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Museums and ideas

The collection of the Musée du Quai Branly numbers some 268,000 items, 236,509 of which were transferred from the ethnology laboratory of the Musée de l’Homme, and a further 22,740 from the Musée National des Arts d’Afrique et d’Océanie. Quai Branly has acquired a further 8,168 artefacts since 1998. From this collection around 3,600 items are exhibited in the public gallery spaces of the museum at any given time.

PETER HYLANDS caught up with PHILIPPE PELTIER, the curator of Indonesian and Oceanic Art at Musee du Quai Branly (www.quaibranly.fr). PETER asked PHILIPPE, why a museum in Paris?

Audio excerpt 01 PHILIPPE PELTIER

The discussion then moves to Australian Aboriginal art, when temporary exhibitions of Aboriginal art were removed from display, museum visitors started complaining, when can we see more Aboriginal art?

The popular demand for Aboriginal art from both French and international visitors to the museum, was the reason why the museum decided to include contemporary Aboriginal art, not only in the Museum collection, but also in the fabric and design of the museum building. This way of working with Australian Aboriginal artists is an example of contemporary artistic intervention into a museum setting and has been the focus of much debate over the last couple of years.

In a private moment, not recorded here, PHILIPPE told PETER HYLANDS of the overwhelming power and emotion, ‘which took everyone by surprise’ during the period of developing this artistic collaboration with Australia’s indigenous artists and at the time of the opening of the new museum. Aboriginal artists involved in the creative dialogue with Quai Branly include TOMMY WATSON, GULUMBU YUNUPINGU, JOHN MAWURNDJUL, NINGURA NAPURRULA, MICHAEL RILEY, JUDY WATSON, PADDY BEDFORD and LENA NYADBI.

The Eiffel Tower from Musée du Quai Branly

ROSS BOWDEN talks about the idea of creating a new gallery of Oceanic and Aboriginal Art in Australia

Oceanic art, and particularly, Australian Aboriginal art, have made their mark in the art world in recent years. There is now a great interest in both Oceanic art and Aboriginal art, and the genre’s contemporary artists around the globe.

Audio excerpt 02 ROSS BOWDEN

A gallery of Oceanic and Aboriginal art in Australia, would therefore be a great attraction for visitors and the gallery, the jewel in the crown of any city with the foresight to develop such an institution. In my discussions with ROSS, he raises the notion of a different kind of gallery space, one that is far more content rich than we can expect from most contemporary galleries, more in the mode of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England, but enhanced by contemporary architecture and high standards of exhibition design.

To get a sense of what is going on in contemporary museum practice in England and the United States PETER HYLANDS spoke to the art historian DR KHADIJA CARROLL. KHADIJA features in the creative cowboy film Space Time Performance.

Audio excerpt 03 KHADIJA CARROLL

PETER HYLANDS asks KHADIJA, What is the future of the museum in relation to the contemporary art gallery? The discussion here centres on the changing role of museums in relation to art galleries given the change in the categorisation of indigenous arts and their ongoing contribution to artistic and cultural development around the world.

Audio excerpt 04 KHADIJA CARROLL

“There are opportunities and exciting meeting points where contemporary art galleries and museums can come together to shape new ways of creativity and arts’ practice. Let’s hope we have the vision to see them”.