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| Current Events |
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The Quai Branly Museum : A new ethnographic museum in France Saturday, November 3 In 1995 Jacques Chirac began announcing his aim
to found a new museum in Paris. The museum would be dedicated to
the arts of Africa, Asia Oceania and
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the
Americas, thereby acknowledging the diversity of this art while
giving special attention to dialogue between cultures. The intent
was to create an institution entirely dedicated to the patrimonies
of other countries and not solely to French culture. At once a study
and research center, library, theater and concert hall, the Quai
Branly Museum, which opened its doors to the public this past June
23, provides various possibilities to put on display numerous works
and the cultures from which they come. Coming up with the idea,
however, of an ethnographic museum in a country where the question
of indigenous peoples isn’t discussed with as much intensity
as it is in the United States, and where it directly impacts upon
national identity, was not necessarily a given. It assumed the task
of envisioning the specific way of displaying the artwork of these
peoples, carrying on discourse about, them and portraying their
representatives’ voices.|
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