Vodun, African Voodoo at Fondation Cartier

For starters, the theme itself of this exhibition, African voodoo, is somewhat sensitive. From there one has to contend with the works themselves, the precise choices made by the exhibition's curator, the legendary Jacques Kerchache. His imperviousness may be a matter of principle, and at least his reputation for championing les arts premiéres remains integral. Key contributions were made by his wife, Mme Kamal Douaoui, as well as a long list of curators including Grazia Quaroni and Leanne Sacramone. The exhibition is an indirect tribute to this researcher of Indiana Jones-like appeal, a caustic promoter of the "ethnic".

Cutting short anthropological propositions, Kerchache designated the aesthetic values of the objects produced as the only territory for comparison with other cultures. Next in this hierarchy is the economic level, according to his detractors, to set good prices, and establish a market that supports the practice of collecting. Aside from this controversy, however, the objects of Kerchache's study—the fetishes, objects and the rituals that his tireless activity has infused with meaning and over the last decades—moved from being of interest to a select few in the field to attracting a growing number of visitors to the two large specialised museums in Paris today. By way of proof is the wing of the Louvre dedicated to ethnic art and the Musée Branly, planned by Chirac and realised by Jean Nouvel.

However, the true beauty of this exhibition at the Fondation Cartier may lie in its upright purism and the cool yet humble gestures of Enzo Mari, the Italian architect who has designed the exhibition. In reordering and evaluating a nucleus of pieces belonging to Kerchache, the stark setting conceived by this design maestro sinks us once more into a privileged relationship with these very difficult Bocio sculptures, a name that continues to be at the centre of ethnographic research and takes us back to the essence of the primary experience of their rediscovery.

Like he who liberated these objects from their original terrain, designer Enzo Mari has reinterpreted the fables in which they were conceived and generated, transforming mystery into a simple but highly effective exhibition. On principle, he does not leave us to wander around any old exhibition of African art or museum rooms, a temptation that not even Jean Nouvel managed to avoid in some corners of the Musée Branly.

Mari's exhibition design suggests rather the simple hieratic nature of a village with its closed doors and guardian figures that keep us at a distance and protect their inner secrets, preparing us for other epiphanies, especially those of the ritual context, dedicated to the objects pure and simple. We are confronted by splendid figures where just the beauty of the wood and metal of which they are constituted bear almost no trace of any other function. Others lined up, tangentially, in the heterogeneity of their materials suggest a magical use. This display scheme has the difficult task of conveying the psychological power of the artefacts, necessitating the sincerity of design that is typical of Mari's work, his skill in reconciling poetry with grammar via a work of subtraction, which is difficult with this material. It is in the obscure (though cleverly illuminated) depths of the Fondation that the aura that infuses the mystery of Voodoo is revealed, in the magisterial position at eye level in which the 48 ritual figures of rare potency are lined up.

The lighting design reveals the materials and sacrificial patina of these pieces, which operate more like medicine than objects, cabinets of psychological remedies and philosophies. The sensitive and invisible attempt to domesticate magic is tied in an esoteric knot that can be tightened and unloosened only by those who know how to penetrate the secret, be they artists or priests. But it is in the knowing assembly of these indefinable materials that the fascination lies: feathers, locks, shells, bone needles and wood amalgamated with practice. Secrets and beliefs are inherent, but above all symbolic writings that the display highlights bring out the power of the fetish from a lunar darkness. To close the exhibition, the experience of death in the oneiric calm and beautiful Carro Fon set on a small pool of water, almost directly transferred from Kerchache's own notes. The setting is surrounded by splendid crocodile heads and a sense of divinity that emerges as in a neoclassical Füssli, suspended in the grey matter of surrealism.

For the documentary aspect Mari has created a room with screenings of video material and a display of photographic material from the archive of Kerchache and his wife. For this room, decidedly separate from the exhibition route, he has used the simple Autoproduzione structures from 1974 thereby respecting the emotional aspect of the subject of the exhibition and avoiding confusion between the ethnographic component and the aesthetic one that makes up the richness of the findings and also the real crux of Kerchache's mission. The Fondation Cartier is transformed for several months into a highly successful example of museography for these splendid and difficult works.
Ivo Bonacorsi

Vodun, African Voodoo
Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain
through 25 September 2011