BOOKS For the fourth year running, last December Tribal Art magazine, in collaboration with Sotheby’s, presented awards for the two best books of the year—one in French and the other in English—in the field of tribal art, chosen by a jury of international specialists. Selected for the quality of the content, the originality of their approach, and the care taken with illustrations 126 and layout, the winners for 2012 were Motifs d’Océanie (Éditions Hazan) and Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculptures (The Metropolitan Museum of Art). We asked their authors three questions each to try to identify for our readers what caught the attention of the jury. Here’s what they had to say about their remarkable works. The Authors Speak: Conversations with the Winners of the 2012 Prix International du Livre d’Art Tribal Interviews by Elena Martínez-Jacquet Nicolas Garnier Motifs d’Océanie Tribal Art Magazine: What is your book about and what new things did you hope to bring to the body of literature about tribal art? Nicolas Garnier: This work partly owes its existence to my editor at Hazan, Jean-François Barrielle. We had worked together on my book Carnets de Papouasie that appeared in 2000 and wished to repeat the experience, since the first time had been such a pleasure. A short time after the publication of Carnets, we started to think about a FIG. 1 (left): Detail of a painted pattern from a tapa from the Cook Islands, preserved in the collection of the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, inv. 71.1930.54.533 (p. 63). FIG. 2: Drawing of an Asmat couple, Western Papua, preserved in the collection of the Rijksmuseum voor Volkerkunde in Leiden, inv. RMvV 3095-1 (p. 178). All illustrations © Nicolas Garnier. project that Jean-François was enthusiastic about: to create a work about Oceania that would make accessible to a large audience a kind of visual repertory of Pacific motifs and their many variations, as artistic creations from this region are little known in the West. I was immediately seduced by the idea and suggested to Jean-François that we include a sizeable text to accompany the illustrations. Oceania is diverse and complex and the public has yet to really understand it. T. A. M.: Drawing is of primary importance in this book to the exclusion of photography, which is the standard for art books. Can you explain this gamble with illustrations? N. G.: Drawing is one of my favorite tools in my fieldwork, which I’ve been doing for many years, mainly in Papua, where I also live. It seemed natural to me to create a book illustrated with drawings. I feel that drawing is of extraordinary documentary value because, often better than photography, it can visually unify a publication. Drawing also allows the emphasis of volumes, colors, or motifs, depending on the information that is highlighted. But what interests me above all about it is its capacity to provoke reactions from the people with whom one is engaging in the course of research. In the field, knowledge isn’t shared easily. It takes time and demands trust as well as the right situation. In seeing me drawing, people become more aware of the nature of my work as an anthropologist. They see the hours that I spend surveying a ceremonial house, a bark painting, etc.—tangible proof of my interest in their culture, which makes exchanges considerably easier. And then there is the sketchbook, to which I regularly add notes on the objects depicted, written in the local language, which also makes it easier to get the support of the people concerned. And there is another advantage: One can circulate a notebook easily in a village setting and its pages can be turned freely. Those who are looking at them can add more new notes that enrich the documentation. In the end, these sketchbooks have an
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