Witnessing the differend : a grammar

As a site of acknowledgement to Non-Western societies, often unknown by the public, the Musée du Quai Branly is the expression of France's will to give the right place to Primitive Art in its institutions. Further, it testifies there is no more hierarchy between arts than between peoples.

Text as appears at the exit of the Pavillon des Sessions exhibition

The concept of Art, as experienced in western culture, is far from being universal. In doesn't balance Western and "primitives", or "first" cultures. Rather, it assimilates the non-western World. While aiming at weakening the colonial dominant/dominated dialectic, our beatific admiration for primitive Arts actually gives it a new form.

A few typologies, reinforcing and making dialectics such as subject/object, self/other, dominant/dominated, art/ethnology, explicit, are tested on the site.

A collage of typologies.

From left to right and top to bottom

1. Panopticon
2. Irreductible dialectic
3. Curratorial project
4. Collage
5. Overwhelming totality
6. Collection of individualities