This French version catalogue was published for the exhibition Tarzan at musée du quai Branly, Paris until Sept. 27, 2009.
It was as though I had been suddenly snatched back through countless ages to a long-dead past, and dropped into the midst of the prehistoric life of my Paleolithic progenitors.
Tarzan thought of the fragile frontier between the primitive and the civilised.
Edgar Rice Burroughs
This exhibition dedicated to an icon of popular culture allows the public to discover how the hero was created and decipher the myth that he embodies.
Although Edgar Rice Burroughs is the father of the Tarzan character, all those who used him in comics, film , posters, models, records, games , etc refer to collective images and representations that are at the roots of one of our century’s strongest myth.
The exhibition looks at the origins and nature of Tarzan, as a character as well as a myth (from Saturnin Farandoul, a 1914 documentary, to Greystoke in 1983), and redefines the character as a modern hero fighting for the protection of nature.