Paris, 13 October 2011
Quai Branly Museum will host the exhibition “L’invention du Sauvage” from 29 November 2011 to 3 June 2012. The show will retrace the Western view on Oriental art, known as the “strange strangers”.
The excitement and curiosity around the Oriental world and its population started around 16th century and continued until the middle of 20th century. As this population was known within spectacles, Oriental people were considered as actors, dancers, singers and sometimes as party animals. These people having worked in zoos, cabarets, parades or among fairground communities created a real exotic spectacle called “human zoo”. As a matter of fact, borders are met between entertainment and exhibition, curiosity and contempt, and reality and imagination.
Throughout 600 works, including paintings, sculptures, posters, postcards, photographs, dioramas and film archives, the exhibition will reveal the success that Oriental people’s bizarre demonstrations had in Western cultures. Between 1800 and 1958 there were over a billion fascinated spectators along with 35,000 extra actors worldwide. By following a scenography that will recall Spectacle Art’s world, this exhibition will be structured in a historical and thematic line .
The organization of the “L’invention du Sauvage” exhibition has lasted ten years including research and examination of thousands of works and documents in over two hundred museums and private collections.