Exhibiting Bushman Art in Switzerland
Revisiting the Curatorial Process of the Exhibition "Kuru. L’art d’un monde en mutation"
Abstract
This article discusses the collaborative process that led to the conception of the exhibition Kuru. L’art d’un monde en mutation held in 2019 at the Botanical Garden of Neuchâtel,Switzerland. This project, which brought together San Naro artists from Botswana, anthropologists and museum professionals, aimed to rethink the museum’s approach to contemporary San art and to develop more inclusive modes of exhibition. This article documents the strategies of representation of the Self and the Other mobilized in this context and proposes a reflection on the contributions, the stakes and the limits of this collaboration at the intersection of art, anthropology and botany. It highlights the unintended effects, constant adaptations, and persistent asymmetries at work in the exchanges, and discusses the value of making sense of these interactional dynamics within the museum space.
References
Allain Bonilla, Marie-laure, Fiona Siegenthaler, Yann Laville, Grégoire Mayor, et Boris Wastiau. 2019. «Entre négociations et expérimentations : Les musées d’ethnographie et la décolonisation. Un entretien.» Tsantsa 24 : 67–77.
Araeen, Rasheed. 1989. «Our Bauhaus Others’ Mudhouse.» Third Text 6, Spring: 3–14.
Baracchini, Leïla. 2021a. Entre désert et toile : Création d’un art san contemporain au Kalahari. Neuchâtel : Alphil.
Baracchini Leïla. 2021b. «Becoming Traditional: Contemporary San Art and the Production of (Non-)Knowledge.» Ethnography. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1466138120983845
Baracchini, Leïla, et Julien Monney. 2017. «Past Images, Contemporary Practices: Re-use of Rock Art Images in Contemporary San art of Southern Africa.» In Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art, edited by Bruno David and Ian McNiven, 1044–1065. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barnabas, Shanade, B. 2010. «Picking at the Paint: Viewing Contemporary Bushman Art as Art.» Visual Anthropology 23, no. 5: 427–442.
Barriendos, Joaquín. 2009. «Geopolitics of Global Art: The Reinvention of Latin America as a Geo-aesthetic Region.» In The Global Art World, edited by Hans Belting et Andrea Buddensieg, 98–114. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz.
Bawin, Julie. 2018. « L’artiste contemporain dans les musées d’ethnographie ou la « promesse » d’un commissariat engagé.», RACAR : Revue d’art canadienne / Canadian Art Review, 43, no. 2 : 48–56. https://doi.org/10.7202/1054382ar
Bregin, Elana. 2001. «Miscast: Bushmen in the Twentieth Century.» Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa 13, no. 1: 87–107, https://doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2001.9678095
Clifford, James. 1996 [1988]. Malaise dans la culture : L’ethnographie, la littérature et l’art au XX e siècle. Traduit par Marie-Anne Sichère. Paris: École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts.
Comaroff, John L., and Jean Comaroff. 2009. Ethnicity, Inc. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.
Coombes, Annie E. 2004. History After Apartheid: Visual Culture and Public Memory in a Democratic South Africa. Durham: Duke University Press.
Davison, Patricia. 2018. «The Politics and Poetics of the Bushman Diorama at the South African Museum.» ICOFOM Study Series [Online] 46: 81–97. http://journals.openedition.org/iss/921
Didi-Huberman, Georges. 2014. Essayer voir. Paris : Minuit.
Durand, Carine A. 2010. «Indexing (in) Authenticity: Art and Artefact in Ethnography Museums.» AlterNative 6, no. 3: 248–260.
Dussart, Françoise. 2014. « Mise en intrigue » : quelques réflexions sur les expositions muséales de peintures à l’acrylique des Aborigènes du Territoire du Nord (Australie).» Anthropologie et Sociétés, 38, no. 3 : 179–206. https://doi.org/10.7202/1029024ar
Errington, Shelly. 1994. «What Became Authentic Primitive Art ?» Cultural Anthropology 9: 201–226.
Fauvelle, François-Xavier. 1999. « Des murs d’Augsbourg aux vitrines du Cap : Cinq siècles d’histoire du regard sur le corps des Khoisan. » Cahiers d’Études Africaines, 39 (155/156) : 539–561.
Fisher, Jean. 1992. «In Search of the ‹Inauthentic›: Disturbing Signs in Contemporary Native American Art.» Art Journal 5, no. 13: 44–50.
