GALERIE ART PREMIER AFRICAIN GALERIE ART PRIMITIF AFRICAIN AFRICAN ART GALLERY

Métro: line 12 (Rue du Bac ou Solférino station), line 1 (Palais Royal musée du Louvre station)

Public parking:

Orsay museum, 8 quai Anatole France 75007

Bac-Montalembert, 9 rue de Montalembert 75007

De l’africanisme aux études africaines Textes et « humanités » Alain Ricard Tout discours sur l'Afrique, et en particulier l'Afrique noire, ne peut il relever que de la passion, voire de lacompassion ? N’y a t-il que les fous d’Afrique – titre d’un livre récent – pour s’intéresser à elle ? Quelles formes de raison peut-il convoquer ?La première qui se présenta fut géographique. Sorte de page blanche de notre humanité jusqu'au XIXe siècle, l'Afrique a été inscrite avec nos routes, nos cartes, nos frontières ; aujourd'hui, les images satellitaires ne nous en laisentrien ignorer. Nous savons au mètre près ce qui se passe à Kisangani en guerre, là où Stanley donna à des chutes son nom : il avait compris que cette courbe du fleuve Congo était le centre du continent, il pensait en géographe et en stratège... Cette Afrique des images reste face à nous, extérieure : ne relève-t-elle pas aussi d'autres formes de raison plus intérieures, voire existentielles ? Quel immense murmure monte de la forêt ? Que dit-il ? Ces Africains ne sont-ils qued'empruntés francophones ou de pompeux anglophones ? Des bégayeurs maladroits ou des volubiles irresponsables ?L'inscription géographique, qui en reste à l'image, est trop facilement la proie de la marchandise. Aujourd'hui il nous faut le son, le discours. Des langues en expansion composent d'autres circulations que nous ne capterons pas avec nos satellites. Il nous faut passer de l'œil à l'oreille, du regard à l'écoute... Les blancs des cartes Les sciences humaines redécouvrent l’afrique, titrait un journal du soir après un colloque tenu à Nantes – « Les sciences de l’homme

Africa since 1935

Research Director
Professor A. A. Mazrui (Kenya)

Co-Director
C. Wondji (Ivory Coast)

Arts and society since 1935
J. VANSINA

Across Africa today the arts give the show an amazing cauldron of creativity emerged with a dizzying diversity of all layers of society. Many new artistic trends date from the second half of the colonial period. Besides, some pioneers are still working today. After all, it is past two generations since 1935. But in that short time, the artistic activity was a richness and diversity as this chapter may at most trace the main lines of its evolution (1).

Initially, we must enumerate a few general features of social and cultural matrix that is all. These are: the growing impact but unevenly distributed in Europe, the growth of cities, social stratification more trenches that lead to the formation of new classes, the industrial division of time has reached the beaches of leisure may be devoted to the practice and enjoyment of the arts, the prestige associated with the technical and technical training, changing the place and role of the artist in society, past status of artisan to that of cultural soothsayer The change in attitude toward art and their use, alteration of values in general and more specifically the changing religious values. The multiplication of objects of artistic production offers new opportunities, these are just

The Quai Branly museum is set on quai Branly in the 7th district of Paris, where was located the Foreign Exchange Market Department. Ambitious project led by Jacques Chirac (passionated by « primitive art ») and realised by Jean Nouvel, it has been unveiled the 20th of June 2006.

History

Jacques Kerchache, art seller and african art expert, tried from the begining of the 1990’s to bring the « primitive arts » into the Louvre museum. In 1990 he signed in the newpaper Libération an article on this topic ; the same year he met Jacques Chirac, then mayor of Paris.

The latter is elected president of the Republic in 1995. As soon as he arrived at the head of the State, he askes for the opening of a primitive art department at the Louvre museum. One year later he announced the project of creation of a new museum, which quickly meet an opposition, especially  with a strike of the personnal of the Man museum in 1999, to stand in the way of the disassembly of the museum’s collections and criticize the primacy of the aesthetic choice instead of the scientific factors.

An architecture competition is sent out in 1999, designating Jean Nouvel as the architect.

