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Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest

  • Exhibition, Paris
  • Wed 14 May → Sun 12 Oct 2003
Yanomami, l'esprit de la forêt   Vincent Beaurin, Enseignes   2002 2003
Vue de l'exposition Yanomami, l'esprit de la forêt © Vincent Beaurin, Enseignes, 2003

Location

Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain

261 boulevard Raspail

75014 Paris

Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest brings international artists into contact with the shamans of Watoriki (Windy Mountain), a Yanomami village in the Brazilian Amazon. The ambition of this exhibition is not to lapse into exoticism or paternalism, but to connect our conception of images and representations with that of another culture. This show attempts to explore how the traditional yet constantly evolving metaphysical world of the Yanomami echoes the various facets of the “savage mind” still at work in our society. This exhibition brings forth a radical otherness in an endeavor to alter our perception and habitual modes of thought.

This exchange was organized in collaboration with the shamans of Watoriki in a conscious effort to work with a single Yanomami community, thus achieving unity of place, time and action. In response to commissions by the Fondation Cartier, these artists allowed their individual creative worlds to be exposed to the Yanomami concept of shamanic images. The show structures itself on this idea of “free associations”.

Consequently, Yanomami, Spirit of the Forest features neither tribal finery or feathers, nor any “Amerindian” or “crossover” art. Nor is this an ethnological or humanitarian exhibition. Treating Yanomami thought on an equal footing, this exhibition’s films, photographs, paintings, sculptures and video installations offer a web of correspondences relating to the major themes of the cosmological ideas and visionary experience of the eleven shamans of the village of Watoriki.

Yanomami, l'esprit de la forêt   Vincent Beaurin, Enseignes   2002 2003
Davi Kopenawa chaman visits the exhibition Photo © Vincent Beaurin, Enseignes
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