Magiciens de la terre (1989): <i>method and criteria of the "first global exhibition of contemporary art"</i>

Abstract

Magiciens de la terre, promoted by the Centre Pompidou in the spring of 1989, and presented by its curator Jean-Hubert Martin as the ‘first global exhibition of contemporary art’, remains a controversial episode in the history of the globalisation process in art. Situated in the transition from an old to a ‘new internationalism’, the exhibition was immediately the subject of heated controversy, much of which focused on the criteria and methods adopted by the curator for the selection of non-Western art. The following article presents an examination of these criteria, using, on the one hand, the texts drafted by Martin for the presentation of his project; and, on the other hand, the texts produced by the critics at the time of the exhibition’s opening.