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Rumble In The Jungle
Jacques Chirac's bad luck continues. The Guardian reports that his legacy project - a museum dedicated to his beloved African and Asian indigenous art - is coming under fire from commentators who claim its design is racist.
To be fair to the critics, they have a point. The Musée du Quai Branly is designed to be "explored", with walls of trees giving the impression of a jungle concealing the building and artefacts waiting to be "discovered" by visitors. The critics complain that this suggests African art was the product of a "dark continent" and the French colonial entreprise "discovered" these "unknown" treasures.
Treasures concealed in the undergrowth awaiting discovery by brave French explorers? All that's missing is the sound of jungle drums.
Chirac probably thought he was on to a winner with his museum, which he hoped would secure his place in Paris' landscape in the way his predecessor Francois Mitterand did with grand projets like the Bibliotheque Nationale, the pyramid at the Louvre and the Institute of the Arab World. He has long been a collector of African and Asian art and styles himself as an expert in the field.
Now he's being attacked by the very people he hoped to ingratiate himself with. Whether the design of the museum is his doing or is the responsibility of the architect Jean Nouvel (who also designed the Institute of the Arab World) is debateable, but surely the president would have kept a close eye on plans for the building that (he hope) will one day bear his name?
