, art historian at the University of Abomey and Ahonon Leonard, manager and curator of the site of the royal palaces of Abomey
This exhibition presents 82 works through graphics and 8 elders, artists of the kingdom of Dahomey (1600-1894), in present-day Benin.
Its purpose is to present their works but also to question their role and status within society danhoméenne, and more specifically in the capital Abomey. Indeed, the artists chosen by the king, enjoyed great privileges while being constrained by their allegiance. The exhibition will explore their creations through the different functions of art in Abomey.
It is also to involve artists and families of artists in each type of objects presented. This new approach is the result of a research conducted by the research team, which resulted in an award-sometimes very finely certain objects.
The exhibition will last a double look at the works presented: the country of origin (through the participation of two scientists from Benin) and the French commissioner.
route of exposure
After an introductory space with an old map and a genealogy of the kings
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Culture
Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate")[1] is a term that has different meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. However, the word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses:
* excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture
* an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning
* the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group.
When the concept first emerged in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, it connoted a process of cultivation or improvement, as in agriculture or horticulture. In the nineteenth century, it came to refer first to the betterment or refinement of the individual, especially through education, and then to the fulfillment of national aspirations or ideals. In the mid-nineteenth century, some scientists used the term "culture" to refer to a universal human capacity.
In the twentieth century, "culture" emerged as a concept central to anthropology, encompassing all human phenomena that are not purely results of human genetics.
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Ethnology
Ethnology (from the Greek ἔθνος, ethnos meaning "habit, custom, convention") is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.
Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct contact with the culture, ethnology takes the research that ethnographers have compiled and then compares and contrasts different cultures. The term ethnology is credited to Adam Franz Kollár who used and defined it in his Historiae ivrisqve pvblici Regni Vngariae amoenitates published in Vienna in 1783. Kollár's interest in linguistic and cultural diversity was aroused by the situation in his native multi-lingual Kingdom of Hungary and his roots among its Slovaks, and by the shifts that began to emerge after the gradual retreat of the Ottoman Empire in the more distant Balkans.
Among the goals of ethnology have been the reconstruction of human history, and the formulation of cultural invariants, such as the incest taboo and culture change, and the formulation of generalizations about "human nature", a concept which has been criticized since the 19th century by various philosophers (Hegel, Marx, structuralism, etc.). In some parts of the world ethnology has developed along independent paths of investigation and pedagogical doctrine, with cultural anthropology becoming dominant especially in the United States, and social anthropology in Great Britain. The distinction between the three terms is increasingly blurry. Ethnology has been
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African art
African art constitutes one of the most diverse legacies on earth. Though many casual observers tend to generalize "traditional" African art, the continent is full of peoples, societies, and civilizations, each with a unique visual special culture. The definition also includes the art of the African Diasporas, such as the art of African Americans. Despite this diversity, there are some unifying artistic themes when considering the totality of the visual culture from the continent of Africa.
* Emphasis on the human figure: The human figure has always been a the primary subject matter for most African art, and this emphasis even influenced certain European traditions. For example in the fifteenth century Portugal traded with the Sapi culture near the Ivory Coast in West Africa, who created elaborate ivory saltcellars that were hybrids of African and European designs, most notably in the addition of the human figure (the human figure typically did not appear in Portuguese saltcellars). The human figure may symbolize the living or the dead, may reference chiefs, dancers, or various trades such as drummers or hunters, or even may be an anthropomorphic representation of a god or have other votive function. Another common theme is the inter-morphosis of human and animal.
Yoruba bronze head sculpture, Ife, Nigeria c. 12th century A.D.
* Visual abstraction: African artworks tend to favor visual abstraction over naturalistic representation. This is because many African artworks generalize stylistic norms. Ancient Egyptian art, also usually thought of as naturalistically depictive, makes use of highly abstracted and regimented visual canons, especially in painting, as well as the use of different colors to represent the qualities and characteristics of an individual being depicted.
* Emphasis on sculpture: African artists
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What a body?
