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Podcast: New Books in Art
Episode: Daniel Sherman, "French Primitivism and the Ends of Empire, 1945-1975" (U Chicago Press, 2011)
Description: The "primitivist idea" has played an important role in art and culture from at least the late nineteenth century. From Paul Gauguin to Pablo Picasso, to the more recent Musée du Quai Branly (opened in 2006), a variety of individuals and institutions have engaged with so-called "primitive" peoples; collected their artifacts; displayed, represented, and mimicked their cultural forms and practices. Daniel Sherman's French Primitivism and the Ends of Empire, 1945-1975 (University of Chicago Press, 2011) examines the postwar history of primitivism as one inflected throughout by the colonial past and present. Offering readers a perspective on the trente glorieuses ("thirty gloriou...