Fisher, Laura. 2012. «The Art/Ethnography Binary: Post-colonial Tensions within the Field of Australian Aboriginal Art.» Cultural sociology 6, no. 2: 251–270. https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975512440224
Gordon, Robert. 1992. The Bushman Myth: The Making of a Namibian Underclass. Boulder (Colo.) [etc.]: Wetsview Press.
Guenther, Mathias. 2003. «Contemporary Bushman Art, Identity Politics and the Primitivism Discourse.» Anthropologica 45, no. 1: 95–110.
Jackson, Shannon, and Steven Robins. 1999. «Miscast: The Place of the Museum in Negotiating the Bushman Past and Present.» Critical Arts 13, no. 1 : 69–101, https://doi.org/10.1080/02560049985310051
Jérôme, Laurent. 2014. «Présentation : Vues de l’autre, voix de l’objet dans les musées.» Anthropologie et Sociétés 38, no. 3 : 9–23. https://doi.org/10.7202/1029016ar
Kasarherou, Emmanuel, Gaye Sculthorpe, Nicolas Thomas, Michel Coté, et Vincent Négri. 2017. «Dialogue des cultures et circulations des œuvres.» Les actes de colloques du musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac 8. Consulté le 5 mars 2021. http://journals.openedition.org/actesbranly/794
Kasfir, Sidney Littlefield. 1992. «African Art and Authenticity: A Text with a Shadow.» African Arts 25, no. 2: 40–53.
Koot, Stasja. P. 2018. «The Bushman Brand in Southern African Tourism.» In Research and Activism among the Kalahari San Today: Ideals, Challenges, and Debates, edited by Fleming R. Puckett and Kazunobu Ikeya, 231–250. Osaka : National Museum of Ethnology.·
Kuru Development Trust. 1990. Project Memorandum for Kuru Art Project. D’kar: Kuru Development Project.
Lane, Paul. 1996. «Breaking the Mould? Exhibiting Khoisan in Southern African Museums.» Anthropology Today 12, no. 5: 3–10.
Le Roux, Braam. 1991. «This is not the Full Story.» In Contemporary Bushman Art of Southern Africa, edited by Catharina Scheepers, 6–7. D’kar: Kuru Development Trust.
Mboti, Nyasha. 2014. «To Exhibit or be Exhibitied: The Visual Art of Vetkat Regopstaan Boesman Kruiper.» Critical arts 28, no. 3:472–492. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2014.929212
McEvilley, Thomas. 1999. L’identité culturelle en crise. Nîmes: J. Chambon.
McLean, Ian. 2011. How Aborigines invented the idea of contemporary art. Writings on Aboriginal contemporary art. Brisbane; Sidney: IMA Institute of Modern Art; Power publications.
McMaster, Gerald, and Lee-Ann Martin. 1992. Indigena: Contemporary Native Perspectives. Hull, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Mhiripiri, Nhamo Anthony. 2009. The Tourist Viewer, the Bushmen and the Zulu: Imaging and (Re) Invention of Identities through Contemporary Visual Cultural Productions. PhD Thesis. Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Molebatsi, Chadzimula. 2002. «The Remote Area Development Programme and the Integration of Basarwa into the Mainstream of Botswana Society.» Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies 16, no. 2: 123–134.·
Mosquera, Gerardo. 1992. «The Marco Polo Syndrome: Some Problems around Art and Eurocentrism.» Third Text 6, no. 21: 35–41.
Mulhauser, Blaise et Elodie Gaille. 2019. «L’exposition citoyenne «Objets de cultures. Ces plantes qui nous habitent», un laboratoire de littératie vivante.» Plateforme internet sur la littératie 2/2019 https://www.forumlecture.ch/archivsuche.cfm?action=send
Myers, Fred R. 2006. ««Primitivism», Anthropology and the Category of «Primitive Art»» In Handbook of Material Culture, edited by Christopher Tilley, Webb Keane, Susanne Küchler, Mike Rowlands, and Patricia Spyer, 267–284. London: SAGE.
Oswald, Margareta von, and Jonas Tinius, ed. 2020. Across Anthropology: Troubling Colonial Legacies, Museums, and the Curatorial. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
Myers, Fred R. 1998. «Question de regard : Les expositions d’art aborigène australien en France.» Terrain : Carnets du patrimoine ethnologique 30: 96–111.
