Next year French President Jacques Chirac will most likely exit the presidential office for good. He will be remembered, he hopes, more for the cultural legacy he will leave behind in the form of the new $300 million Quai Branly museum, erected in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, than for any political and social after-effect of his twelve years in power.
As might be expected, the British conservative press has enjoyed making a mockery of the French leaders final pet project. The Times labelled the museum an ‘epitaph for a botched President’, whilst The Telegraph was slightly kinder with its headline ‘Chirac bows out with dubious gift to ethnic art.’
Quai Branly is intended to be a museum of indigenous art for everyone to enjoy. There is little doubting that the collection it hosts is anything short of spectacular. The Telegraph quotes French newspaper Le Monde as stating the museum will be “perhaps the only truly positive legacy Mr Chirac’s presidency will leave us”. But its critics think otherwise.
The museum will display prized artifacts looted from Africa and the Americas during the colonial era. A Museum Security Network bulletin, released just before President Chirac opened the museum in June, conveyed the opinion of Gilles Manceron, an historian and civil rights activist, who criticised the architecture of the ‘Chirac museum’ (as it is likely the Quai Branley will become known) for “’giving a traditional representation of nature, of the idea of the savagery of these peoples [whose work is on display] that Europeans perpetuate unconsciously.’ If the ethnic art was considered true art then it should be displayed in the Louvre alongside Western art.”
Added to this criticism has been the scandal, reported by Africom. surrounding the legal ownership of artefacts, notably two Nigerian Nok statues that international law technically forbids should be put on display.
Despite the controversy, what none of the commentators have questioned is the idea that Chirac should be entitled to use public money to leave behind something that, in effect, is taken to be his ‘gift to the people’ and which is explicitly intended to glorify his name. According to The Telegraph: “Mr Chirac said on entering office that he had no wish to see his name inscribed in concrete. Now, however, he says it would be a ‘great honour’ if the Quai Branly one day became known as the Chirac Musuem.”
The impulse to leave behind a cultural legacy, cemented in bricks and mortar, and preferably one with which their names will remain synonymous and be positively reinforced through the ages, can be found in rulers of any age in every part of the world.
In 17th France the Salon and Royal Academy was established with the singular intent of training master artists who would glorify the king. The cultural legacy of Greek, Roman and Egyptian emperors is still a major draw card for tourists. Even Gilgamesh, the first recorded epic, is commonly viewed as a tale glorifying one of the ancient world’s greatest rulers.
Is the impulse to contribute to culture borne of generosity or spawned by egos that are out of control, swollen with a bloated sense of self-importance that comes from having spent too much time in power?
Whether Chirac ever intended for his name not to be set in stone is by-the-by, given that he certainly does now. But the question is not whether the Quai Branly museum will be associated with the President but, should it be? The President might have supported its construction but it was funded by contributions from tax-payers. Not a single Euro came out of Chirac’s own pocket. Why then is it taken for granted that it will be known as ‘his’ museum?
Satirists have long speculated that delusions of grandeur and politicians go hand in hand. And when you add that they don’t have to foot the bill for monuments erected to glorify them, then it’s easy to see how Chirac might be tempted to allocate a cool $300 million to a pet project that will eventually bare his name. And after all, who is going to deny the President?
Political commentator P J O’Rourke once said “Giving money and power to the government is like giving car keys and whisky to teenage boys.” No matter the motivation or the message, the capacity to lay out a legacy of one’s choosing – the ‘mythification’ of a tenure at the top – is undeniably intoxicating.
