Magazines - Tribal Art Autumn 2011

By Bérénice Geoffroy-Schneiter, editor in chief for Europe of Tribal Art magazine.

Introduction
Founded by Jean Malaurie in 1954, the prestigious “Terre Humaine” series published by Editions Plon celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2005 with a magnificent exhibition held at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. Since then, the ethnologist/author has donated some 2,000 photographs to the venerable institution. A selection of these wonderful and moving images will be exhibited from October 4 through November 20, 2011, in the library’s Galerie des Donateurs.
This is a crowning achievement for Malaurie, the French geomorphologist who transcended established classification and structure to persuade ethnologists to contribute to the “Terre Humaine” series, which was to become a monument in anthropology. The biggest names and best writers in this still-young discipline delivered some of French literature’s finest pages to the revolutionary and engaged editor. These works include Tristes tropiques by Claude Lévi-Strauss, L’exotique est quotidien by Georges Condominas, and Pour l’Afrique, j’accuse by René Dumont.