Musee Dapper new directions for a postcolonial museum

African Arts, Summer, 2002 by Bennetta Jules-Rosette

On a rainy afternoon in November 2001, I visited the new locale of the Musee Dapper at 35 rue Paul Valery in Paris. After considerable renovation, the museum had opened a year earlier with an inaugural show containing 150 pieces from several renowned European collections. Named after a seventeenth-century Dutch scholar and humanist who wrote about Africa, the museum boasts a history unique in the French art world. The private Fondation Olfert Dapper was organized in December 1983, spearheaded and financed by French industrialist Michel Leveau and his Antillian wife, Christiane Falgayrettes-Leveau. The couple share a passion for Africa and the preservation of sub-Saharan African arts, artifacts, and cultures. Their early work involved roundtables, lectures, conferences, and tours. The Dapper's exhibition activities were launched in 1986 by two shows held at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, "Ouvertures sur l'art africain: Les cabinets de curiosites au [XVII.sup.e] siecle" and "Figures reliquaires dites Kota."

In 1989 the Dapper inaugurated its first permanent space at 58 rue Victor Hugo with an exhibition on African kings and ancestors. Just a stone's throw from the Arc de Triomphe, the Musee Dapper was housed in a three-story classical villa surrounded by a tropical-style garden. This building now serves as the museum's administrative headquarters. A visit to an exhibition at the old Dapper was a must for any well-informed tourist, art historian, or student of African art in Paris. Its atmosphere was intimate, giving one the impression of a stylish mansion adorned with objects from the owner's personal collection, tastefully placed and creatively illuminated.

The museum freed the artworks from the clutter of the usual ethnographic display. Breaking with the tradition of Trocadero and Tervuren, it introduced contemporary gallery aesthetics and presentation strategies into the exhibition of African art. Instead of crowding multiple objects into a single case as anthropological artifacts, grouped according to ethnic and "tribal" origin, the Dapper respectfully showcased each piece. This approach took advantage of the best aspects of museum and gallery environments. Occasionally the information about individual objects was only minimal, following the themes of a particular exhibition. While this absence of anthropological texts might have been a source of concern to Africanist scholars, it enhanced the streamlined aesthetic effect that has come to be the Dapper style.

Although four times as large as the original structure, the new Dapper, designed by the architect Alain Moatti, maintains the museum's signature style. The exhibition rooms are modularized so they can be adapted to displays of either traditional or contemporary art, preserving a sense of freedom and openness in each case. Minimal anthropological intervention sustains the elegance of the new displays (Fig. 1).

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Since 1986 the Fondation Dapper has sponsored more than thirty exhibitions, and the museum now organizes two (as opposed to its initial three) per year, each lasting approximately six months. Among the most memorable Dapper projects were the 1993 "Luba: Aux sources du Zaire," the 1994 "Dogon," and the 1996 "Magies" (Figs. 3, 4). All were memorable for the power of the African objects, the cachet of their provenance, and the dignity of their display.

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The two ethnographic museums in Paris, the Musee de l'Homme and the Musee des Arts d'Afrique et d'Oceanie (MAAO), formerly the Musee Colonial, were fueled by the colonial enterprise, their curators assiduously stockpiling collections of African artifacts and displaying them as icons of cultural difference. "Objets sauvages" have always fascinated European audiences, and the titillation of neoprimitivism continues to be an undercurrent in the display of old and new African art in France today. In this type of display, as Sally Price points out, "aesthetic experiences and beauty are not joined with ethnographic evidence and social curiosity, but opposed to them" (1989:87). The modernist approaches of these two institutions, which were innovative in the early twentieth century, contrasts with the Dapper's contemporary aesthetics.

In the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, the Musee de l'Homme is an important stop on any tour of official monumental Paris. The MAAO, with its grounds next to a zoo, is an exotic touristic site that recalls France's former colonial connections. The closing of the latter institution in January 2002 heralds the end of a nostalgic era of African-art acquisition and preservation in France. Under the government's new approach to so-called arts premiers, part of the MAAO's collection will be displayed in the Louvre, and other works from both the MAAO and the Musee de l'Homme will be conserved for research purposes. Certain objects are to be retained for occasional display. According to Bonny Gabin, cultural attache for the Musee Dapper, the government will decide which objects to keep and which to sell in order to upgrade standing collections and develop thematic exhibitions. As for the Dapper, Gabin explained its goals to me as follows (interview, November 29, 2001):