Last Sunday, I went to visit the Musée des Arts Premiers near the Tour Eiffel. This museum, opened a few months ago is amazing. If you come in Paris, you must spend a day over there.

© musée du quai Branly, 2005. Photographie Yves Bellier
Surrounded by a glass and steel shield, the red and yellow building looks like a ship which has landed on a green and almost wild garden designed by Gilles Clément. The visitor needs to travel through small alleys to the entrance under a big arch.
The inside of the museum, features a rich collection of Arts coming from outiside of Europe, and related to civilizations which are not connected with others ( this is the actual definition of Art Premiers , Primal arts in English)

Click on image to launch presentation
After climbing on a circled alley turning around a huge vase inside of which a variety of musical instruments can be seen, journey start through Oceania, Africa, Asia and America. The items presented are beautiful, and like the museum when you arrive from the outiside city, all the objects are presented inside steel and glass boxes.

© musée du quai Branly photo Nicolas Borel
Apart from the artistic prospective ( some objects are simply fantastic), an interesting thing to see is that our artistic time scale ( speaking of the European one at least) is completely disconnected from the other continents one. And so are the objects presented. Most of them have been made in the 19th and 20th century but some other, quite similar in terms of realisation, are from 2nd century AD.
I had time only for a few hours there, but I’ll be back shortly and will tell you more precisely about each part of the collection
To be noted, the interactive part, a bit hidden not to overcome the objects, is really present, with multiple touch screen laptops and the content developped is very, very rich, helping you to understand Worlds none of us have studied at school.
Facing the building, the book shop, looks like the US museums’ ones, great.
Next time, a post on Oceania !!
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