L'Exposition Anticoloniale- Political or Aesthetic Protest

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DOI: 10.1177/0957155808099342 2009 20: 27French Cultural Studies

Lynn E. PalermoL'Exposition Anticoloniale: Political or Aesthetic Protest?

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LExposition AnticolonialePolitical or Aesthetic Protest?

LYNN E. PALERMOSusquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, USA

In response to the 1931 Paris Exposition Coloniale, Andr Thirion andLouis Aragon organised the Exposition Anti-imprialiste in an attemptto bring about collaboration between Communists and Surrealists onpolitical activity under the auspices of the Communist Party. However,tensions arose immediately, often as personal spats. Thirions sectionof the exhibition adhered to the didactic method favoured by the Party.In contrast, Aragons section, ostensibly dealing with the culturalimpact of colonialism, reveals a distinctly surrealist approach with itsirreverent tone and rich ambiguity. In this paper, I argue that the con-flict between Aragon and Thirion was rooted in their respectivenotions of revolution, and therefore politics, resulting in an ExpositionAnti-imprialiste containing two fundamentally different (even oppos-ing) protests to French colonialism. Aragons section of the expositionalso reveals his commitment to surrealist ideals, even as he was mov-ing toward his break with Andr Breton.

Keywords: Exposition Anticoloniale, Louis Aragon, ExpositionAnti-imprialiste, Exposition Coloniale, surrealism, Andr Thirion,La Vrit sur les colonies

On 2 May 1931, the spectacular Exposition Coloniale began deploying itsexotic charms to millions of visitors as part of a broader effort by theFrench government to donner aux Franais conscience de leur Empire.1To counter this wave of pro-colonial propaganda launched by a repub-lican regime, an anti-imperialist exhibition called La Vrit sur lescolonies (but also referred to as the contre-exposition, the ExpositionAnticoloniale, and the Exposition Anti-imprialiste) opened its doors atAvenue Mathurin-Moreau (XIXe arrondissement) on 19 September 1931.2

French Cultural Studies

French Cultural Studies, 20(1): 2746 Copyright SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore andWashington DC) http://frc.sagepub.com [200902] 10.1177/0957155808099342


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28 FRENCH CULTURAL STUDIES 20(1)

Backed by the Ligue contre limprialisme et loppression coloniale, theanti-imperialist exhibition was mounted chiefly by Andr Thirion, aCommunist Party activist also affiliated with the Surrealists, and LouisAragon, a founder of the surrealist movement, but who would abandonAndr Breton and the movement for the Communist Party in 1932.

According to the Communist Bulletin Colonial, the aim of theExposition Anticoloniale was as follows:

Dmasquons les faux civilisateurs, dmasquons les bourreaux desrvolutionnaires annamites, dnonons les massacres par laviation,dmasquons les profiteurs de la sueur et du sang des ouvriers etpaysans des colonies Mais dmasquons aussi les allis de cettebande de requins sinistres, cest--dire les bourgeois et fodaux quiviendront nombreux parader Vincennes.3

In this essay, my goal will be analogous: that is, to look behind theexpositions obvious protest against French imperialism to examine thediverging motivations and goals of the exhibitions principal organisersthat resulted in a somewhat disjointed, even contradictory, exhibitionagainst French imperialism. I argue that the expositions conflictingmessage concerning the primary offences of French colonial policy andhow to combat them arose from the conflicting core values held by theCommunist Party and surrealist fellow-travellers concerning the verynotion of revolution.

Conceived by the Ligue contre limprialisme et loppression colonialeunder the auspices of the Communist Party, the Anti-Colonial Exhibitionwas housed in the headquarters of Parisian workers unions, originallyKonstantin Melnikofs Soviet constructivist pavilion built for theExposition des Arts Dcoratifs of 1925. Charles-Robert Ageron (1984: 571)has commented on the sparse attendance at the anti-imperialist event, yetorganisers apparently considered public interest sufficiently strong tojustify its continuance into February 1932 beyond the conclusion of theExposition Coloniale itself.4 Few verbal and visual traces remain of thecounter-exposition;5 however, enough has survived to reveal motivationsbehind the protest exhibition as more complex than a simple desire toexpose le dessous de lexposition coloniale, to borrow an expressionfrom the Bulletin Colonial (LExposition coloniale de Vincennes, 1931).6

I will begin by describing the anti-colonial exhibition itself in as muchdetail as the few remaining documents permit, focusing especially on thepolitical exhibitions organised by Andr Thirion, on the one hand, andthe cultural exhibits organised by Louis Aragon (with other surrealistcollaborators), on the other. Then, after tracing the expositions origins, Iwill examine the accounts of its evolution and execution provided byThirion and Aragon in their memoirs, placing those accounts in thecontext of surrealist and communist activities at the time.


