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Non-Western Art and the Musée du Quai Branly: The Challenge of Authenticity

This thesis discusses the recent construction and anthropological collaboration of the Paris museum: Musée du quai Branly (MQB), an art museum dedicated to showcasing art collections specific to aboriginal and indigenous cultures in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. The opening of MQB in June 2006 raised a plethora of controversial questions concerning the museum’s methods of curatorial display of the art it has made its primary focus. One of the major issues discussed examines the Quai Branly’s authentic, or inauthentic, representation of certain artworks displayed throughout the museum. Thus, the essay raises the questions: does a non-Western object remain authentic once it is exhibited in a Western society’s art museum? To answer this question, the essay explores the various explanations of art and authenticity in order to reach an understandable conclusion of what constitutes an authentic display of non-Western objects in a Western art museum.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:uno.edu/oai:scholarworks.uno.edu:honors_theses-1051
Date01 May 2014
CreatorsBernard, Mary Grace Cathryn
PublisherScholarWorks@UNO
Source SetsUniversity of New Orleans
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceSenior Honors Theses
Rightshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

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