I have a body good to me, it seems, and that's because I'm me. I count among my properties and pretend to carry him on my full sovereignty. I think therefore unique and independent. But it is an illusion because there is no human society where it is believed that the body is worth by itself. Every body is created, not only by their fathers and mothers. It is not made by one who has it, but by others. No more in New Guinea, the Amazon or Africa than in Western Europe, it is thought as a thing. Instead, it is the particular form of relationship with the otherness that constitutes the person. Depending on the perspective of comparative anthropology adopted here is that other, respectively, the other sex, animal species, the dead or the divine (secularized in the modern age, in the teleology of living). Yes, my body is what reminds me that I find myself in a world populated by example, ancestors, gods, enemies or people of the opposite sex. My body really mine? It is he who I do not belong, I is not alone and that my destiny is to live in society.
Description
224 pages 24 x 26 cm
240 color illustrations
1 map
retail price: 45 €
isbn 2-915133-17-4
Co-published Branly / Flammarion
curator
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Benin
Five Centuries of Royal Art
Produced by the Museum für Völkerkunde (Ethnology Museum) in Vienna, the Benin catalog, five centuries of royal art to discover the masterpieces of the art of court of the kingdom of Benin in the south of the Current Nigeria.
Reference book of over 500 pages, published this comprehensive retrospective, it includes an introduction to local traditions of Nigeria, reports on field research and the latest offers historico-cultural, symbolic and pictorial exhibits , crucial for the identity of the kingdom of Benin.
It is the perfect mirror of the exhibition that brings together for the first time in Europe, mostly from collections in England, Germany and Austria. All these works, a remarkable historical unity, draws a broad panorama of art and culture of the kingdom of Benin.
Treasures of mankind and blocks of museums around the world, beautiful bronzes and ivory carvings are at the heart of the course., Supplemented by maps, manuscripts and chronicles of travel, many clues for the reader of the immense wealth of the past in Nigeria.
five centuries of royal art
October 2, 2007-January 6, 2008
Curator: Barbara Plankensteiner, Director of Collections of Africa Museum of Ethnology in Vienna.
Produced by the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna, the Benin exhibition to discover the masterpieces of the art of court of the Kingdom of
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Jacques Chirac22nd President of the French Republic5th President of the Fifth RepublicCo-Prince of AndorraIn office17 May 1995 – 16 May 2007Prime Minister Alain JuppéLionel JospinJean-Pierre RaffarinDominique de VillepinPreceded by François MitterrandSucceeded by Nicolas SarkozyMayor of ParisIn office20 March 1977 – 16 May 1995Preceded by Office CreatedSucceeded by Jean Tiberi159th Prime Minister of France10th Prime Minister of Fifth Republic
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Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² (11.7 million sq mi) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people (as of 2009, see table) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.8% of the World's human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Not counting the disputed territory of Western Sahara, there are 53 countries, including Madagascar and various island groups, associated with the continent.
Africa, particularly central eastern Africa, is widely regarded within the scientific community to be the origin of humans and the Hominidae tree (great apes), as evidenced by the discovery of the earliest hominids and their ancestors, as well as later ones that have been dated to around seven million years ago – including Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens (human) found in Ethiopia being dated to ca. 200,000 years ago.
Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas; it is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones.
Etymology
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Mali EmpireThe Mali Empire or Manding Empire or Manden Kurufa was a West African civilization of the Mandinka from c. 1230 to c. 1600. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita and became renowned for the wealth of its rulers, especially Mansa Musa I. The Mali Empire had many profound cultural influences on West Africa allowing the spread of its language, laws and customs along the Niger River. The Mali empire extended over an area larger than western Europe and consisted of numerous vassal kingdoms and provinces.Manden1235-1600's. The Mali Empire grew out of an area referred to by its contemporary inhabitants as Manden. Manden, named for its inhabitants the Mandinka (initially Manden’ka with “ka” meaning people of), comprised most of present-day northern Guinea and southern Mali. The empire was originally established as a federation of Mandinka tribes called the Manden Kurufa (literally Manden Federation), but it later became an empire ruling millions of people from nearly every ethnic group in West Africa.EtymologyThe naming origins of the Mali Empire are complex and still debated in scholarly circles around the world. While the meaning of “Mali” is still contested, the process of how it entered the regional lexicon is not. As mentioned earlier, the Mandinka of the Middle Ages referred to their ethnic homeland as “Manden”.