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A tour of the Exposition Anticoloniale

A 4 July 1931 article in LHumanit entitled, LExposition anti-imprialistese prpare: elle montrera la vrit sur les colonies, described the imminentcounter-exposition as un raccourci vivant sur limprialisme sous son vraijour: la conqute, lappropriation des terres, le travail forc, lenseignementet lhygine, la rpression et les mouvements pour lindpendance, lafemme et lenfant (1931: 4). In addition to political documentation, theexposition would include cultural and entertainment components:

dexcellents dcorateurs exposeront dans un cadre appropri desobjets dart prts gratuitement par les amis de la Ligue et provenantde toutes les colonies.

On prpare aussi une srie de confrences avec projections. Au coursde lexposition qui durera plus dun mois auront lieu deux ou troisjournes de gala. Le samedi et le dimanche, des churs parls, desmusiques ouvrires, des orchestres ngres, des groupes dartistescoloniaux, bnvoles se feront entendre. (1931: 4)

One of the most detailed, firsthand accounts of the anti-colonial exhibitioncan be found in LExposition Anti-imprialiste: La Vrit sur lescolonies (description sommaire), apparently written as an internalmemo, perhaps to the Ligue anti-imprialiste. According to this report, theexhibition took place on two floors. A political exhibit organised byThirion occupied the ground floor (rez-de-chausse), while exhibits focus-ing on the cultural and religious impact of colonialism, organised byAragon and Georges Sadoul, were upstairs (premier tage). The final roomof the exhibition, also occupying the upper floor, which outlined Sovietand more broadly communist responses to colonialism, was mounted byThirion.

The ground-floor exhibit opened with posters quoting communistpacifist writers Henri Barbusse (who had joined the Communist Party in1923) and Romain Rolland (a fellow traveller) on colonialism, whileLenins slogan limprialisme est la dernire tape du capitalismefigured prominently on a banner above. Six panels summarised tous lescrimes des conqutes, as well as crises such as Fashoda, which hadthreatened to kindle war between European rivals in their race to coloniseAfrica. Enlarged photographs provided graphic proof of colonial brutalityand terrorism together with military conquests and the cruel punishmentof peoples who had resisted European domination. Two posters ironicallytitled Mise en valeur and Exploitation exhibited photographic docu-mentation of forced labour in sub-Saharan Africa, especially roadconstruction and le portage.7 Accompanying tables outlined the sufferingof colonised peoples engendered by the global economic crisis. Especiallyin areas where policies of mise en valeur had transformed diverse

PALERMO: LEXPOSITION ANTICOLONIALE 29


subsistence economies to more limited intensive productions to increasemetropolitan profit margins, the result had been precarious colonialeconomies increasingly dependent upon French and European prosper-ity; consequently, as France slid into economic depression, the colonies,which were legally bound to trade exclusively with la Mtropole,inevitably followed with even greater disaster (Suret-Canale, 1971:297).8 The final section of Thirions exhibit dealt with political oppres-sion around the world, including lynchings in the United States. Todemonstrate that the moment for worldwide revolution was approaching,the display concluded with updates on communist activity in China,India and Turkey.

