The project is part of the ANR "HIMALART" Programme.
Project coordinators : Gisèle Krauskopff (CNRS-ESC-Univ. Paris Ouest) and Pascale Dollfus (CNRS-CEH)
It sets out to compare local uses of masks and other so-called "tribal" works of art by combining cross-cutting fieldwork and archives, and to study the change in identity that accompanies the arrival of these artefacts on the tribal art market and in European collections.
The idea of tribal art has developed in response to the curiosity of amateur art specialists and art dealers. Africa or Oceania dominate this field, with the Himalayas becoming known only very recently and to a much lesser degree. There are various reasons for this delay : they include the fact that there is less of a distinction here than anywhere else between a work of art and an ethnographic object, and the difficulty in classifying and exhibiting in museums and galleries objects that have been acquired with no concern for the context that explained them. These problems are more obvious in the Himalayas than elsewhere, and yet they make objects more intriguing, and the transformations they undergo in the course of their successive lives more fascinating. This project constitutes an enqury into continuous creation : as soon as an object is made and as it travels, it changes status, while each of the societies that contextualise it find themselves in turn modified by its journey.
Publication of the findings of the project
L’habillage des choses de l’art - Des marchés aux collections en Himalaya et au-delà
Summary and table of contents