This museum is unveiled the 20th of June 2006 by Jacques Chirac, in the presence of Kofi Annan, Rigoberta Menchú, Paul Okalik, Dominique de Villepin, Lionel Jospin and Jean-Pierre Raffarin. The Quai Branly museum has the status of public administratove institution. It’s placed under the guardianship of the Department of Culture and

P R E F A C E


In one of the chaos of rocks the most amazing of Africa, has a population of farmer-warriors who was one of the last of the French domain to lose its independence.


For most whites in West Africa, the Dogon are dangerous men, if not the most backward of the Federation. Ilspassent to practice human sacrifice and even to defend themselves better against all the outside influences that they live a difficult country. Some writers have told their small fears when supposedly daring excursions. From these legends and the pretext of revolts often due to misunderstandings, it has sometimes taken in exile of entire villages.


In short, the Dogon represent one of the finest examples of primitive savage and this opinion is shared by some black Muslims who, intellectually, are not better equipped than whites to appreciate those of their fellow faithful to ancestral traditions. Only officials who have assumed the heavy task of administering these men have learned to love them.


The author of this book and its many teammates attend the Dogon past fifteen years. They published the work of these men who are now the people's best-known French Sudan: The Souls of the Dogon (G. Dieterlen, 1941), The Currency (S. OF GANAY 1941), Masks (M. Griaule, 1938) have brought to scholarly evidence that blacks lived on complex ideas, but ordered, on systems of institutions and rituals where nothing is left to chance or whim. This work, already ten years ago, drew

The Quai Branly museum is set on quai Branly in the 7th district of Paris, where was located the Foreign Exchange Market Department. Ambitious project led by Jacques Chirac (passionated by « primitive art ») and realised by Jean Nouvel, it has been unveiled the 20th of June 2006.

History

Jacques Kerchache, art seller and african art expert, tried from the begining of the 1990’s to bring the « primitive arts » into the Louvre museum. In 1990 he signed in the newpaper Libération an article on this topic ; the same year he met Jacques Chirac, then mayor of Paris.

The latter is elected president of the Republic in 1995. As soon as he arrived at the head of the State, he askes for the opening of a primitive art department at the Louvre museum. One year later he announced the project of creation of a new museum, which quickly meet an opposition, especially  with a strike of the personnal of the Man museum in 1999, to stand in the way of the disassembly of the museum’s collections and criticize the primacy of the aesthetic choice instead of the scientific factors.

An architecture competition is sent out in 1999, designating Jean Nouvel as the architect.

This museum is unveiled the 20th of June 2006 by Jacques Chirac, in the presence of Kofi Annan, Rigoberta Menchú, Paul Okalik, Dominique de Villepin, Lionel Jospin and Jean-Pierre Raffarin. The Quai Branly museum has the status of public administratove institution. It’s placed under the guardianship of the Department of Culture and

Julien Michel Leiris (April 20, 1901 in Paris – September 30, 1990 in Saint-Hilaire, Essonne) was a Frenchsurrealistwriter and ethnographer.

Biography

Michel Leiris obtained his baccalauréat in philosophy in 1918 and after a brief attempt at studying chemistry, he developed a strong interest in jazz and poetry. Between 1921 and 1924, Leiris met a number of important figures such as Max Jacob, Georges Henri Rivière, Jean Dubuffet, Robert Despos, Georges Bataille and the artist André Masson, who soon became his mentor. Through Masson, Leiris became a member of the Surrealistmovement, contributed to La Révolution surréaliste, published Simulacre(1925), and Le Point Cardinal (1927), and wrote a surrealist novel Aurora(1927-28; first published in 1946). In 1926, he married Louise Godon, the step-daughter of Picasso's dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and traveled to Egypt and Greece.

Following a fall out with André Breton in 1929, he joined Bataille’s team as a sub-editor for Documents, to which he also regularly contributed articles such as “Notes on Two Microcosmic Figures of the 14th and 15th Centuries” (1929, issue 1), “In Connection with the ‘Musée des Sorciers" (1929, issue 2), "Civilisation" (1929, issue 4), “The ‘Caput Mortuum’ or the Alchemist’s Wife” (1930, issue 8), and on artists such as Giacometti,Miró, Picasso, and the 16th