Occupying the upper floor of the pavilion was the cultural and reli-gious section, organised by Aragon with the collaboration of Sadoul.9 Thememo qualified this exhibit as particulirement originale et vivante parle contenu et la prsentation (LExposition Anti-imprialiste: La Vritsur les colonies (description sommaire), 1931: 2). The display consistedmainly of statues, masks and other objects created by indigenous peoplesof the French colonies. Some of the items, the report points out smugly,were on loan by friends and members of the Ligue anti-imprialiste, who avaient pralablement refus de les accorder aux organisateurs delexposition imprialiste de Vincennes. The objects were divided intothree groups: art ngre, ocanien, et peau-rouge. Accompanying labels,rather than provide cultural, historical or aesthetic context, exposed thedestruction of such objects under colonial rule: missionaries burned thempour consacrer les progrs du christianisme (1931: 3). In the same room,such ftiches as both communist and republican newspapers tended tocall them were provocatively juxtaposed with cheap French religiousstatuettes ironically labelled ftiches europennes.

The irreverent tone of the cultural and religious exhibition evaporatedwhen the visitor entered the other room upstairs, where Thirions finalexhibit, outlining the USSRs answer to colonialism, which vis[ait]surtout opposer au colonialisme imprialiste lexemple de la politiquedes nationalits applique par les Soviets (1931: 4). A poster surroundedby photographs documenting socialist progress incited the visitor toadvance the revolutionary cause. Maps illustrated claims of les progrsconomiques et culturels made by the Kirghiz, Tartar and Bashkir peoples.A large panel demonstrating progress on the construction of the Turksibrailway stood in pointed contrast to the one downstairs documentingcolonial forced labour on the railroads of West Africa. Alongside a selec-tion of Russian anti-religious posters, the works of Marx and Lenin wereshown to have been translated into 70 languages, a boast reminiscent of the multilingual translations of the Bible by missionaries. Finally, photographs picturing the construction of housing, public works, fur-naces, cultural centres and kolkhoses, were assembled as part of le plan



quinquennal et lmulation socialiste. According to the report, this lastroom of the counter-exposition was arranged and presented dans un styledirect et sr. To soften the dry statistics and increase the displays popu-lar appeal, a table stood piled high with wood handicrafts qui ont tou-jours le plus vif succs auprs des travailleurs parisiens, noted the reportin a patronising tone (1931: 4).

In addition to the exhibits themselves, visitors to La Vrit sur lescolonies were treated to radio broadcasts, phonograph recordings ofexotic songs, a Moorish caf, performances by colonial choruses, andspecial lectures, whose function seemed to be similar to that of the handi-crafts mentioned above to add entertainment value to an exhibitionintended to educate, in ways that sound uncomfortably similar to theevents designed to attract crowds to the Colonial Exposition at Vincennes,as Panivong Norindr has noted (1996: 61).10

In sum, then, the political exhibits in the Exposition Anticolonialelargely communicated through weighty, didactic exhortations, reinforcedby photographs and statistics. The Soviet Union was presented as a modelof expansion that respected local traditions and elevated the standard ofliving for all. Appropriate action to be taken in response to WesternEuropean colonialism was clearly delineated. The cultural and religiousdisplays, on the other hand, used ambiguity and humour with a dose ofexoticism to make a rather open-ended protest against the culturaldestruction caused by colonialism.

The origins of the Exposition Anticoloniale

As stated earlier, the impetus behind the Exposition Anticoloniale camefrom the Ligue contre limprialisme et loppression coloniale. Thirionsmemoirs entitled Rvolutionnaires sans rvolution (discussed in moredetail below) name Alfred Kurella, a member of the group, as the indi-vidual who set the project in motion (Thirion, 1972). A front organ-isation for the Communists, the Ligues links to the Party would initiallyremain hidden to avoid une interdiction ou tout au moins la retarderle plus possible; however, as the expositions presence was tolerated bythe authorities, the Ligue Communiste planned to make its connectionsand backing gradually more public (Note sur LExposition Anticoloniale,1931: n.p.).

