LECTURE topics and readings
Course Description:
As soldiers and administrators consolidated their control of France’s colonial holdings in
Africa, they gathered an impressive range of sculpture from the newly subjugated
populations. Some of these African art works were displayed in colonial expositions as early
as 1878, and some were given to museums. By 1906, many were purchased and studied by
artists who had gathered in Paris, artists who were creating the movement we call
Modernism. Today the city of Paris continues to attract artists, writers, critics and curators
from the African continent, providing a cultural underpinning for globalization. This course
examines the responses of non-Africans who have encountered African art forms and
African artists in Paris. We will trace the ways these encounters have shaped art and culture
in France, in African nations, and throughout the world.
Introductions
Sedaris, David. 2000. Me Talk Pretty One Day. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.
Vogel, Susan and Francine N’Diaye. 1985. African Masterpieces from the Musée de l’Homme.
New York: Abrams
Diawara, Manthia. 2003. We Won’t Budge. A Malarial Memoir. 2003. New York: Basic Books
Entre les Murs (France, 2008)
Paris, Je t’aime (2006)
Intouchables (France 2011)
Francophone Africa, Africans in France
Aldrich, Robert. 2005. Vestiges of the Colonial Empire in France. NewYork: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Lebovics, Herman. 2004. Bring the Empire Back Home. France in the Global Age. Durham:
Duke University Press.
France and Egypt: Plundering the Nile
Tyldesley, Joyce. 2005. Egypt. How a Lost Civilization was Rediscovered. Berkeley: University
of California Press. Chapters 2,3,7.
Guides to the collection of Egyptian antiquities at the Louvre.
The French and the Maghreb
Becker, Cynthia. 2010 “Deconstructing the History of Berber Arts: Tribalism, Matriarchy
and a Primitive Matriarchal Past”, in Hoffman, Catherine E. and Susan Gilson Miller.
Berbers and Others. Beyond Tribe and Nation in the Maghrib. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 195-210.
Bernasek, Lisa. 2008. Artistry of the Everyday. Beauty and Craftsmanship in Berber Art.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bernasek, Lisa. 2010 “First Arts of the Maghrib: Exhibiting Berber Culture at the Musée de
Quai Branly”, in Hoffman, Catherine E. and Susan Gilson Miller. 2010. Berbers
and Others. Beyond Tribe and Nation in the Maghrib. Bloomington: Indiana University,
171-194.
Visonà, Monica Blackmun et.al. 2008. A History of Art in Africa. Upper Saddle River:
Pearson, Chapter 1.
100% Arabica (France, 1997)
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/general/2010/12/20101220861561674.html
(Veterans: the French in Algeria)
West Africa and French Explorers
Visonà, Monica Blackmun et.al. 2008. A History of Art in Africa. Upper Saddle River:
Pearson, Chapters 3,4,5,6, 7.
Black and White in Color (France, 1976)
The French Conquest of Central Africa
Visonà, Monica Blackmun et.al. 2001 or 2008. A History of Art in Africa. New York:
Abrams, Chapters 10,11.
Fang, an Epic Journey (U.S., 2001)
Paris Expositions: Temporary Settings for Lasting Paradigms
Boyd, James D. [1900]. The Paris Exposition of 1900, Philadelphia: Ziegler, 435-463.
Corbey, Raymond. 1993. “Ethnographic Showcases, 1870-1930”, Cultural Anthropology , 8: 3,
338-369
Geppert, Alexander C.T. Fleeting Cities. Imperial Expositions in Fin-de-Siécle Europe. Palgrave
MacMillan, 179 – 200.
Johnson, Marian Asby. 1985. “The French Impact upon African Art: The Case of
Senegalese Goldsmiths”, in G.Wesley Johnson. Double Impact. France and Africa in the
Age of Imperialism. Westport: Greenwood.
Monod, Emile. 1890. Exposition Universelle de 1889. Grand Ouvrage Illustré Historique,
Encyclopédique, Descriptive. Paris: Dentu.
Morton, P.A. 2000. Hybrid Modernities: architecture and representation at the 1931 Colonial
Exposition, Paris. Cambridge: MIT Press Nelson, Steven. 2007. From Cameroon to
Paris : Mousgoum Architecture in & out of Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Prussin, Labelle. 1985. “The Image of African Architecture in France”, in G.Wesley
Johnson. Double Impact. France and Africa in the Age of Imperialism. Westport:
Greenwood.
Europe’s Artists Discover African Art in Paris
Flam, Jack and Deutch, Miriam. 2003. Primitivism and Twentieth Century Art: A
Documentary History. Berkeley: University of California.
Rubin, William, et. al. 1984. “Primitivism” and 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal
and Modern. New York: Museum of Modern Art
Marcel Griaule, his Students, and the Musée de l’Homme
Richards, Polly. 2005 “Masques Dogons in a Changing World,” African Arts , 38: 4, pp. 4653, 93.
Griaule, Marcel and Germaine Dieterlen. 1970 (1954). “The Dogon”, in Daryll Forde, ed.
African Worlds. Studies in the Cosmological Ideas and Social Values of African Peoples.
London: Oxford University Press, 83-110.
Merchants, Dealers, and the Market for African Art in Paris
Corbey, Raymond. 2000. Tribal Art Traffic. A Chronicle of Taste, Trade and Desire in Colonial
and Post-Colonial Times. Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute
Kerchache, Jacques. 1993 (1988). “An Initiatory Passage,” trans. Marjolijn de Jager, in
Kerchache et. al. Art of Africa. New York: Abrams.
Contemporary Artists in Paris
Njami, Simon. 2005. Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent. New York:
DAP.
http://www.universes-in-universe.de/specials/africa-remix/english.htm
Professor’s presentation for lecture series: “Art and Music in Paris”:
Displaying African Art in Paris: From the Trocadero to the Quai Branly
Le Coat,Gerard. 1985. Art Nègre and Esprit Moderne in France (1907-1911) in G.Wesley
Johnson. Double Impact. France and Africa in the Age
of Imperialism. Westport:
Greenwood, 239-258.
Loumpet-Galitzine, Alexandra. 2011. “The Bekom Mask and the White Star: The Fate of
Others’ Objects at the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, in Sarah Bryne et. al. eds.
Unpacking the Collection. Networks of Material and Social Agency in the Museum. New
York: Springer, 141-164
Price, Sally. 2007. Paris Primitive. Jacques Chirac’s Museum on the Quai Branly. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
ZouZou (France, 1934) (Josephine Baker)
Darius Milhaud, La Création du Monde (first recorded 1932)
Distinguished Visitor:
Dr. Theresa Leininger-Miller
Associate Professor of Art History
University of Cincinnati
New Negro Artists in Paris: 1922 – 1934
Archer-Shaw, Petrine. Negrophilia: Avant-garde Paris and Black Culture in Paris in the
1920s. New York: Thames and Hudson
Leininger-Miller, Theresa. New Negro Artists in Paris: African American Painters and
Sculptors in the City of Light, 1922-1934. New Brunswick: 2001
Rowel, Charles H. “An Interview with Lois Mailou Jones”, Callaloo , No. 39 (Spring,
1989), pp. 357-378