Rolande Bonnain's 'L'Empire des Masques' Examines Tribal Art Collectors

Rolande Bonnain's book 'L'Empire des Masques' offers an exhaustive study of collectors of tribal arts ('arts premiers'), delving into their passion and the psychic 'empire' it creates. The author employs a range of research methods, including anonymous non-directive interviews, to build a comprehensive portrait. The work traces the etymology of qualifying terms from Carl Einstein's 'nègres' to Claude Roy and Jacques Chirac's 'arts premiers', and details the history of public sales that founded the 20th-century market. Bonnain describes the 'dramaturgy of auctions' with ethnographic precision, though the book neglects institutional-private reciprocities in favor of marginal mechanisms like collectors selling gold to buy primitive art. The review notes that while the sociological approach is limited, the lexicological journey and market history sections are likely to become references. The book compensates for a conventional style with titanic thoroughness, making exhaustiveness a vector of charm.