A plan for organising an anti-imperialist exhibition had been men-tioned as early as 2 February 1931, in an internal Communist Party memo.The exposition is listed among other anti-colonial political activity, suchas publishing articles in LHumanit and other Communist-affiliatedpublications to expose the goals of the Exposition Coloniale; distributingtracts; organising demonstrations and anti-colonial conferences duringthe course of the Exposition Coloniale; and organising activities meant to



establish contact with workers and the indigenous people brought to Paristo work at the Exposition at Vincennes. A subsequent confidential memo,dated 29 September 1931 ten days after the opening of the ExpositionAnti-imprialiste also specified the ultimate goal of the exposition and its associated political activities: En particulier, le principal objectifdorganisation de lExposition est darriver recruter rapidement le plusgrand nombre possible dadhsions individuelles et collectives la Ligueanti-imprialiste (my emphasis), and to collect enough receipts to enablethe Ligue to function by its own means (Note sur lExpositionAnticoloniale, 1931: n.p.). As Thirion notes in his memoirs, the FrenchCommunist Party was at a low point in 1931 in terms of funds andmembership (1972: 27, 275). Thus protest against French imperialismcould serve the more self-interested goal of bolstering the Party. As weshall see, the counter-exposition also became a locus of tensions betweenthe Communist Party and surrealist collaborators, the former with theirincreasing desire to require that artists and writers conform to anofficially sanctioned aesthetic, and the latter convinced that surrealismbest expressed the notion of continuous revolution espoused by theCommunists.

Having given this overview of the exposition, we now turn to the writ-ings of Thirion, and then of Aragon, to gain insight into their perspectiveson the exposition, as well as the motivations behind their involvement inits organisation.

Thirions account of the Exposition Anticoloniale

By the time Andr Thirion joined the Surrealists at rue du Chteau in1927, he was already a member of the Communist Party and an experi-enced organiser. According to his account in Rvolutionnaires sansrvolution (1972), in spring 1931, Alfred Kurella, the driving force behindthe Ligue contre limprialisme and the Exposition Anticoloniale,approached him as an associate of the Surrealists.11 Kurella proposed thatThirion undertake the organisation of a counter-exposition because hewas angry with what he considered the relative passivity of theCommunist Party before the spectacle of the Exposition Coloniale:

Il ny a gure que les surralistes qui aient fait preuve dune hostilitintelligente contre cette entreprise [lExposition Coloniale], qui aientmarqu leur dgot pour une activit spcifique.12 Pourquoi ne feriez-vous pas quelque chose de plus important sous lgide de la Ligueanti-imprialiste? Que pensez-vous dune contre-exposition? En tantque responsable mondial de la Ligue, je mets ta disposition le pavillondes Soviets et quelques crdits. Je te confie la direction de cette entreprise,tu y reprsenteras la Ligue, dbrouille-toi avec tes amis. (Thirion,1972: 319)



At the time, Thirions place within the Communist Party was uncertain.In January of that year, Thirion had resigned from the Party after beingbrought before the Commission de contrle on charges of insubordin-ation that included accepting Aragons and Sadouls membership of theParty and writing for Le Surralisme au service de la rvolution withoutParty authorisation. Anxious, by his own admission, to re-establishhimself as a communist militant, he accepted Kurellas challenge.13

As Thirion tells it, he planned the anti-colonial exhibition to consist ofthree parts: an ideological section, which would present Leninist theoryon imperialism; a cultural section dealing with the problems of indi-genous peoples under imperialism; and a religious section consisting ofan expos of missionary activity in the colonies. This first section,planned for the ground floor of the pavilion, Thirion reserved for himself.Although he qualifies this space as la partie la moins avenante du bti-ment, it also happened to be the most spacious area of the pavilion andthe part of the exposition most likely to be visited. To Aragon, Thirionassigned a display addressing cultural problems; to Georges Sadoul, adisplay dealing with religious missionary activity both of these on theupper floor of the pavilion. From written accounts of the exhibition, theselast two sections seem to have merged through Aragons collaborationwith Sadoul and other Surrealists.14

According to Thirions memoirs, his own display consisted of the usualposters and slogans, photographs, facts and figures, which he assembledwith the help of some friends (Thirion, 1972: 320); at the same time, heappreciated the unorthodox, provocative character of Aragons display: apice principale amnage par Tanguy et meuble par luard et Aragonde ftiches, dobjets sauvages et de quelques-unes des bondieuseries lesplus sottes de la rue Saint-Sulpice, avait trs grand air (Thirion, 1972:320). However, before long Thirion began to feel resentment toward theSurrealists, whose attitude and work ethic he found lacking. For example,he seemed exasperated to see the loudspeakers intended to broadcast descommentaires politiques et inciter les promeneurs qui montaient vers lesButtes-Chaumont venir voir La Vrit sur les colonies, used insteadby Aragon and Elsa Triolet to project exotic music, despite his sharedtaste for such music (Thirion, 1972: 320). Perhaps more annoying yet wasthat Aragon (especially) had somehow ended up the star of the expos-ition, eclipsing Thirion, the communist drone, with clat. Mais ne medevait-il pas cette position de vedette? he asks.

