What is the object; What is art? What makes an object into a work of art?
Objets en question presents the fruitful and dynamic dialogue between scientific research and avant-garde art on these questions during the interwar period in France. The exhibition will run through June 22, 2025 at the Musée du quai Branly.
Through artworks and artefacts, notes, sketches and publications, the exhibition recalls this experimental ethnographic approach and highlights the intersections between archaeology, ethnology, anthropology and artistic practice, with a particular focus on Surrealism.
The exhibition is supported by the Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière Foundation.
The exhibition was curated in scientific partnership with the Benaki Museum in Athens and the Ecole française d’Athènes.
Curators
Alexandre Farnoux, Professor of Greek archeology and art history at Sorbonne University/École française d’Athènes
Polina Kosmadaki, Curator of modern and contemporary art at the Benaki Museum, Athens
Philippe Peltier, Curator and former Head of the Oceania- Insulindian Heritage Unit at the musée du quai Branly Jacques Chirac, Paris
Effie Rentzou, Professor of French Literature at Princeton University
