The Historical ContextĪs early as June 1989, in a special issue of the Cahiers du Mnam, Benjamin Buchloh mentioned the major traps inscribed at the heart of Magiciens de la Terre’s project, thereby listing the multiple questions it raised, as well as the many contradictions embedded in it. In this sense, this text intends itself less as an academic reconsideration of the content of the acclaimed exhibition, nor the critical debates that surrounded it, but rather as an almost anthropological framing of Martin’s curatorial premises – ones which launched international debates that are still ongoing today. In this respect, how can both the position and the function of Magiciens de la Terre be assessed? How can its “enduring influence,” which provoked so many debates and arguments in the art world, at large as well as in academia, be explained? How, above all, can Jean-Marc Poinsot’s assertion, when he describes it not so much as a show, but rather as “a springboard, and a forum for debate in the history of those last twenty five years” be understood? It is from this position that I wish to consider Magiciens de la Terre by revisiting the social and geopolitical context of the exhibition, while reflecting on the self-aware subjectivity Martin employed in its construction. Such events, which, according to philosopher Bruce Altschuler, play the role of “central node of the confrontation,” might allow us to signal the advent of a new era as well. In the past, several shows happened to epitomize a historical period such was the case of the Armory Show (1913), the first dada show (1920), the Ninth Street Show (1951), and China/Avant-Garde (1989), similarly to Magiciens de la Terre (1989). MAGICIENS DES MARCHES PDF HOW TOHow to define an artist? How to describe his role as a social agent? For me, an artist is someone who works against his own context in order to offer other options and to analyse differently the link between an individual and his own society. Jean-Hubert Martin’s research and the questions that he raised have inspired me greatly. “ Magiciens de la Terre cannot be reduced to a simple confrontation between ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western artists,’ which remain problematic terms anyhow,” commented Hou Hanru (now director of the Maxxi in Rome) in an interview. Today, a quarter of century after it took place, the exhibition still appears both as a landmark and a controversial event, provoking endless debates about the alleged divide between Western and non-Western, as originally defined by the curators, as well as with regard to the position of curator as author. Among other contributors to the catalogue, Pierre Gaudibert also condemned “the symbolic violence of the Western world” and Mark Francis ironically stigmatized the “condescending position” of those who had excluded non-Western artists from their museums for so long. Interestingly, in each case, the planisphere was reoriented in such a way that the referent dot remained at the center. It also included references to the 104 exhibited artists, presented in an unusual manner: the two pages allocated to each artist offered biographies and reproductions of works, as well a small planisphere indicating their geographical location. This unusual catalogue, formatted akin to an atlas, appeared to be a radical manifesto against the iniquities of the Western world, offering a body of political texts, photos, illustrations, and collages. “The common statement that artistic production can only exist in the Western world can be blamed on the arrogance of our culture,” wrote Jean-Hubert Martin, chief curator of the Magiciens de la Terre exhibition, in the catalogue.
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