Paris Update Art Notes
CHAOS AND CATHARSIS
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Exu” (1988). © The estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat/ ADAGP, Paris 2012
For its exhibition “Les Maîtres du Désordre” (“Masters of Chaos”), the Musée du Quai Branly has come up with a few twists on the traditional anthropological subject of shamanism – fascinating in itself – by introducing works of contemporary art to its comprehensive show of amazing objects from cultures around the world and presenting the large-scale exhibition in a stunning sculptural structure designed by Paris architects Jakob+MacFarlane (who designed the Les Docks-Cite de la Mode et de Design renovation and the interior of Georges restaurant in the
A Seneca (Iroquois) “Mask of Joy” (1899). © Courtesy, Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History
Centre Pompidou in Paris), which echoes the ideas of transformation and catharsis found in the exhibition. Curated by Jean Loisy, director of the Palais de Tokyo Paris contemporary art museum, the show successfully brings all these elements together and demonstrates that the concerns of shamanism are very much alive today and still being considered by both artists and non-artists. Heidi Ellison
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