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French President Jacques Chirac inaugurates a new museum in the heart of Paris Tuesday aimed at showcasing tribal arts from around the world, and stamping his architectural mark on the city's skyline.
The Musee du Quai Branly, housed in a contemporary building designed by the architect Jean Nouvel on the banks of the River Seine, brings together some 300,000 objects from Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas.
Like Francois Mitterrand, who gave Paris the Louvre pyramid among other works, the 235.2 million euro (285 million dollar) building will be Chirac's legacy to the city, he once presided as mayor, in the final year of his presidency.
Eleven years in the making, it is the first museum to be opened in the French capital, since the Georges Pompidou centre opened in 1977, three years after the death of the president it was named after.
And like other new buildings which have risen above the streets laid out in the mid-19th century by civic planner Georges-Eugene Haussmann, the Musee du Quai Branly is set to trigger a polemic, not just because of its design but also its concept.
The building's modernist riverside facade set back from the street has giant boxes painted in earthy, warm colours of burgundy, brown and ochre, protruding from a stained-glass window painted with the jungle and rainforest scenes.
There is even a living wall, planted with ivy, ferns and mosses, giving a hint to the "other" world that the visitor finds within.
"We are the keepers and the guardians of these pieces. Their history is much longer than the history of the museum," the museum's president Stephane Martin told journalists during a press open day on Monday.
For architect Nouvel his aim was to create a kind of sanctuary for the collections of tribal arts, which in the past have been dismissed by many as nothing to do with the world of art.
"We have tried to build them a home, and this is a respectful and spiritual house where the objects are still alive," he told AFP.
The bulk of the collection, of which some 3,500 objects will be on permanent display, has been drawn from two existing Paris collections previously housed in the Musee d'Homme and the Museum of African and Oceanic Arts.
These are largely the result of France's colonial history, and are sure to revive the debate of whether such works should be rightfully restored to their countries of origin.
"Should all Italian paintings go back to Italy? Should all Spanish paintings go back to Spain. I think there would be a cultural impoverishment in the world," said Martin, adding that art belonged to everyone.
"But museums have another responsibility to give back dignity to the people who have been despoiled of these things."
The objects are grouped according to continent, and have been displayed in world of shadows, light and reflection, so that in some cases one window of objects is seen reflected in another.
"It's almost like the objects are talking to each other," said Nouvel, for whom the project has become a passion.
The central permanent exhibition has at one end a huge six-level glass-fronted column descending through the building, and which allows visitors to glimpse the museum's reserve of some 9,500 musical instruments.
Rarities include a wooden duck from Papua New Guinea which is banged onto water to create a sound, and a wooden block only found in New Ireland province in PNG that vibrates when the musician rubs his resin-smeared hands over it.
Some of the objects on display have retained their mystery, leaving experts guessing at their exact use.
"We think it's a support for offerings during ceremonies on which flowers or other objects would be hung," Oceanic specialist Magali Melandri told AFP pointing to a long Polynesian wooden staff, topped with a kind of shelf from which rise three arms and hands.
In the next window are 19th-century stilts used in sports by young men in the Marquesas Isles, while across the way are wooden pillows and intricate fans woven out of coconut fronds.
"I knew these collections separately, but it's wonderful to see them reunited like this," added Melandri.
Around every corner there is something to discover, the whole linked by a leather-covered serpent where visitors can sit and watch video displays of the objects being used in daily life.
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AFPEntertainment-arts-museum-France
AFP 201045 GMT 06 06
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