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18 2015 Three Questions for Alain Weill BOOKS PILAT Tribal Art magazine: Homme blanc – Homme noir (White Man – Black Man) accompanied the eponymous 2015 exhibition at the Fondation Pierre Arnaud in Lens, and its numerous essays provide an opportunity to further consider the show’s themes. The complex and little-considered nature of the subject—contactperiod African art—defi nitely deserves the attention. What do you feel the fundamental elements are that the reader should glean from this work? Alain Weill: The subject is indeed contact-period art but, more than that, it is art of “betweenness.” On the one hand, there is a civilization in which art serves the needs of secret societies or public rites, and in which objects sustain the functioning of a culture. On the other hand, there is the status of the African artist today, which allows him to express himself freely as an individual. This “betweenness,” in which the sculptor emancipates himself from traditional canons and ways of thinking, is fascinating, but it is also uncomfortable for those who respect strict classifi cations and defi nitions. No one was really interested in this subject at the time we started working on it. Very little was said or written about it, though there was an awareness of the long-time integration in art of an element of the white man’s paraphernalia that characterized him: the colonial helmet, the most common symbol of power. However, the stylistic evolution that can be observed in a few generations of sculptors as they freed themselves of the traditional canons in the quest for their own styles is far more interesting and subtle. The freedom they fi nd results in art that gradually moves from the sacred to TOP LEFT: Cover of Homme Blanc - Homme Noir, winner of the 2015 Prix International du Livre d’Art Tribal. LEFT: Figure of a Portuguese soldier. Edo, Kingdom of Benin, Nigeria. Reproduced as fi g. 29, page 46 in Homme Blanc - Homme Noir. HOMME BLANC HOMME NOIR Impressions d’Afrique PILAT 2015 French category Alain Weill, ed. Éditions Favre 18 x 24 cm, 304 pages 266 illustrations, softcover TOP: Seated man reading. South Africa. Reproduced as fi g. 167, page 213 in Homme Blanc - Homme Noir. ABOVE: “Decorated chiefs.” Double page 98–99 in Homme Blanc - Homme Noir.


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