Je suis l'autre: Primitivism Exhibition at Rome's Terme di Diocleziano

The exhibition 'Je suis l'autre' at the Terme di Diocleziano in Rome presents 80 sculptures juxtaposing modernist works with artifacts from Ethiopia, Gabon, Borneo, Ivory Coast, New Guinea, and Easter Island. Curated to challenge simplistic colonial narratives, the show reexamines primitivism through a formal dialogue between Western modernists and non-Western tribal art. Key works include Man Ray's photograph 'Black&White', Alberto Giacometti's 'L'Objet invisible', and Jean Dubuffet's 'Cherche Aubaine'. The exhibition links modernist abstraction to the spiritual and magical impulses of primitive art, tracing influences from Picasso's 1907 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' to Giacometti's attenuated figures. Notable juxtapositions include an Aztec sculpture of Quetzalcoatl with André Masson's 'Duo amoroso', and Enrico Baj's 'Re Ubu' and 'Madre Ubu' with Hopi kachina dolls. The show also features three Swiss masks from Lötschental, two 18th-century balcony pillars from South Tyrol, and a Congolese Nkisi n'konde statue. Despite its ambitious scope, the exhibition's didactic apparatus is criticized as unengaging, though the accompanying Electa catalogue offers extensive scholarly essays. The title 'Je suis l'autre' references the cubist transfiguration and the shift from mimesis to abstraction.