This was France's old president Jacques Chirac's pet project. Long-time collector of art and objects from Africa, Australia, native America and New Guinea, he set to create a museum dedicated to these colonial traces by regrouping other collections of similar artefacts, including the Louvre's and the Musée de l'Homme's under one institution. Severely criticized by many post-colonial theorists, Jean Nouvel's building, lighting and display cases and Patrick Blanc's vertical gardens were fabricated so as to replicate the ambiance of a forrest - something some considered strongly detrimental to th … (read more)

This was France's old president Jacques Chirac's pet project. Long-time collector of art and objects from Africa, Australia, native America and New Guinea, he set to create a museum dedicated to these colonial traces by regrouping other collections of similar artefacts, including the Louvre's and the Musée de l'Homme's under one institution. Severely criticized by many post-colonial theorists, Jean Nouvel's building, lighting and display cases and Patrick Blanc's vertical gardens were fabricated so as to replicate the ambiance of a forrest - something some considered strongly detrimental to the cultures the museum sought to represent. While this may be true, showing these objects in the polar opposite of the white box, which equivalent museums generally do (the British Museum, the Louvre, etc...) has attracted millions of visitors since its opening in 2005 and has definitely given them a new life. Indeed presently the museum's curators are collecting art and artefacts from contemporary artists and peoples from these post-colonial regions to organize shows dealing with questions of othering, colonialism, poverty, aids, clichés, aesthetics or racism.

This strikingly original space with a restaurant, an amphitheater, a vertical and horizontal garden should not be missed because, while showing dresses by Chanel, sculptures by Braque and paintings by Kehinde Wileys next to pots from Mali and 15th century textiles from Papua New Guinea might be problematic at least it asks more questions than most anthropological museums today.

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51 quai Branly
218 rue de l’université
Paris
75015