For Thirion, the counter-exposition was serious on a personal levelbecause he considered his own standing in the Communist Party to be atstake; and the light-hearted, perhaps even sensual tone it set was verypossibly not the one that Thirion had envisioned for the exhibition. Thelack of visits by members of the Bureau politique du parti must havebeen less than reassuring. In contrast to his sober investment of hard work



and long hours, he judged the behaviour of Aragon, Paul luard, andTriolet to be frivolous for example, wasting energies on such unpromis-ing visitors as un jeune couple qui navait rien de proltaire (Thirion, 1972:320).15 Evidently, the spirits of Aragon and Sadoul had not been dampenedfor long after being disciplined by the Party following the secondInternational Congrs des crivains rvolutionnaires in Kharkov (which Iwill come back to later) the previous November.16 [Ils] ntaient plus leschiens battus du mois de dcembre. Ils avaient repris leur assurance etleurs places (Thirion, 1972: 320).17 A petulant Thirion even confessed todetecting a note of condescension in their dealings with him.

Thirions impatience at the behaviour and attitude of Aragon and his surrealist cohorts might also have stemmed from his frustration atwatching Aragon and Sadoul perform antics that could only reinforce the Partys scepticism toward collaboration with the Surrealists.18Deliberations at the Congress in Kharkov had made it clear that theCommunist Party was moving towards imposing a creative aesthetic ofsocialist-realism in its effort to develop a body of international proletar-ian literature which signalled continued decreasing tolerance for theprovocative character of surrealist expression.19 As principal organiser ofthe exhibition, Thirion was likely to be implicated in any sanctions doledout by the committee; therefore, the Surrealists seemingly flippantprotest put his attempt to rehabilitate himself at risk.

Thirion, for his part, in setting up an exhibit well within the styleapproved by the Party, had decided in a sense to sacrifice surrealist idealsfor political appurtenance, despite his objections to the censorious spiritrevealed in the confession signed by Aragon and Sadoul at Kharkov:

Avait-on besoin de demander nos amis de saccuser de ne pas avoirt des militants assidus et de rpudier le trotskisme sauf vouloirindiquer par l que leurs convictions politiques et leur volont dac-tion rvolutionnaire pouvaient tre mises en doute? Plus machi-avliques taient laffirmation que le Second Manifeste dAndrBreton contrarie [sic] (dans une certaine mesure) la dialectique, ainsique la rpudiation du freudisme comme idologie idaliste.Limprcision des termes, dont naurait pas voulu un instituteur primaire, permettait de condamner toute activit surraliste, darrterla cration littraire en 1880, de confiner les crivains dans un natural-isme de patronage. Peut-tre tait-ce l lessentiel! (Thirion, 1972: 302)

Thirions unease was not unfounded: two months after the counter-exposition opened, he would be expelled from the Party. The letter fromthe Party containing the verdict on the indictments listed his offences asactes dindiscipline renouvels, including having dlivr indment descartes du parti deux de ses amis. Subsequently, Thirion learned that hissuspension had been fabricated as a means of blocking Aragon andSadoul from joining the Party (Thirion, 1972: 325).



Aragons account of the Exposition Anticoloniale

Whereas Thirion seemed preoccupied by regaining the favour of theCommunist Party through participation in the Exposition Anticoloniale,Aragon appears to have been motivated primarily by the prospect oforganising an important exhibition of indigenous art from the colonies.Louis Aragon relates events connected with the exposition in Luvrepotique (1975) in far less detail than does Thirion. But, more to thepoint, his brief account of the counter-exposition differs so much fromThirions version in perspective and emphasis that the two of themscarcely seem to be describing the same event. Thirion treats Aragonsupper-floor exhibit as peripheral; in contrast, Aragon terms his sectionlessentiel of the Exposition Anti-imprialiste. In fact, Aragon neglectseven to mention the ground-floor political exhibit or Thirions organisingrole, instead taking full credit for the exhibitions conception and genesis:javais russi mentendre avec la CGTU pour organiser une ExpositionAnticoloniale qui se trouvait sur un terrain appartenant cette organisa-tion [et qui tait] le pavillon constructiviste des Soviets lExposition des Arts dcoratifs en 1925 (Aragon, 1975: 180).20

