MUSEUM NEWS
RIGHT: Portrait of a Palawan
couple, Philippines, 2017.
© Pierre de Vallombreuse.
CENTER: Female fi gure.
Iatmul, Palimbei, Papua New
Guinea.
Museum der Kulturen, Basel.
CENTER RIGHT: Dialog
between a Toussian mask
from Burkina Faso in the
collection of the Musée
Barbier-Mueller and a
gouache on paper by Silvia
Bächli.
© abm – Barbier Mueller archives.
© Silvia Bächli.
BOTTOM RIGHT: Josef
Mueller in the storage room
of his residence in Solothurn.
© abm – Barbier Mueller archives.
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So Far and So Near
GENEVA—An exhibition opening March 20, 2018, at the
Barbier-Mueller Museum juxtaposes works in the Swiss
museum’s collection with those of contemporary artist
Silvia Bächli, who is also curating the exhibition. Conceived
of as a creative game with the museum’s staff, So
Far and So Near: Tribal Arts Through the Eyes of Sylvia
Bächli will present the artist’s gouaches on paper along
with about sixty works she has selected from the museum’s
collection. The juxtaposition of contemporary art
and non-Western works is intended to provoke reflection
on the form, status, and function attributed to art objects
of any origin, whether from the West or elsewhere. The
forms of the Barbier-Mueller Museum’s masks, figures,
vessels, and shields are intended to serve as a formal
counterpoint to the sense of movement and line created
by the Swiss artist, and unexpected responses are born of
these aesthetic encounters. The role of each participant
in the transformation of the object into an artwork—the
expert, the dealer, the anthropologist, the collector, the
curator, and the display designer—will be detailed in the
catalog that accompanies the show. The exhibition will
be on view through October 28, 2018.
The People of the Valley
PARIS—Through July 2, 2018, the Musée de l’Homme is
highlighting the Palawan people through the photographs
of Pierre de Vallombreuse. Secluded in a valley on the
eponymously named island in the Southwest Philippines,
the Palawan, a small community of cultivators and hunter
gatherers, was once extremely isolated. In the 1990s,
however, a road built along the coast led to an influx of
immigrants from the rest of the Philippine archipelago that
radically altered their environment and their lifestyle. Today
the Palawan face another challenge: the interests of
large industrial companies. In Le peuple de la vallée (The
People of the Valley), de Vallombreuse, who spent more
than three and a half years living among the Palawan,
presents intimate portraits of these people and their close
relationship with their majestic natural environment.
Secrets
BASEL—The common thread that runs
through a Murano glass bracelet, a heartshaped
love letter, a Sande society mask
from Sierra Leone or Liberia, and a kalengula
mask from the DRC is that they
each hold a well-kept secret. In Secret. Qui a le droit de
savoir quoi (Secret: Who Is Allowed to Know What), the
Musée des Cultures in Basel explores this subject through
the presentation of a variety of objects in its collection,
revealing the stories they conceal. Whether intended
to establish borders between initiates and strangers, to
ensure power and control, to imperil those who might
divulge it, to arouse curiosity, or to seduce, the secret is
explored here in all of its forms. The exhibition will be
open from April 13, 2018, until April 21, 2019.