Paris is known for its grand museums – the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Pompidou – that lift up the artistic and cultural achievements of Western civilization, namely Europe. In 2006, however, a new museum opened within sight of the Eiffel Tower (see below for complete address) with the mission, according to its website, of bringing attention to the "major crossroads between civilisations and cultures: Asia-Oceania, Insulindia, and Mashreck-Maghreb."
Paris' Museums
Most French Presidents have tried, in one way or another, to leave their mark on Paris. With the grand boulevards and imposing stone-faced apartment buildings of Baron Haussman's 19th-century redesign of the city, that is no simple task. François Mitterand commissioned I. M. Pei's famous glass pyramids for the Louvre's courtyard and a national library on the southeastern edge of the city, giant glass towers oddly reminiscent of opened books.
George Pompidou left his name on the modern art museum, a building famous for its inside-out aesthetic, machine-like with myriad colorful tubes and girders. Though the Musée du Quai Branly does not bear his name, it is the brainchild of President Jacques Chirac, who in 1995 established a formal commission to plan its construction. "There is no hierarchy among the arts just as there is no hierarchy among peoples," Chirac later said, at the museum's grand opening on June 23, 2006, setting high hopes for its success.
The Collection of the Quai Branly
The museum has a permanent collection of some 267,000 objects previously found in the Musée National des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie – now closed – and the ethnographic department of the Musée de l'Homme. Among its treasures are Aztec gold, Aboriginal art, Masai masks, and Native American totem poles. 3,500 of these objects are on display in the museum's 200-meter long hall, with a few others loaned to the Pavillon des Sessions at the Musée du Louvre.
Architecture of the Quai Branly Museum
Sadly, most discussion of the museum has been about the building proper and not its contents. Designed by architect Jean Nouvel, the building is an unapologetic architectural experiment in a city known for its proud aesthetics.
The museums' main gallery sits supported by cantilevers and pylons, allowing for well-tended gardens and paths to weave beneath it. Boxes of varying sizes and colors jut from the Seine side of the building like growths and house some of the museums' exhibition alcoves and multimedia installations. The stand-alone administration building has a "living wall" seeded with plants and greenery. A giant glass curtain separates the grounds from the street and is often decorated with glyphs of some of the cultures represented in the museum collection.
Visitors enter by way of a circular ramp overlaid with projections and recordings from the museum's vast media archives. The ramp wraps around a clear silo, 7 metal platforms, on which are displayed some of the collection's instruments. The main gallery itself has a path that weaves, haphazardly it can seem, through display cases, curvy leather walls, and digital information stations. "The snake" Mr. Nouvel calls it.
Criticism of the Quai Branly
However, not all are fans of this particular setup. "Devised as a spooky jungle, red and black and murky", says a New York Times review of the museum, "the objects in it [are] chosen and arranged with hardly any discernible logic." Labels aren't always clear and carry a heavy dose of academic-minded sociology. The final judgment of the reviewer comes down hard, "a whole new French brand of condescension."
Still, one should not strike the Quai Branly from one's Paris museum itinerary. It remains the only full-bodied acknowledgment of the fascinating societies engulfed and erased by European imperialism; and its wealth of artifacts deserves study, regardless.
Temporary Exhibits at the Quai Branly
The temporary exhibits and film screenings at the museum also deserve note. Recently (17 March – 28 June) the Quai Branly hosted a series titled "The Jazz Century" that, according to a press release put out by the museum, followed "the relationship between jazz and graphic arts… from painting to photography, cinema and literature, not forgetting graphic design or comics… paying particular attention to the development of jazz in Europe and France in the 1930s and 40s."
Currently, and through September 27, the museum is celebrating that "icon of popular culture" Tarzan. The exhibit chronicles the origins of Tarzan, its creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, the myth of this lunchbox and poster mainstay, and, most interesting for the present debate over climate change, "redefines the character as a modern hero fighting for the protection of nature".
Address: 37, quai Branly - portail Debily, 75007 Paris.
Reference:
Official website of the Musée du Quai Branly
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