Such an omission might be explained by the rivalry between the twoSurrealists/Communists, as Norindr has suggested (1996: 63). However,Aragons focus on his own cultural section at the expense of the rest of theexhibition might equally reflect a different set of priorities, for when read-ing his account, it is difficult to think of his contribution as purely polit-ical protest. Though he uses the term Exposition Anticoloniale in hismemoirs, his personal investment in its organisation seems to havestemmed less from a desire to decry imperialistic injustices, than to amassa collection of sculptures africaines, ocaniennes et amricaines, duneampleur jamais vue Paris (1975: 180).

Norindr refers to this section of the anti-imperialist exhibition as anethnographic exhibit; however, I would argue that Aragon conceived ofand set up the display more as an art exhibit.21 Aragons use of the wordsculptures rather than objets is telling; moreover, he relates how he wasable to mount this exhibit grce la participation des principaux collec-tionneurs de lart des pays coloniss (my emphasis; Aragon, 1975: 180).Furthermore, Aragon describes the exposition in the context of a series ofsurrealist political acts, including the distribution of two tracts protestingthe Exposition Coloniale,22 which, he says, had also served to soothesome of the groups internal tensions arising from the personal attacks inBretons Deuxime manifeste du surralisme a year earlier (Breton, 1962).This all points to chiefly political and aesthetic preoccupations. In myview, this merging of political and aesthetic concerns in Aragons exhib-ition is central to understanding the divergent messages contained inExposition Anticoloniale.



For Aragon the Surrealist, aesthetics and politics were woven together;in fact, aesthetics was political. In 1924, the first Manifeste du surralismehad established surrealism as a fusion of aesthetics and life, callingsurrealism a lifestyle, not simply an art. The second manifesto declaredthe inherent political nature of surrealism through its call for continualrevolution (or liberation) of the mind. Aragon reaffirmed the politicalnature of surrealism in December 1931 in Le Surralisme et le devenirrvolutionnaire, by emphasising its link to dialectic materialism (Aragon,1931):

Que le surralisme, dans le cadre du matrialisme dialectique, soit laseule mthode qui rende compte des rapports rels du monde et de lapense, je le crois plus que jamais, moi qui ai vu le matrialisme dialec-tique entasser des pierres, et parce que jai vu les hommes transformerle monde avec la dialectique matrialiste. (Aragon, 1975: 280)23

Like Norindr, Jody Blake questions whether Aragons exhibit displayingobjects from the colonies, along with exotic entertainment and events,ultimately put art in the service of the communist revolution, much as itserved to reinforce the civilising mission at the Bois de Vincennes. DidAragons exhibit go beyond the same kind of appropriation of art for apolitical agenda?

If we view Aragons exhibition as distinct in purpose and strategy fromthe sections mounted by Thirion, multiple readings emerge. In part, thejuxtaposition of primitive objects and Western objects reversed theprimitive-to-civilised academic aesthetic progression that buttressedFrances civilising mission at the Exposition Coloniale. On the otherhand, in Aragons exhibit, primitive objects were not being compared toFrench art, but rather French kitsch. While there was still an implicitcomparison between Western and primitive, this complicates thecivilised/savage dichotomy. It may have been relatively easy for theFrench government to convince the general public of the superiority ofFrench art to indigenous African or Oceanic hand-crafted pieces, espe-cially given the European value favouring aesthetic objects overfunctional ones. But the superiority of Western, mass-produced kitschover indigenous hand-crafted objects often demonstrating high levels ofcraftsmanship was less evident.24

