The museum and the exhibition put to the test by the human sciences. Study of the intersections between art, ethnology and anthropology from Georges Henri Rivière and Jean Gabus to Harald Szeemann

This thesis seeks to highlight the exchanges between art, ethnology and anthropology in the context of the exhibition, from the 1930s to the 1970s. It is based on the study of three major figures: Georges Henri Rivière, curator at the Musée d’Ethnographie in Paris, his counterpart Jean Gabus in Neuchâtel, and the Bernese exhibition curator Harald Szeemann. The challenges of this study are multiple. First, it is a question of specifying the nature of the more or less direct exchanges, which could have taken place between these three men and of determining to what extent each was interested in the other’s subject. The chronology chosen, from the 1930s to the 1970s, does not seem obvious because it includes a period undermined by the Second World War. Harald Szeemann worked in a different context from the one of the two museum curators. And yet, these eventful years are also those of the evolution of ethnology and art towards more anthropological questions. The challenge here is to demonstrate that the gap between the years allows us to catch a glimpse of a completely coherent mutation. To try to answer these questions, this study will first focus on the means implemented and the theories developed in order to take a more reflexive look at art in the museum. A second part will detail the visible disciplinary exchanges in the museography of the exhibitions organized by the two curators and the exhibition curator. Finally, a last part will explore what
these disciplinary exchanges bring into play on the scale of the collection, the object and then the work within the exhibition.