{"id":707,"date":"2017-05-23T10:44:05","date_gmt":"2017-05-23T10:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/universalhistories.org\/?p=707"},"modified":"2018-06-07T09:30:21","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T09:30:21","slug":"displaying-africa-asia-oceania-and-americas-at-the-louvre-the-pavillon-des-sessions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/universalhistories\/2017\/05\/23\/displaying-africa-asia-oceania-and-americas-at-the-louvre-the-pavillon-des-sessions\/","title":{"rendered":"Displaying Africa, Asia, Oceania and Americas at the Louvre: the Pavillon des Sessions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blog post by Sandra Kemp, project PI at the V&A, and Chiara Zuanni, postdoctoral researcher at the V&A.<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the objects we are researching is an Aztec sculpture representing Quetzalcoatl, the god of creation and fertility. This sculpture arrived in France in the early 19th<\/sup> century and was first displayed at the Mus\u00e9e Am\u00e9ricaine du Louvre, which opened in 1851. This first display of Americas artefacts had a short life, closing in the 1870s, and \u2018our\u2019 Quetzalcoatl was subsequently transferred to the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Ethnographie du Trocad\u00e9ro in 1882. More than a century later, it returned to the Louvre, in the Pavillon des Sessions, and this is where we went to see it and document its current display.<\/p>\n

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The Quetzalcoatl sculpture.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas rooms in the Pavillon des Sessions were opened in 2000 by Jacques Chirac, anticipating his project of a museum of non-European art at the quai Branly. Located in one wing of the Louvre museum, the objects displayed here do actually belong to the quai Branly, the Pavillon providing a showcase of the masterpieces of these cultures and acting as a sample of the collections present in this other museum.<\/p>\n

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Pavillon des Sessions, part of the Africa section.<\/p><\/div>\n

For the purposes of our research \u2013 as the Louvre is often considered one of the original \u2018universal museums\u2019 \u2013 it is significant to find arts from all other the world displayed here again. The fact that such arts were in fact rejected from the Louvre in the late 19th<\/sup> century is also interesting. More recently, the Louvre has been known for showing masterpieces of ancient classical civilisations, including the Egyptian and European cultures.<\/p>\n

Looking at the history of museum collections is one of the ways in which we can examine how history is made, displayed and disseminated through the uses, legacies and representations of the past. In particular, we\u2019re investigating the representation of the diversity of cultures that define human universality, the articulation of historical and anthropological approaches to the description of humanity, and the influence of social knowledge practices on the structuring of universal knowledge. We will consider this material both as initially displayed and developmentally, as new museum displays replace previous museologies; and we will compare and contrast the balance between how museums displayed their collections chronologically, geographically and thematically.<\/p>\n

The Pavillon des Sessions is now showing non-European artefacts in the Louvre again. Around 100 objects are displayed in a series of rooms, in a striking display that emphasises their artistic aspect. Indeed, it is interesting to find such collections considered ethnographic elsewhere, displayed as art masterpieces, with little interpretation to explain their original contexts and values. Culture of origin, date, geographical provenance, material, original collection and inventory number are the standard data presented on the labels, while helpful panels display the geographical provenance of the artefacts in each room. By contrast with the Mus\u00e9e du quai Branly or the Mus\u00e9e de l\u2019Homme, the Louvre does not discuss the cultures of origin.<\/p>\n