Paris Primitive - by Sally Price (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In 1990 Jacques Chirac, the future president of France and a passionate fan of non-European art, met Jacques Kerchache, a maverick art collector with the lifelong ambition of displaying African sculpture in the holy temple of French culture, the Louvre. Together they began laying plans, and ten years later African fetishes were on view under the same roof as the Mona Lisa. Then, in 2006, amidst a maelstrom of controversy and hype, Chirac presided over the opening of a new museum dedicated to primitive art in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower: the Musée du Quai Branly.

Paris Primitive recounts the massive reconfiguration of Paris's museum world that resulted from Chirac's dream, set against a backdrop of personal and national politics, intellectual life, and the role of culture in French society. Along with exposing the machinations that led to the MQB's creation, Sally Price addresses the thorny questions it raises about the legacy of colonialism, the balance between aesthetic judgments and ethnographic context, and the role of institutions of art and culture in an increasingly diverse France. Anyone with a stake in the myriad political, cultural, and anthropological issues raised by the MQB will find Price's account fascinating.

Review Quotes

"A crackling good story."--James Volkert "Museum"

"A riveting story of how museums literally become pieces of a board game of professional and political one-upmanship. All of the major issues confronting France (and Europe) today are present in this short history. . . . A superb lens through which to see the debates about 'otherness' and current French preoccupations with it."--R.C. Rosbottom "French Review"

"It takes a muckraker to piece together such a sordid tale, and Price is up to the challenge. By turns breezy, gossipy, provocative, insouciant, and aggravating, she is generally perspicacious, entertaining, and enlightening."-- "Choice"

"This is a fascinating, entertaining, and troubling book. I read it in one (transatlantic) sitting and recommend it highly."--Lawrence Guy Straus "Journal of Anthropological Research"

"Paris Primitive is a delicious combination of art, anthropology, and politics, as well as an intricate dissection of French alliances and institutions. Along the way, in this well-written and fast-paced narrative, Sally Price also illuminates the ethics of acquisition and display and the battle between aesthetics and ethnography. What a tale! Everyone involved in cultural representation should read this book."

--Lucy R. Lippard, author of Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America (7/2/2007 12:00:00 AM)

"Paris Primitive offers a wide-ranging, informed, and historically well-grounded analysis of the ideology that undergirds French cultural identity and its management of difference. Writing deftly and lightly, with an eye for the utterly telling anecdote, Sally Price avoids the pretensions that could overwhelm such a study and allows us to comprehend the building of a museum as an eminently human enterprise."

--Fred Myers, New York University, author of Painting Culture: The Making of an Aboriginal High Art (7/2/2007 12:00:00 AM)

"At once wry and serious, Paris Primitive offers a unique backstage look at the art world, French cultural politics, and the shifting value of other people's artifacts. The result combines a captivating story with rich anthropological analysis. If only all museums had a book like this!"

--Peter W. Redfield, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana (7/2/2007 12:00:00 AM)

About the Author

Sally Price is the Duane A. and Virginia S. Dittman Professor of American Studies and Anthropology at the College of William and Mary. She is the author or coauthor of more than fifteen books, including Primitive Art in Civilized Places, also published by the University of Chicago Press.