Musée de l'Homme

Musée de l'Homme
Musée de l'Homme
"Dans ces murs voués aux merveilles J'accueille et garde les ouvrages De la main prodigieuse de l'artiste Égale et rivale de sa pensée. L'une n'est rien sans l'autre."
Established	1937
Location	Trocadéro, 16th arrondissement of Paris
Website	http://www.museedelhomme.fr/

Fang mask from Gabon

The Musée de l'Homme (French, "Museum of Man") was created in 1937 by Paul Rivet for the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne. It is the descendant of the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro, founded in 1878. The Musée de l'Homme is a research center under the authority of various ministries, and it groups several entities from the CNRS. The Musée de l'Homme is one of the seven departments of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle.

The Musée de l'Homme occupies most of the Passy wing of the Palais de Chaillot in the 16th arrondissement. Part of its exhibition will eventually be transferred to the Quai Branly museum.^[1]

Due to renovation, the museum will be closed from the end of March 2009 until 2012. The total amount of money appropriated for the renovation process is 52 million Euros.^[2]

History

The Musée de l'Homme has inherited items from historical collections created as early as the 16th century, from cabinets of curiosities, and the Royal Cabinet. These collections were enriched during the nineteenth century, and they still are today. The aim is to gather in one site everything which defines the human being: man in his evolution (prehistory), man in his unity and diversity (anthropology), man in his cultural and social expression (ethnology).

Venus of Lespugue (replica), from the Musée de l'Homme

The majority of the "ethnographic exhibition" from the Musée de l'Armée of the Invalides, as it was then called, is composed of dummies representing people from the colonies, along with weapons and equipment. This material was transferred to the museum in 1910 and 1917.^[3] Photos of the Moroccan population, taken by Clérambault, were also displayed there.

Several members of the Musée de l'Homme, such as Paul Rivet, during Vichy France, formed a Resistant group.

Mission

The museum is part of the Musée national d'histoire naturelle. Its original purpose was to gather in a one place all that can define humanity: its evolution, its unity and its variety, and its cultural and social expression.

The creation of the new Musée du quai Branly and MUCEM will be taking the Musée de l'homme's ethnographical collections, breaking with its original mission. This change has aroused many debates because the curatorial choices of the new structure will be dictated more by aesthetic criteria than scientific. The permanent exhibition of the Museum of the Man counted more than 15,000 artifacts, reflecting the artistic but also technical and cultural treasures from five continents. Quai Branly, however, holds only 3500 artifacts, presented without cultural contextualization, chosen for their aesthetic qualities and their "exotic" origins (Africa, Oceania, Americas) and not on educational value. European ethnographical collections are going to be exhibited at MUCEM, and critics believe it is creating an unjustified discontinuity between human cultures.

This situation led the Musée de l'Homme to a redefinition of its mission. Jean-Pierre Mohen and his team tried to arrange the mission of the Museum, without really succeeding in giving it a strong enough muséological program. We shall find in the future Museum, the Human defined through his biological evolution, through its adaptation to its environnement, through the elaboration of a culture (by the vector of the communication among others) which defines the hightlights of humanity. Finally, it will be question of a conscience of human pressure on its environment as to face the consequences of the evolutions, in the present, for the future. According to this writer pre-historic people just flew over the Eberian peninsula and appeared all over Europe.

Notable directors and staff scientists

• René-Yves Creston, director of the Arctic section in the 1930s
• Maurice Leenhardt
• André Leroi-Gourhan
• Paul Rivet
• Jacques Soustelle (vice-president in 1938)
• Claude Lévi-Strauss (interim director 1949-1950)
• Henri Victor Vallois

Notable holdings

• The "Hottentot Venus" was displayed until 1974.
• A crystal skull is held by the museum.
• The skull of René Descartes, a scientist, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher also resides in this museum
• The skull of Suleiman al-Halabi (1777-1800), a Syrian Kurdish student who assassinated General Kléber is also there.

References

1. ^ See Quai Branly
2. ^ Le musée de l'Homme fait sa mue
3. ^ Gilles Aubagnac, "En 1878, les "sauvages" entrent au musée de l'Armée" in Zoos humains. De la Vénus hottentote aux reality shows, Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, Gilles Boëtsch, Eric Deroo, Sandrine Lemaire, edition La Découverte (2002), p.349-354 (French)

See also

Paris portal

• List of museums in Paris
• Relocation of moai objects

External links

• Museum information (French)
• Bibliothèque du Musée de l'Homme (French)

Coordinates: 48°51′46″N 2°17′19″E / 48.86278°N 2.28861°E / 48.86278; 2.28861