Musée du Quai Branly, Paris
MúzeumCafé 3.
The Quai Branly, where non European-Mediterranean art is displayed with reference to ‘Arts premiers’, deserves serious attention. The new museum opened last autumn following a carefully planned series of media events. As is widely acknowledged, this public institution is, at the end of the day, rather Jacques Chirac’s and architect Jean Nouvel’s own museum, or, more pointedly, it became their curiosity cabinet in place of an interpretative architectural context relating to the ethnographic, cultural and anthropological documents, ritual objects and works of art of Africa, Asia, the Pacific islands and South America, a laboratory where visitors themselves can play a role. It is a museum whose name has finally assumed the most neutral form, since any contextual reference attached to it has proved unacceptable, both culturally and politically. In every case in any country when a politician, following his own power or cultural logic, decides to intervene in reforming a complex system like that of museums, the end will always be similar. And in every case when a community of museologists is not able to establish the conditions and method of development according to its own standards, museums can easily become the prey of a prowling politician. In France it happens more frequently than in Hungary – to our fortune and our sorrow.