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André Malraux
André Malraux (3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976) was a French author, adventurer and statesman, and a dominant figure in French politics and culture.
Biography
Malraux was born in Paris in 1901. His parents separated in 1905 and eventually divorced. He was raised by his mother and maternal grandmother, Berthe and Adrienne Lamy. His father, a stockbroker, committed suicide in 1930. Andre had Tourette's Syndrome during his childhood, resulting in motor and vocal tics. This may have contributed to his animated and memorable oratory style later in life.
At the age of 21, Malraux left for Cambodia with his new wife Clara Goldschmidt. In Cambodia, he undertook an exploratory expedition into the Cambodian jungle. On his return he was arrested by French colonial authorities for removing bas-reliefs from one of the temples he discovered. Banteay Srei. The French government itself had removed large numbers of sculptures and artifacts from already discovered sites such as Angkor Wat around this time. Malraux later incorporated the episode into his second novel La Voie Royale.
Malraux became highly critical of the French colonial authorities in Indochina, and in 1925 helped to organize the Young Annam League and founded a newspaper Indochina in Chains.
On his return to France, he published
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Tristan Tzara
Born April 4 or April 16, 1896
Moineşti, Kingdom of Romania
Died December 25, 1963 (aged 67)
Paris, France
Pen name S. Samyro, Tristan, Tristan Ruia, Tristan Ţara, Tr. Tzara
Occupation poet, essayist, journalist, playwright, performance artist, composer, film director, politician, diplomat
Nationality Romanian, French
Writing period 1912–1963
Guillaume Apollinaire, Henri Barzun, Fernand Divoire, Alfred Jarry, Jules Laforgue, Comte de Lautréamont, Maurice Maeterlinck, Adrian Maniu, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Ion Minulescu, Christian Morgenstern, Francis Picabia, Arthur Rimbaud, Urmuz, François Villon, Walt Whitman
Influenced
Louis Aragon, Marcel Avramescu, Samuel Beckett, André Breton, William S. Burroughs, Andrei Codrescu, Jacques G.
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THE PAINTINGS OF CHURCH ABBA ANTONIOS
The paintings on canvas of Abba Antonios church in Gondar in Ethiopia were collected by Marcel Griaule and his team at the Dakar-Djibouti mission in 1932. They probably date from the late eighteenth century and measure (for the pieces installed at the Musée du Quai Branly) about 2.3 meters high. All bear the inventory numbers from 31.74.3584 to 31.74.3630.
DESCRIPTION
The paintings in the church are made Abba Antonios egg on a canvas backing. They are mainly figures of saints, or episodes of Christian history (Old and New Testament apocryphal writings), arranged in superimposed registers.
At the Musée du Quai Branly, the totality of what has been harvested (60 sq.m.) is not exposed. In the room devoted to Ethiopian paintings, on the right shows a St. George, followed by a representation of God overcoming the Covenant of Grace and twelve priests of Heaven, from the west wall of the church. Opposite the entrance, three holy knights recognizable opponents it lands (small naked figures for St. Theodore, a centaur, a lion's body and tail shaped double snake for St. Claude, the emperor Julian the apostolate who tried to restore paganism to holy Mercury) overcome the images of the first Christian martyrs who have proclaimed the Gospel, namely John the Baptist, St. Paul, St. Peter and St. Etienne. Finally on the left wall you can see four of the kings of the Old Testament in the upper register (David, Solomon, Hezekiah and Josiah) and a couple of
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Tribe
A tribe, is a social group of humans connected by a shared system of values and organized for mutual care, defense, and survival beyond that which could be attained by a lone individual or family. A 'tribe' is defined in anthropology. When viewed historically or developmentally, a tribe is a mutual care system which, unlike a kingdom or state or other schema, is oriented around kinship and shared beliefs. Tribes can well exist simultaneously with other schema (see Schema (psychology)) such as states or other systems. They might consist of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states. Tribes are the most enduring and successful social survival system that has ever existed on earth. Tribes can exist within or without a state or kingdom and may or may not depend on the state or kingdom to endure.
