General appreciation vs. criticism of the museum Discussions about the museum's name prior and after its opening reflected criticism about its scope and political viewpoints. In a summary review of 2006
The Guardian reported that the
Financial Times appreciated the museum's architectural and curatorial design, praising features such as the layered galleries that create "an animated, occasionally jarring dreamscape". Other reviews in public media were more critical: The
International Herald Tribune commented on the architecture: "Defiant, mysterious and wildly eccentric, it is not an easy building to love."
Newsweek wrote that "the jungle metaphor is so overdone that it starts to seem silly, or condescending".
Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic of
The New York Times, published a review on 2 July 2006 entitled "Heart of Darkness in the City of Light". He called the museum "a missed opportunity and an inexplicable exercise" and said it was "devised as a spooky jungle, red and black and murky, the objects in it chosen and arranged with hardly any discernible logic. The place is briefly thrilling, as spectacle, but brow-slappingly wrongheaded. [...] The place simply makes no sense. Old, new, good, bad are jumbled all together without much reason or explanation, save for visual theatrics." In 2007 Bernice Murphy, co-founder of the
Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art and later National Director of Museums Australia and Chair of the Ethics Committee of the International Council of Museums was quoted that she found the whole of Quai Branly to be a "regressive museology" and the presentation of
Aboriginal art "in a vegetal environment" to be "an exotic
mise en scène" in the worst taste. On the museum's tenth anniversary in 2016,
The Art Newspaper highlighted its ambitious role in bringing together vast collections of non-Western art and acknowledged its importance as a cultural institution. The article noted that the museum's founder, Jacques Chirac, was committed to increasing public appreciation of ethnographic collections and the museum's rich permanent holdings. The article noted the 97 temporary exhibitions during the first decade and quoted Steven Engelsman, the director of Vienna's
Weltmuseum, who said that the Quai Branly has "worked miracles to increase the public appreciation of ethnographic collections and museums". Another discussion has focused on what political role the museum has played for the interior and exterior politics of France. At the time the museum opened in 2007, France was attempting to reconcile increasing
ethnic diversity among the nation's population within its republican model of assimilation. From this perspective, the museum has been seen as a symbolic effort to reach out to people from non-Western background, while at the same time proclaiming the country's open attitude to the world. Given this supposed motivation behind the museum, there has been some controversy among intellectuals as to what the museum's ultimate purpose is, and whether or not the presentation of the galleries actually achieves this purpose. In his 2006 article for
The New York Times, Michael Kimmelman said: "The dichotomy between ethnology and aesthetics is too simple. It's not possible to draw a line between form and function, which are inseparably mixed in ways that constantly shift." Further, he asked: "Will religious, ceremonial and practical objects, never intended as art in the modern, Western sense, be showcased like
baubles, with no context?"
Report on the restitution of African cultural heritage , Benin, as exhibited in 2021 before their restitution In 2018, the museum was at the center of a debate about the
repatriation of objects that were removed from former French colonies during the period of colonialism. This was following the release of a report commissioned by President Emmanuel Macron and prepared by two academics,
Bénédicte Savoy of France and
Felwine Sarr of Senegal, who were asked to draw up a
report on the restitution of African cultural heritage. This report argued that artifacts that were taken unlawfully throughout the French colonial period should be returned, if the country in question asks for them. Of the 90,000 sub-Saharan artifacts in France, 70,000 are in the archives or public exhibition of the Quai Branly Museum in Paris. though no French law or legislation existed at the time that would have enabled such a promise. This was a complete shift from preceding French policy on the restitution of cultural objects collected during the colonial period. As an example, in 2016 the French government had refused to return artifacts requested by the president of Benin, on the grounds that the French national collections are "inalienable", i.e. no part of them could be given away. Since the publication of the Sarr/Savoy report, the international discussion about restitution of looted cultural heritage has gained new momentum, and major museums and other collections not only in France have intensified restitutions and their cooperation with African institutions and art historians.
Controversies The MQB was involved in a controversy over the return of
Maori tattooed heads held in France and known as
mokomokai. The controversy arose after a museum in Normandy decided to return a tattooed head to New Zealand. Since 2003, the
Te Papa Tongarewa, New Zealand's national museum, had embarked on a program of requesting the return of Maori remains held in institutions around the world. While the MQB was initially reluctant to return the
mokomokai to New Zealand, a change in French law in 2010 allowed for discussions which resulted in repatriation. The use of the name "Xizang" was considered an "historical fraud" in an article publish by a group of Asian scholars published on 3 September 2024 in the French newspaper
Le Monde. By the end of September, the Musée du Quai Branly had formally apologised to a delegation of six Tibetan activist groups and said it will revert to using the description "Tibet". == See also ==