Georgia O’Keeffe: A New Entrant in the French Love Affair with the American West
This essay sets the retrospective on Georgia O’Keeffe, at the Centre Pompidou between September and December 2021, in the museographic history of the American West in France. It combines an analysis of curatorial practice, and past and present images, from fine arts and arts premiers museums in the...
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| Izdano u: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/rhc, |
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| Glavni autor: | |
| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Jezik: | Anglais |
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Revue d'histoire culturelle
2023
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| Online pristup: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Sažetak: | This essay sets the retrospective on Georgia O’Keeffe, at the Centre Pompidou between September and December 2021, in the museographic history of the American West in France. It combines an analysis of curatorial practice, and past and present images, from fine arts and arts premiers museums in the last three and a half decades – specifically as museums have sought to grapple with the American West in an age of multiculturalism and diversity. The reception of the Pompidou event in the French press is also analyzed. It is suggested that the retrospective diverges from representations (albeit ironic) of the West as populated by fearless white male horsemen and hostile Indians that have so far dominated French fine arts museums. Yet, the article also problematizes an emphasis, both in the exhibit and in the press reception (right-wing, left-wing, and in the centre), on the white American and European male influences on O’Keeffe, which sets her in a mold of being a “feminine exception” in a male-dominated art world. This also ends up repeating infelicitous scenographic practices relating to the representation of American Indians in settings that seek to be revisionist: specifically, France’s best-known arts premiers museum, the Musée du Quai Branly. All of this overlooks the communities of women artists, who dialogued and exchanged with the American Indians, in the American West—a heritage in which O’Keeffe’s work could be situated and which future French exhibits on le Far West would do well to focus on. |
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