Many anthropologists use the term to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups.
Some theorists hold that tribes represent a stage in social evolution intermediate between bands and states. Other theorists argue that tribes developed after, and must be understood in terms of their relationship to states.
Etymology
The English word tribe occurs in 13th century Middle English literature as referring to one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The word is from Old French tribu, in turn from Latin tribus, referring to the original tripartite ethnic
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Tribe
A tribe, is a social group of humans connected by a shared system of values and organized for mutual care, defense, and survival beyond that which could be attained by a lone individual or family. A 'tribe' is defined in anthropology. When viewed historically or developmentally, a tribe is a mutual care system which, unlike a kingdom or state or other schema, is oriented around kinship and shared beliefs. Tribes can well exist simultaneously with other schema (see Schema (psychology)) such as states or other systems. They might consist of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states. Tribes are the most enduring and successful social survival system that has ever existed on earth. Tribes can exist within or without a state or kingdom and may or may not depend on the state or kingdom to endure.
Many anthropologists use the term to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups.
Some theorists hold that tribes represent a stage in social evolution intermediate between bands and states. Other theorists argue that tribes developed after, and must be understood in terms of their relationship to states.
Etymology
The English word tribe occurs in 13th century Middle English literature as referring to one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The word is from Old French tribu, in turn from Latin tribus, referring to the original tripartite ethnic
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Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of human beings whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or presumed.
Ethnic identity is further marked by the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness and the recognition of common cultural, linguistic, religious, behavioural ,, as indicators of contrast to other groups.
Ethnicity is an important means through which people can identify themselves. According to "Challenges of Measuring an Ethnic World: Science, politics, and reality", a conference organised by Statistics Canada and the United States Census Bureau (April 1–3, 1992), "Ethnicity is a fundamental factor in human life: it is a phenomenon inherent in human experience." However, many social scientists, like anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf, do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups.Processes that result in the emergence of such identification are called ethnogenesis. Members of an ethnic group, on the whole, claim cultural continuities over time. Historians and cultural anthropologists have documented, however, that often many of the values, practices, and norms that imply continuity with the past are of relatively recent invention.
According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen, until recently the study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates. One is between "primordialism" and
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The Yoruba
The Yoruba people live on the west coast of Africa in Nigeria and can also be found in the eastern Republic of Benin and Togo. Because the majority of the slaves brought to the Americas were from West Africa Yoruban descendants can also be found in Brazil, Cuba, the Caribbean, and the United States. There are also many Yoruba currently living in Europe, particularly Britain, since Nigeria was once a British colony. The Yoruba are one of the largest cultural groups in Africa. Currently, there are about 40 million Yoruba world-wide. The Yoruba have been living in advanced urban kingdoms for more than 1,500 years. They created a strong economy through farming, trading, and art production. Their outstanding and unique artistic traditions include woodcarving, sculpture, metal work, textiles, and beadwork.
