Arts & cultures n°3 celebrates 25 years of Musée Barbier-Mueller

The March 2002 issue of Arts & cultures is devoted to the 25th anniversary of the Musée Barbier-Mueller in Geneva. The museum's collections span Antiquity, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas, juxtaposing ancient and so-called primitive works. The issue features seventeen scholarly contributions, with a preference for anthropologists and ethnologists over art historians. Co-published by Adam Biro and the Association des amis du musée Barbier-Mueller, the volume includes an interview with Claude Lévi-Strauss, a text by Nigel Barley of the British Museum, and a chronicle by Jean-Paul Barbier. The museum was founded in 1977 upon the death of Josef Mueller, whose daughter discovered a Torres Strait mask in a cardboard box among newspapers containing drawings by Rouault, Léger, and Dubuffet. The publication emphasizes empirical study and anthropological approaches to art, avoiding postmodern myths of 'arts premiers'.