Book Review: Yaëlle Biro, Fabriquer le regard: Marchands, réseaux et objets d’art africains à l’aube du XXe siècle

Felicity Bodenstein (1)

1 CAC - Centre André Chastel : Laboratoire de recherche en histoire de l'art

Fabriquer le regard: Marchands, réseaux et objets d'art africains à l'aube du XXe siècle, delivers a highly detailed, archive driven study of the early market for African objects in Paris between 1900 and 1920, thus providing an entirely new chapter to a story that in terms of the history of the art market, had until now focused on the rise of art market giants such as Charles Ratton and Louis Carré in the 1920s and especially the 1930s. In this sense, Biro's work is chronologically complementary to Maureen Murphy's book, De l'imaginaire au musée. Les arts d'Afrique à Paris et à New York (1931-2006) published in 2009 in the same collection Oeuvres en sociétés, Les presses du réel .. Based on a PhD thesis defended in 2010, the original manuscript was entitled, Transformation de l'objet ethnographique africain en oeuvre d'art. Circulation, commerce, diffusion des arts africains en Europe et aux États-Unis des années 1900 aux années 1920, but it has been considerably enriched by Biro's post-doctoral work and her experience at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where began working as a curator in 2007.

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Felicity Bodenstein. Book Review: Yaëlle Biro, Fabriquer le regard: Marchands, réseaux et objets d’art africains à l’aube du XXe siècle. Journal for Art Market Studies, 2020, ⟨10.23690/jams.v4i1.120⟩. ⟨halshs-03619705⟩