Material Journeys: Collecting African And Oceanic Art, 1945-2000

Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 2007. Paperback. New. New oversized softcover in printed wraps. 4to. (9.55 x 0.97 x 10.45 inches) Clean text free of marks or underlining. Gorgeous full page color photos and illustrations throughout the book. Includes photo credits and a bibliography. 246 pp.

Fast shipping in a secure book box mailer with tracking. This is a comprehensive study of how African and Oceanic arts were brought to Europe and the United States in the later twentieth century. Using the extensive Geneviève McMillan Collection as a prism, the authors investigate collecting strategies as they intersect with the political consigns of colonialism and independence and the developing study of African and Oceanic arts. The objects in this book, ranging from sculptures to textiles to musical instruments, moved through many hands: some were collected in the field by their future owners (including Geneviève McMillan herself), others passed though Paris and Brussels, hubs of the international art trade, and still others arrived with "runners," Africans who helped locate objects for sale.

As the market expanded, and increasing number of object types joined the canon of what constituted art, and artists in African and the Pacific began producing replicas and new types- opening a whole new debate about the ojects' authenticity. Material Jouneys explores this debate and the social, political, and commercial forces underlying it. In considering these issues, it not only reflects the history and choices of a pioneering collector but also illuminates the more general processes of producing, interpreting, and collecting African and Oceanic artworks in the modern world.