Myers, Fred R. 1991. «Representing culture: the production of discourse(s) for aboriginal acrylic painting.» Cultural anthropology 6: 26–62.
Phillips, Ruth B. 2007. «The Museum of Art-thropology: Twenty-first Century Imbroglios.» RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 52: 8–20.
Price, Sally. 1995 [1989]. Arts primitifs, regards civilisés. Traduit par Geneviève Lebaut. Paris : École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts.
Robins, Steven. 2000. «Land, Struggles and the Politics and Ethics of Representing «Bushman» history and identity.» Kronos 26: 56–75.
Silberbauer, George B. 1965. Report to the Government of Bechuanaland on the Bushman Survey. Bechuanaland Government.
Skotnes, Pippa, ed. 1996. Miscast: Negociating the Presence of the Bushmen. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1993 [1988]. «Can the Subaltern Speak?» In Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial Theory: A Reader, edited by Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman, 66–111. New York; London [etc.]: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Stephenson, Jessica. 2006. Art, Identity and Patronage: A History of Three Southern African Workshops for San/«Bushmen» Artists (1990–2003). PhD Thesis. Emory University.
Sylvain, Renée. 2014. «Essentialism and the Indigenous Politics of Recognition in Southern Africa.» American anthropologist, 116, no. 2: 251–264.
Thomas, Nicholas. 1999. Possessions: Indigenous Art/Colonial Culture. London: Thames and Hudson.
Uzel, Jean-Philippe. 2016. « Caché sous nos yeux. L’art contemporain autochtone sur la scène internationale ». Inter 122 : 26–29.
Weibel, Peter. 2013 (1997). « Au-delà du ‹ cube blanc › ». In Décentrements : Art et mondialisation. Anthologie de textes de 1950 à nos jours, édité par Catherine Grenier, 164–170. Paris : Centre Pompidou.
Wily, Elizabeth. 1982. «A Strategy of self-determination for the Kalahari San.» Development and Change 13: 291–308.
Baracchini, Leïla, Elodie Gaille, et Blaise Mulhauser. 2019a. Les morama : Entretien avec Qgõcgae Cao. (Doc, 3 min). Jardin Botanique de Neuchâtel.
Baracchini, Leïla, Elodie Gaille, et Blaise Mulhauser. 2019b. Xgaá tsi nxabo, la griffe du diable : Entretien avec Coex’ae Bob. (Doc, 4 min). Jardin Botanique de Neuchâtel.
Araeen, Rasheed. 1989. «Our Bauhaus Others’ Mudhouse.» Third Text 6, Spring: 3–14.
Baracchini, Leïla. 2021a. Entre désert et toile : Création d’un art san contemporain au Kalahari. Neuchâtel : Alphil.
Baracchini Leïla. 2021b. «Becoming Traditional: Contemporary San Art and the Production of (Non-)Knowledge.» Ethnography. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1466138120983845
Baracchini, Leïla, et Julien Monney. 2017. «Past Images, Contemporary Practices: Re-use of Rock Art Images in Contemporary San art of Southern Africa.» In Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art, edited by Bruno David and Ian McNiven, 1044–1065. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barnabas, Shanade, B. 2010. «Picking at the Paint: Viewing Contemporary Bushman Art as Art.» Visual Anthropology 23, no. 5: 427–442.
Barriendos, Joaquín. 2009. «Geopolitics of Global Art: The Reinvention of Latin America as a Geo-aesthetic Region.» In The Global Art World, edited by Hans Belting et Andrea Buddensieg, 98–114. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz.
Bawin, Julie. 2018. « L’artiste contemporain dans les musées d’ethnographie ou la « promesse » d’un commissariat engagé.», RACAR : Revue d’art canadienne / Canadian Art Review, 43, no. 2 : 48–56. https://doi.org/10.7202/1054382ar
Bregin, Elana. 2001. «Miscast: Bushmen in the Twentieth Century.» Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa 13, no. 1: 87–107, https://doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2001.9678095
Clifford, James. 1996 [1988]. Malaise dans la culture : L’ethnographie, la littérature et l’art au XX e siècle. Traduit par Marie-Anne Sichère. Paris: École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts.
Comaroff, John L., and Jean Comaroff. 2009. Ethnicity, Inc. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.
