This publication traces the movements of hundreds of thousands of masks, statues, amulets, shields etc. from overseas tribul cultures to and within North Atlantic societies, in colonial and post-colonial times. While the focus is on the Low Countries and their overseas territories, the Belgian Congo and the Netherlands East Indies, related developments in three adjacent colonial powers, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, are also covered, as are links to the United States. The milieus and locales through which tribal objects circulated and circulate are charted, like colonial trading posts, auction houses and museums, and dealers, collectors and curators relate their more recent experiences with objects-in-motion.

Article by Myers annotated separately.

Together, the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, and the Institut des Musées Nationaux du Zaire (IMNZ) in the Congo have defined and marketed Congolese art and culture. In Authentically African, Sarah Van Beurden traces the relationship between the possession, definition, and display of art and the construction of cultural authenticity and political legitimacy from the late colonial until the postcolonial era. Her study of the interconnected histories of these two institutions is the first history of an art museum in Africa, and the only work of its kind in English. Drawing on Flemish-language sources other scholars have been unable to access, Van Beurden illuminates the politics of museum collections, showing how the IMNZ became a showpiece in Mobutu’s effort to revive “authentic” African culture. She reconstructs debates between Belgian and Congolese museum professionals, revealing how the dynamics of decolonization played out in the fields of the museum and international heritage conservation. Finally, she casts light on the art market, showing how the traveling displays put on by the IMNZ helped intensify collectors’ interest and generate an international market for Congolese art. The book contributes to the fields of history, art history, museum studies, and anthropology and challenges existing narratives of Congo’s decolonization. It tells a new history of decolonization as a struggle over cultural categories, the possession of cultural heritage, and the right to define and represent cultural identities.

From the 1880s to 1940, French colonial officials, businessmen and soldiers, returning from overseas postings, brought home wooden masks and figures from Africa. This imperial and cultural power-play is the jumping-off point for a story that travels from sub-Saharan Africa to Parisian art galleries; from the pages of fashion magazines, through the doors of the Louvre, to world fairs and international auction rooms; into the apartments of avant-garde critics and poets; to the streets of Harlem, and then full-circle back to colonial museums and schools in Dakar, Bamako, and Abidjan. John Warne Monroe guides us on this journey, one that goes far beyond the world of Picasso, Matisse, and Braque, to show how the Modernist avant-garde and the European colonial project influenced each other in profound and unexpected ways. Metropolitan Fetish reveals the complex trajectory of African material culture in the West and provides a map of that passage, tracing the interaction of cultural and imperial power. A broad and far-reaching history of the French reception of African art, it brings to life an era in which the aesthetic category of "primitive art" was invented.

For over a century, the idea of primitivism has motivated artistic modernism. Focusing on the three decades after World War II, known in France as “les trentes glorieuses” despite the loss of most of the country’s colonial empire, this probing and expansive book argues that primitivism played a key role in a French society marked by both economic growth and political turmoil. In a series of chapters that consider significant aspects of French culture—including the creation of new museums of French folklore and of African and Oceanic arts and the development of tourism against the backdrop of nuclear testing in French Polynesia—Daniel J. Sherman shows how primitivism, a collective fantasy born of the colonial encounter, proved adaptable to a postcolonial, inward-looking age of mass consumption. Following the likes of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Andrée Putman, and Jean Dubuffet through decorating magazines, museum galleries, and Tahiti’s pristine lagoons, this interdisciplinary study provides a new perspective on primitivism as a cultural phenomenon and offers fresh insights into the eccentric edges of contemporary French history.

This book is the first comparative law study of collateral consequences of criminal conviction in all federally recognized Indian tribes in the lower 48 U.S. states, and the mechanisms for restoring civil rights in tribal law. Surveying the constitutions, codes, and ordinances of tribal jurisdictions reveals a broad range of consequences – the impact of which has not been comprehensively and critically examined. Like state and federal jurisdictions, tribal law attaches thousands of legal disabilities to tribal offices, business licenses and permits, social services, and civil rights for persons with criminal convictions. This is especially true in economically important industries such as gaming and resource extraction; additionally, rapidly changing areas such as marijuana regulation and sex offender registries expand the scope still further. This book catalogues restoration of rights procedures in tribal law, to include pardons, expungements, and record sealing. Collateral consequences have proliferated in tribal law because of the limitations of tribal criminal jurisdiction, including over non-tribal members. However, tribal collateral consequences risk contributing to overcriminalization and social exclusion for persons with previous criminal convictions, especially as Native Americans are already disproportionately impacted by the U.S. criminal justice system. This book will appeal to legal academics, scholars, and practitioners working in tribal criminal law, as well as to others with interests in Indigenous legal issues.

From the contents: Christine MATZKE: Comrades in arts and arms: stories of wars and watercolours from Eritrea. - Sabine MARSCHALL: Positioning the other': reception and interpretation of contemporary black South African artists. - Kristine ROOME: The art of liberating voices: contemporary South African art exhibited in New York. - Jonathan ZILBERG: Shona sculpture and documenta 2002: reflections on exclusions.