West Africans, such as the Yoruba, have lived in urban societies and have produced extraordinary art work since the 5th century BC. During this time, the Yoruba began to use iron to create metal tools and weapons such as machetes, axes, and hoes. These tools made it easier for the Yoruba to farm the land. They planted crops including yams, their staple food. They also harvested the seeds from the palm oil tree. The seeds from this tree produce a vegetable oil that is used for cooking. Kola nuts were also grown and harvested. Soon the Yoruba began trading with neighboring areas for rice and sorghum. Due to increased agriculture, the Yoruba community began to grow in size and large towns were created. They arranged their communities by clan lines, or extended families. Families who had the same ancestors lived next door to each other in large compounds. An elder was put in charge as the
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Visual, performing, and literary arts of sub-Saharan Africa. What gives art in Africa its special character is the generally small scale of most of its traditional societies, in which one finds a bewildering variety of styles. The earliest evidence of visual art is provided by figures scratched and painted on rocks c. 3000 BC. Pastoral cultures in the east emphasize personal adornment; sculpture predominates in the agricultural societies in the west and south. Clay figurines found in Nigeria date to 500 BC. Metalworking was practiced from the 9th century AD. Sculptures in stone, ivory, and wood date from the 16th – 17th centuries; some of the finest wood sculptures date from the 20th century. Architecture dominates the arts of the north and of the eastern coast, where Islam and Christianity exerted their influence; important work includes magnificent mosques built of mud and rock-hewn churches. Perhaps the most distinctive features of African music are the complexity of rhythmic patterning achieved by a great variety of drums and the relationship between melodic form and language tone structure. Without this the text of a song is rendered meaningless; but, even in purely instrumental music, melodic pattern is likely to follow speech tone. Dances are realized in radically different styles throughout Africa. Movement patterns often depend upon the way in which environmental, historical, and social circumstances have been articulated in working, social, and recreational movements. Often there is no distinction between ritual celebration and social recreation. The masquerade is a complex art form employing many media; masquerades may entertain, be used to fight disease, be consulted as oracles, initiate boys to manhood, impersonate ancestors, judge disputes, or execute criminals. The mask is essentially a dramatic device enabling performers to stand apart from their everyday role in the community.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum located on the eastern edge of Central Park, along what is known as Museum Mile in New York City, USA. It has a permanent collection containing more than two million works of art, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, often referred to simply as "the Met," is one of the world's largest art galleries, and has a much smaller second location in Upper Manhattan, at "The Cloisters," which features medieval art.
Represented in the permanent collection are works of art from classical antiquity and Ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met also maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine and Islamic art. The museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. A number of notable interiors, ranging from 1st century Rome through modern American design, are permanently installed in the Met's galleries.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens. The founders included businessmen and financiers, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day, who wanted to open a museum to bring art and art education to the American people. It opened on February 20, 1872, and was originally located at 681 Fifth Avenue.
As of 2007, the Met measures almost a quarter mile long and occupies more than two million square feet.
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Sculpture dedicated to Gou divinity of wrought iron and war
Work iron 168cm in height made before 1858 by Akati Ekplékendo
Current Republic of Benin
Lauren Papet, Ecole du Louvre
Arrival in French collections and identification problems
This statue has been reported in France in 1894 by Captain Eugene Fonssagrives following the conquest of Dahomey. It belonged to the spoils of war found in the palaces of Abomey, abandoned by the fleeing King Behanzin, who himself had perhaps made on the side in preparation for the French attack in the hope that the god help protect the kingdom on its most vulnerable border. She was then given directly to the Trocadero Museum of Ethnography, the current Museum of Man (recorded April 30, 1894).
First Fonssagrives was presented as was a representation of Ebo, patron god of Ouidah thesis refuted by Maurice Delafosse in 1894, indicating that the divinity of Ouidah is not the serpent but Ebo Dan. The name "Ebo" would have probably been given Fonssagrives response when he asked what the object (Bo meaning receptacle of supernatural forces). She was named Gou, its present name after World War II, his resemblance to the voodoo (god) of iron and protector of the forge, metal and war have been considered fairly obvious.
Technical Achievement
Government also has a variety of techniques to work with iron: forged, rolled, hammered, nailed and riveted.
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The Museum Dapper is a private Parisian museum created in 1986 which defines itself as a «space of arts and of cultures for Africa, the Caribbean and their diasporas».
His name pays tribute to a Dutch humanist of the XVIIth century, Olfert Dapper.
History
Olfert Dapper foundation is born in Amsterdam in 1983, in initiative of polytechnicien Michel Leveau, industrialist, to recommend Africain governments [2] and soon possessor of «one of the most abundant collections of African art in Europe».
Asserting his will to help in knowledge and in preservation of the heritages of sub-Saharan Africa, foundation allocates grants of studies and of research in the domains of history and of ethnology, as well as help to publications. A non-profitmaking organisation is created in 1984 by the president and his wife. Christiane Falgayrettes-Leveau, native to Guyana and alumna of Maryse Cop, is then journalist specialised in the literature of the black world.
In May, 1986 she takes the direction of the museum which becomes established first in a private residence of the avenue Victor-Hugo, constructs by Charles Plumet in 1901, a modest space (500 m ²) which they achieve by a small court planted of bamboos and brackens.
Three
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