Tiki Pop

In the 1930s, Polynesian-themed bars and restaurants began to appear in America while the stereotypes of the beachcomber and the sexy vahine were popularised in literature and on the big screen. With the appearance of the Tiki aesthetic in the 1950s, this style became a genuine way of life. A very liberal adaptation of the original Polynesian idols, Tiki imagery was produced in traditional and modernist forms and pervaded everyday life. Through nearly 450 works, photographs, films, musical recordings and archive documents, a new exhibition at the Musée du Quai Branly entitled Tiki Pop. L'Amérique rêve son paradis polynésien (Tiki Pop: America Imagines its Polynesian Paradise) bears witness to this infatuation-cum-lifestyle. A huge array of period items and ephemera are presented in the installation alongside authentic tribal works, including Maori tekoteko sculptures, Tongan kava bowls, and more.

View the exhibition's official website.

Images courtesy of the Musée du Quai Branly

Tatoueurs, Tatoues

On view at the Musée du Quai Branly beginning May 6, Tatoueurs, tatoués (Tattooists, tattooed) returns to the sources of tattoo and presents the renewal of this phenomenon in its now permanent and globalised manifestation. In so-called "primitive" societies from Asia, Africa and Oceania, tattooing has a social, religious and mystical role and accompanies the subject in their rites of passage, including them in the community. Conversely, in the West, they have been seen as a mark of infamy, criminality, a circus attraction (with the phenomenon of side shows) and as a mark of identity for urban tribes.

View the exhibition's official website.

Wooden head with carved moko  -  Maori, New Zealand

J’arrive, J’aime, Je m’en Vais – Pierre Loti l’Ambigu Exotique

Through September 29, 2013, the new Atelier Martine Aublet at the Musée du Quai Branly will host a show devoted to the unique and fascinating Pierre Loti (born Julien Viaud). J’arrive, J’aime, Je m’en Vais – Pierre Loti l’Ambigu Exotique (I Arrive, I Love, I Leave – Pierre Loti, the Ambiguous Exotic) is an homage to this late nineteenth-century literary ambassador of exoticism. He was a cosmopolitan dandy who cultivated extravagance and was fascinated by the foreign cultures he encountered in the course of his travels as a naval officer. Conceived by Claude Stéfani, curator at the Municipal Museums of Rochefort, the exhibition includes archival documents, photographs, clothing, and all manner of personal effects. 

View the exhibition's official website.

Image courtesy of the Musée du Quai Branly

Cheveux Cheris: Frivolités et Trophées

An exhibition entitled Cheveux Cheris. Frivolités et Trophées (Cherished Hair. Frivolities and Trophies), conceived by Yves Le Fur, who has already organized a number of exhibitions that combine Western paintings and photographs with tribal works, opens at the Musée du Quai Branly on September 18. On view until July 2013, it addresses hair from a wide variety of human perspectives, from its use in the manufacture of objects to its preservation as a relic and a mnemonic device. Tribal works from South America, Polynesia, and elsewhere will comprise a significant portion of the objects on display.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Mask  -  Kanak, New Caledonia

Necklace  -  Polynesia

Shrunken head, tsantsa  -  Brazil

Information and images courtesy of the Musée du Quai Branly

The Lady of the River

The Musée du Quai Branly has elected to inaugurate its new Martine Aublet Studio with a small but exquisite installation of sculpture from Papua New Guinea. The Lady of the River showcases an impressive, large-scale suspension hook depicting a female figure, recently acquired by the museum, along with twenty-seven other works from the museum's collections that evoke the status and role of women in the societies of the Middle Sepik region, as well as their relationship with men and with their ancestors.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Information and images courtesy of the Musée du Quai Branly

Magic Masks, Curvy Women From Congo Bewitch in Paris: Review

Congo doesn't have the best reputation.

If the two countries sharing the name of Africa’s second- longest river, the (formerly French) Republic of the Congo and the (formerly Belgian) Democratic Republic of the Congo, pop up in the news, you can bet it’s about civil wars, refugees, abysmal poverty or shameless corruption.

“Fleuve Congo: Arts d’Afrique Centrale,” an exhibition at the Musee du Qui Branly in Paris, presents a more attractive image of that unfortunate region.

The Benedictine monk Francois Neyt, emeritus professor at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, and curator of the show, spent more than 20 years in Africa. He casts his net wide. Besides the two countries mentioned, he includes their neighbors -- Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and parts of Angola -- an area eight times the size of France, stretching from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes in East Africa.

The political frontiers and tribal wars notwithstanding, Neyt is convinced that the vast, outwardly fragmented region shares a common cultural heritage. As proof, he points to cross- border myths, therapeutic rituals, songs and dances.

He also emphasizes sculptures. The 170 pieces, on loan from Belgian and French museums as well as private collectors, are supposed to demonstrate the common roots of the art produced by the Fang in Gabon, the Luba in Katanga, the southernmost part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Chokwe in Angola.

‘Powerful Women’

Neyt exemplifies his theory with the help of three types of sculpture: masks in the shape of a heart, reliquaries with the bones of ancestors and “powerful women.”

The masks are used on various occasions -- initiation rites, circumcisions, necromantic ceremonies and dances. Some are white, others red or ochre. Some have a second pair of eyes, a symbol of prophetic vision. One, representing a sprite of the rain forest, has six eyes.

The guardian figures containing bones of ancestors serve more or less the same purpose as relics of Christian saints: They are believed to possess magical powers protecting against bad luck and evil forces. They come in a confusing variety of shapes; one has the face of a python.

A widespread feature is the diamond-shaped posture of the arms. The figures also are used as title deeds.
The third section is the least convincing. It’s true that the matrilineal transmission of power was the rule in the ancient kingdom of Kongo. Still, it’s hard to believe that “powerful women” with curvaceous bodies and elaborate hairstyles are specific to the Congo region.

Never mind. You can easily enjoy the exquisite beauty of the sculptures without buying into Father Francois’s theoretical edifice.

Just follow the example of Pablo Picasso, who was bowled over when he saw, in 1906, a statuette from the Congo region that his friend Henri Matisse had bought at a curiosity shop on Rue de Rennes. A display case documents the craze for “art negre,” as it was then called, and how the Paris art market responded.

“Fleuve Congo: Arts d’Afrique Centrale,” which is sponsored by Total SA, is at the Musee du Quai Branly, Paris, through Oct. 3. Information: http://www.quibranly.fr or +33-1-5661-7000.

Source: Bloomberg Online, Muse
By: Jorg von Uthmann