EXOTIC

of FATMI Mounir

FRANCE, 2002, 00:07:34

Production : FATMI Mounir
Genre : Video art
Keyword : Africa, Allegory, Exoticism, Society

Summary :
The expeditions led by missionaries during the colonization in Africa converted the populations to a new religion and imposed a system of values departing from their way of life and customs. Lots of objects were brought to Europe, which aroused quite a craze. The way Westerners look at masks and other traditional African objects has deprived them of their ritual or religious function : they have become mere curiosities in World Fairs and collector’s items in the glass cases of great museums; they have become exotic objects par excellence for the West. Nevertheless, this art called either “Negro art” or “primitive art” has also influenced European art and has radically changed its approach of modernity. Nowadays, the products and pictures conveyed by globalization submerge the African continent and impose in their turn a new and dominant system of values, quite often to the detriment of local cultures. Paradoxically, the West and its star-system icons remain unreachable and remote for most Africans, which is the reason why they are so exotic and so appealing to them. The young street dancers in Congo Kinshasa illustrate this phenomenon: they have mixed the jersey of England’s football star David Beckham with their traditional performance dress. They have retrieved this world famous figure who embodies competition and success to make their dancing costumes out of it.

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