Collections permanentes du Musée d'Arts Africains, Océaniens, Amérindiens - MAAOA

The Musée d'Arts Africains, Océaniens, Amérindiens - MAAOA presents an important collection of extra-European art objects, both cultural witnesses and works of art in their own right. Born from remarkable collections, it contributes to a better understanding of the cultures of Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

Extra-European collections have successively been viewed in different ways. Initially perceived as objects of pure curiosity, from the 18th century onward they contributed to a first understanding of the world's cultural diversity. The 20th century saw a dual recognition of these objects, both by the scholars who documented them and by artists proclaiming the contribution of these arts to their thinking and experiments with new forms. Enlightened collectors followed both paths. The beginning of the 21st century has opened up questions about the provenance of these works, their usefulness in the museum and their restitution to their countries of origin.

The MAAOA is the heir to these perspectives. It is so because of the nature of the collections it presents (former private collections, deposits, remnants of colonial museums and more recent collecting), and also because of its mission: to make these objects intelligible today, as testimonies to the history and culture of the people and societies from which they come.

The MAAOA’s specificity and interest lie in the three rooms that make up its permanent collection: each originated from an original collection.

• The Africa room is partly made up of a donation to the City by the heirs of Pierre Guerre (1910-1978), a major collector of African art who had been fascinated by the continent since the age of 12. This collection consists of around one hundred masks, statues and other works, supplemented by objects on deposit from the CCIMP and other acquisitions. Among the highlights are a Marka mask (Mali), three exceptional Fang bieri reliquaries (Gabon), and a Nuna mask (Burkina Faso).

• The Oceania-Americas room: in 1989, the City of Marseille acquired the unique collection of Marseille neurologist Henri Gastaut (1915-1995): a series of 80 skulls collected from around the world, including human skulls that were sculpted, painted, modelled over or engraved, mainly from Oceania and the Americas.

This exceptional collection is also supplemented by works on deposit from the CCIMP, objects collected by the MAAOA in Vanuatu, and magnificent Amerindian feather ornaments from the donation of Marcel Heckenroth (1902-2008), a doctor in French Guiana between 1939 and 1942.

• The Mexico room is devoted to a remarkable collection of Mexican folk art: nearly 3,000 objects — masks, yarn paintings, trees of life and sculptures — acquired by filmmaker François Reichenbach (1921-1993) during his many trips to Mexico and bequeathed by him to the City of Marseille in 1994. In 2016, the collection of Bernard Meusnier, comprising remarkable huipil textiles and magnificent alebrije sculptures, those famous papier-mâché monsters, completed the ensemble.

“To see oneself is one thing; to know oneself is another.” African proverb

Please do not hesitate to contact the museum before your visit to prepare for it. We also recommend contacting the museum for any visit planned around the permanent collections on weekends, to avoid any inconvenience. Thank you for your understanding.

• To discover in the galleries Missed Encounters? On the occasion of the loan of several subject-objects from its collections, the Musée d’Arts Africains, Océaniens, Amérindiens – MAAOA uses their invisibility within the permanent exhibition route to initiate a poetic, playful and philosophical dialogue around the themes of absence and emptiness. Through a digital tour created in partnership with the DNMADe Graphisme, Narrations Interactives of the École Supérieure de Design Marseille, visitors are invited to reflect on the history of the MAAOA’s collections and thus take part in the institution’s thinking about its future.

• [Re]thinking the MAAOA For several months, the museum has been conducting a reflection process: [Re]penser le MAAOA, whose collaborative methodology ensures the definition of shared spaces and times for construction. This process, which includes an international committee chaired by philosopher and Columbia University professor Souleymane Bachir Diagne, is based both on the museum’s desire to establish a reasoned symmetry in its relations with the communities, their representatives and diasporas from which the collections originate, and on its ability to demonstrate transparency, whether methodological, historical or cultural.

• info: https://musees.marseille.fr/repenser-le-maaoa-retrouvez-les-travaux-du-comite-de-reflexion

► To be certain of being able to enjoy the complete visit of all our exhibition rooms, we invite you to contact the Museum before your visit.

► All visits and activities related to the exhibition are available on the musees.marseille.fr website