Collections guide
FOREWORD
The collection of the MAAOA is unique. Marseille is the only French town apart from Paris to have a museum exclusively devoted to the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Thanks to some remarkable gifts and acquisitions made in the framework of an ambitious policy of...
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Collections guide
FOREWORD
The collection of the MAAOA is unique. Marseille is the only French town apart from Paris to have a museum exclusively devoted to the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Thanks to some remarkable gifts and acquisitions made in the framework of an ambitious policy of developing the collections, and to a demanding programme designed to illustrate the evolution of ethnological research through a series of exhibitions, this museum has always taken a rigorous, analytical approach to the standout objects that define and found the prestige of its collection.
The MAAOA is a precursor and occupies a unique position on the French museum scene. To illuminate its holdings, its displays must look beyond ethnological value and also bring out their intrinsic artistic quality.
This guide attempts to offer just such a perspective and illustrates the "depth of field" characteristic of the diversity and richness of a collection whose extraordinary plurality of forms and colours reflects its multicultural nature.
Christine Poullain
Director, Musées de Marseille
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