Product Overview
Magiciens de la Terre was an exhibition held at the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Grande Halle at the Parc de la Villette in 1989. Curated by Jean-Hubert Martin, it aimed to counter the ethnic bias and colonial complicity of the contemporary art world. Martin chose 100 artists from around the world: 50 from first-world cultures such as the U.S. and Europe and 50 from cultures then routinely ignored by the art market, in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Australia. I want to play the role of someone who uses artistic intuition alone to select objects which come from totally different cultures, Martin explained. I also want to incorporate into that process the critical thinking which contemporary anthropology provides on the problem of ethnocentrism. With photographs and gallery plans, this volume revisits the exhibition.