Coombes, Annie E. 2004. History After Apartheid: Visual Culture and Public Memory in a Democratic South Africa. Durham: Duke University Press.
Davison, Patricia. 2018. «The Politics and Poetics of the Bushman Diorama at the South African Museum.» ICOFOM Study Series [Online] 46: 81–97. http://journals.openedition.org/iss/921
Didi-Huberman, Georges. 2014. Essayer voir. Paris : Minuit.
Durand, Carine A. 2010. «Indexing (in) Authenticity: Art and Artefact in Ethnography Museums.» AlterNative 6, no. 3: 248–260.
Dussart, Françoise. 2014. « Mise en intrigue » : quelques réflexions sur les expositions muséales de peintures à l’acrylique des Aborigènes du Territoire du Nord (Australie).» Anthropologie et Sociétés, 38, no. 3 : 179–206. https://doi.org/10.7202/1029024ar
Errington, Shelly. 1994. «What Became Authentic Primitive Art ?» Cultural Anthropology 9: 201–226.
Fauvelle, François-Xavier. 1999. « Des murs d’Augsbourg aux vitrines du Cap : Cinq siècles d’histoire du regard sur le corps des Khoisan. » Cahiers d’Études Africaines, 39 (155/156) : 539–561.
Fisher, Jean. 1992. «In Search of the ‹Inauthentic›: Disturbing Signs in Contemporary Native American Art.» Art Journal 5, no. 13: 44–50.
Fisher, Laura. 2012. «The Art/Ethnography Binary: Post-colonial Tensions within the Field of Australian Aboriginal Art.» Cultural sociology 6, no. 2: 251–270. https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975512440224
Gordon, Robert. 1992. The Bushman Myth: The Making of a Namibian Underclass. Boulder (Colo.) [etc.]: Wetsview Press.
Guenther, Mathias. 2003. «Contemporary Bushman Art, Identity Politics and the Primitivism Discourse.» Anthropologica 45, no. 1: 95–110.
Jackson, Shannon, and Steven Robins. 1999. «Miscast: The Place of the Museum in Negotiating the Bushman Past and Present.» Critical Arts 13, no. 1 : 69–101, https://doi.org/10.1080/02560049985310051
Jérôme, Laurent. 2014. «Présentation : Vues de l’autre, voix de l’objet dans les musées.» Anthropologie et Sociétés 38, no. 3 : 9–23. https://doi.org/10.7202/1029016ar
Kasarherou, Emmanuel, Gaye Sculthorpe, Nicolas Thomas, Michel Coté, et Vincent Négri. 2017. «Dialogue des cultures et circulations des œuvres.» Les actes de colloques du musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac 8. Consulté le 5 mars 2021. http://journals.openedition.org/actesbranly/794
Kasfir, Sidney Littlefield. 1992. «African Art and Authenticity: A Text with a Shadow.» African Arts 25, no. 2: 40–53.
Koot, Stasja. P. 2018. «The Bushman Brand in Southern African Tourism.» In Research and Activism among the Kalahari San Today: Ideals, Challenges, and Debates, edited by Fleming R. Puckett and Kazunobu Ikeya, 231–250. Osaka : National Museum of Ethnology.·
Kuru Development Trust. 1990. Project Memorandum for Kuru Art Project. D’kar: Kuru Development Project.
Lane, Paul. 1996. «Breaking the Mould? Exhibiting Khoisan in Southern African Museums.» Anthropology Today 12, no. 5: 3–10.
Le Roux, Braam. 1991. «This is not the Full Story.» In Contemporary Bushman Art of Southern Africa, edited by Catharina Scheepers, 6–7. D’kar: Kuru Development Trust.
Mboti, Nyasha. 2014. «To Exhibit or be Exhibitied: The Visual Art of Vetkat Regopstaan Boesman Kruiper.» Critical arts 28, no. 3:472–492. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2014.929212
McEvilley, Thomas. 1999. L’identité culturelle en crise. Nîmes: J. Chambon.
McLean, Ian. 2011. How Aborigines invented the idea of contemporary art. Writings on Aboriginal contemporary art. Brisbane; Sidney: IMA Institute of Modern Art; Power publications.
