The Balancier du Goût or: “With what sauce should we sample the exotic arts?”

June 21st, 2006, saw the birth, in Paris, of the Quai Branly Museum. This brand new Seine-side institution houses the national collections from Africa, Oceania, the Americas, and part of Asia. Some of the ensembles–treasures, no less–have been in Parisian collections for several centuries. The opening of this museum has, once more, bestirred the issue–the quarrel–of how we, in the West, approach the “primitive arts”, so-called. On this subject there has been many a publication, ranging from s..