BOOK:Imaginary Ancestors-Almine Rech Gallery Editions

The catalogue “Imaginary Ancestors” looks at Primitivism in modern and contemporary art, on the one hand restaging a seminal 1933 Durand-Ruel Gallery exhibition in New York of Fang sculptures and contemporary paintings of the time, and on the other hand presenting a parallel exhibition of Primitivist modern and affiliated contemporary works. In Modernism, the search for the sublime and for imaginary origins have tended to coincide. For the modern artist – although Primitivist poetic choices often differed a great deal from one another – the Primitive was a new figure of the Antique. From Derain to Kirchner, Pechstein, Matisse and Picasso, the history of Primitivism left its mark on the art of the last century.  These ideas were definitely established in 1984, by William Rubin, when he organized the exhibition “Primitivism in 20th century art”, at MoMA in New York, which was accompanied by an important catalogue that remains a standard on the subject. Today, Primitivism has changed its nature, but it refuses to leave the stage, and does not allow itself to be filed away in the archives of this century’s art. Instead of the search for imaginary origins, it conveys a multiplied image of a frontier, a constant and conscious conflict, which opposes cultural values and societies. The “Imaginary Ancestors” comprises two parts. The first room of the exhibition presented works by André Derain and Max Pechstein together with a restaging of the exhibition “Early African heads and Statues from the Gabun Pahouin Tribes” (15/2-10/3//1933). This exhibition was the first show to be devoted to a single African Art Style, with a large group of Fang sculptures presented on a table alongside Derain paintings made at the time. For “Imaginary Ancestors”, the Primitive art specialist Bernard de Grunne sourced the majority of the sculptures included in the original exhibition, which were reunited for the first time since 1933 at Almine Rech Gallery. In the second room of the exhibition, modern and contemporary artworks inspired by Primitive art were shown with Primitive pieces from the personal collections of Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder and David Smith.-Efi Michalarou