McMaster, Gerald, and Lee-Ann Martin. 1992. Indigena: Contemporary Native Perspectives. Hull, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Mhiripiri, Nhamo Anthony. 2009. The Tourist Viewer, the Bushmen and the Zulu: Imaging and (Re) Invention of Identities through Contemporary Visual Cultural Productions. PhD Thesis. Durban: University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Molebatsi, Chadzimula. 2002. «The Remote Area Development Programme and the Integration of Basarwa into the Mainstream of Botswana Society.» Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies 16, no. 2: 123–134.·
Mosquera, Gerardo. 1992. «The Marco Polo Syndrome: Some Problems around Art and Eurocentrism.» Third Text 6, no. 21: 35–41.
Mulhauser, Blaise et Elodie Gaille. 2019. «L’exposition citoyenne «Objets de cultures. Ces plantes qui nous habitent», un laboratoire de littératie vivante.» Plateforme internet sur la littératie 2/2019 https://www.forumlecture.ch/archivsuche.cfm?action=send
Myers, Fred R. 2006. ««Primitivism», Anthropology and the Category of «Primitive Art»» In Handbook of Material Culture, edited by Christopher Tilley, Webb Keane, Susanne Küchler, Mike Rowlands, and Patricia Spyer, 267–284. London: SAGE.
Oswald, Margareta von, and Jonas Tinius, ed. 2020. Across Anthropology: Troubling Colonial Legacies, Museums, and the Curatorial. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
Myers, Fred R. 1998. «Question de regard : Les expositions d’art aborigène australien en France.» Terrain : Carnets du patrimoine ethnologique 30: 96–111.
Myers, Fred R. 1991. «Representing culture: the production of discourse(s) for aboriginal acrylic painting.» Cultural anthropology 6: 26–62.
Phillips, Ruth B. 2007. «The Museum of Art-thropology: Twenty-first Century Imbroglios.» RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 52: 8–20.
Price, Sally. 1995 [1989]. Arts primitifs, regards civilisés. Traduit par Geneviève Lebaut. Paris : École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts.
Robins, Steven. 2000. «Land, Struggles and the Politics and Ethics of Representing «Bushman» history and identity.» Kronos 26: 56–75.
Silberbauer, George B. 1965. Report to the Government of Bechuanaland on the Bushman Survey. Bechuanaland Government.
Skotnes, Pippa, ed. 1996. Miscast: Negociating the Presence of the Bushmen. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1993 [1988]. «Can the Subaltern Speak?» In Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial Theory: A Reader, edited by Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman, 66–111. New York; London [etc.]: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Stephenson, Jessica. 2006. Art, Identity and Patronage: A History of Three Southern African Workshops for San/«Bushmen» Artists (1990–2003). PhD Thesis. Emory University.
Sylvain, Renée. 2014. «Essentialism and the Indigenous Politics of Recognition in Southern Africa.» American anthropologist, 116, no. 2: 251–264.
Thomas, Nicholas. 1999. Possessions: Indigenous Art/Colonial Culture. London: Thames and Hudson.
Uzel, Jean-Philippe. 2016. « Caché sous nos yeux. L’art contemporain autochtone sur la scène internationale ». Inter 122 : 26–29.
Weibel, Peter. 2013 (1997). « Au-delà du ‹ cube blanc › ». In Décentrements : Art et mondialisation. Anthologie de textes de 1950 à nos jours, édité par Catherine Grenier, 164–170. Paris : Centre Pompidou.
Wily, Elizabeth. 1982. «A Strategy of self-determination for the Kalahari San.» Development and Change 13: 291–308.
Baracchini, Leïla, Elodie Gaille, et Blaise Mulhauser. 2019a. Les morama : Entretien avec Qgõcgae Cao. (Doc, 3 min). Jardin Botanique de Neuchâtel.
Baracchini, Leïla, Elodie Gaille, et Blaise Mulhauser. 2019b. Xgaá tsi nxabo, la griffe du diable : Entretien avec Coex’ae Bob. (Doc, 4 min). Jardin Botanique de Neuchâtel.
Published
2022-04-05
How to Cite
Baracchini, Leïla, Blaise Mulhauser, and Elodie Gaille. 2022. “Exhibiting Bushman Art in Switzerland: Revisiting the Curatorial Process of the Exhibition ‘Kuru. L’art d’un Monde En Mutation’”. Swiss Journal of Sociocultural Anthropology 27 (April):16-39. https://doi.org/10.36950/tsantsa.2022.27.7787.
Section
Special Issue
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
