MUSEUM news ABOVE: Unknown artist, Atahualpa, Inca XIV, 19th century. © Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Lima. 46 THE INCA AND THE CONQUISTADOR Paris—Art objects have a social and cultural dimension, and since they develop as a function of civilization, they reflect a collective identity. Because of this quality, they are studied by those who want to understand history. L’Inca et le conquistador (The Inca and the Conquistador), a new exhibition at the Musée du Quai Branly, uses artistic creations by the Inca and by the Spanish to tell both sides of the story of the conquest of Peru and to illustrate the confrontations that resulted from contact between two radically different worlds. Conceived of by curator Paz Núñez-Regueiro, the exhibition focuses on two protagonists, the Inca sovereign Atahualpa and the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, whose interactions provoked a profound political, economic, cultural, and religious revolution in both of their empires. The Inca Empire, known as Tahuantinsuyo (circa 1450–1532), was the largest political state that had ever existed in the Americas. At the time, the Spanish Empire, under the rule of Charles V, was rapidly expanding. From the 1520s to the assassination of Pizarro by his own men in 1541, the exhibition retraces and examines the key moments that changed the history of the South American continent: the arrival of Pizarro, the first exchanges and attempts at dialog between the colonials and the indigenous people, the encounter of Atahualpa and Pizarro, the latter’s conquest of the Inca empire, and finally the internal conflicts of the Spanish conquerors, who left behind a society that would henceforth be multicultural. The paintings, weapons, textiles, gold objects, ceramics, maps, and engravings, mostly from the museum’s own collection, together tell this epic story and shed light on this mutual encounter with the “other.” The importance of the duality of the encounter is emphasized by presenting both Andean and Spanish perspectives on the events. The rare and remarkable objects that make up the show will be on view on the museum’s East Mezzanine from June 23 through September 20, 2015. In conjunction with the exhibition, the museum will hold two symposia on September 4 and 5. The first will explore the impact of the reduction of the scale of Andean and Meso-American objects relative to their ritual efficacy. The second will focus on Andean gold work during the time of the Inca Empire. LEIRIS & CO. Metz—Known mostly for his poetry and his circle of prestigious friends, Michel Leiris, a major twentieth century intellectual, is also the author of seminal works on African art, including Afrique Noire, la Création Plastique. A new exhibition at the Centre Pompidou-Metz titled Leiris & Co. Picasso, Masson, Miró, Giacometti, Lam, Bacon ... offers an opportunity to see a group of African and Caribbean artworks, a rich corpus of original documents and archives on the subject, and some 350 masterpieces by the artists the poet was close to, whose names are mentioned in the show’s title. Leiris wore many hats: He loved art and words and surrounded himself with the ABOVE: Poster for the show at the Musée du Quai Branly. © MQB. ABOVE: Male fi gure. Inca, Peru. AD 1450–1532. Gold/silver alloy. © MQB. RIGHT: Military tunic. Inca, Peru. AD 1450–1532. © MQB. BELOW: Michel Leiris with Pablo Picasso, André Castel, and their wives at the Arena of Nîmes. © Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet/Suzanne Nagy. LEFT: Llama fi gurine. Chimú, Peru. 1000–1532. Repoussé gold. © MQB. Photo: Thierry Ollivier, Michel Urtado.
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