The concept of exhibiting primitive handcrafted objects to showcasetheir aesthetic qualities was still a relatively new concept in France,though not without precedent. In 1930, for example, Tristan Tzara (one ofthe collectors who loaned works for the anti-colonial exposition) hadorganised an exhibition of African statues as art, rather than as ethno-graphic objects at the Galerie Pigalle.25 Critics covering the exhibit gener-ally accepted the premise, while debating the degree of their aestheticvalue.26 In LIntransigeant, Maurice Reynal actually lamented how wider



study of these objects as art was stripping away their exotic qualities,and with them, their mystery:

Fini le temps o nous cherchions au march aux puces, chez lesbrocanteurs de la Ferraille, dans les bars des ports o les marins lescdaient contre une chopine. Les voici catalogus, identifis, ti-quets. Plus de merveilleux. Leur mystre est dvoil, lon connatleurs pdigres, on leur a donn des ges que dailleurs lon na pasmarchands, on les a astiqus, dsinfects, asexus et assurs Ilssont propres et brillants comme des meubles du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. On les a installs sur de petits socles faits de bois rares; jenai mme vu que lon a rpar, on la dot dune belle paire de jambesartificielles, et nul doute quun ministre les inaugure bientt,27 quilsregarderont merveills et un peu gns dans leur nudit, de tous leursyeux de verre ou de boutons de culotte.

Cest dire que voici nos bons ngres dfinitivement promus au rangde pices de muses. (Reynal, 1930: n.p.)

Acceptance of such objects as art thus provoked conflicting feelings, asthe French sense of exoticism diminished with increased familiarity andthe sense of having tamed the savage.28 Elevation in status from exotic,savage cultural object to domesticated aesthetic object was accom-panied by a sense that these objects would lose some of their power toastonish. The passage from ethnographic to artistic, from unknown andmysterious to dated and catalogued effectively bringing these objectsinto the realm of the rational implied a transition from exotic (andavant-garde) to mainstream and eventually even canonical: La sciencenous enlve encore une illusion bien jolie. force de tant savoir, on nesais quelle ignorance se confier.29

These primitive objects were attractive as much for what they were not,as for what they were. Integrating them in the realm of art on the sameplane as French art would diminish their power. Ces merveilleux objets vont finir par se prendre excessivement au srieux. Sans doute exigeront-ils leur entre au Louvre, lamented Reynal. An important part of theirfascination was precisely their divergence from what was approved by theAcademy and, by extension, bourgeois society. In this sense, to avant-garde eyes, primitive embodied a spirit of rebellion and therefore, cre-ative liberation.

In Aragons display, juxtaposing primitive objects with some of theworst mass-produced kitsch that a modern industrial republican empirehad to offer was clearly being used to undermine the assumptions ofFrench aesthetic and cultural superiority that were being presented asself-evident truths at the Exposition Coloniale.30 Destabilising thesetruths without simply reversing them opened the mind to the possibilityof alternative value systems, which in turn provoked doubts about therelationship of the French coloniser to the colonised peoples, since



(according to official reasoning) one would presume a more highlyevolved civilisation to possess a more refined aesthetic sense than aprimitive culture. As a result, assumed definitions of normal in thiscase, civilised and primitive or freakish are also brought into question.As Susan Stewart points out in her discussion of souvenirs in OnLonging, through the freak we derive an image of the normal; to know anages typical freaks is, in fact, to know its points of standardization(Stewart, 1993: 133). This principle certainly operated on the colonialexposition fairgrounds at the Bois de Vincennes, where the public saw, ina compact space, France representing the norm, in contrast to the colonialworld in all its exotic freakishness. In fact, art exhibitions at theExposition Coloniale heightened the sense of strangeness for visitors. AsPatricia Morton observes, the influence of primitive art was well estab-lished in Paris by 1931, yet any primitivist tendencies that might exposea cross-fertilisation between coloniser and colonised were edited out [ofart exhibitions at the Exposition Coloniale] to preserve the bipolarequation that justified colonialism (Morton 2000: 88). Thus no primi-tivist art was included in the art exhibitions at the Bois de Vincennes; onthe contrary, painting and sculpture were heavily academic, accentuatingFrench arts classical heritage.

The irony implicit in Aragons staged juxtaposition collapsesabsolutely defined aesthetics, and with it any evidence that aestheticsmight be presumed to provide support to the Eurocentric notions ofevolutionary civilisation thus bringing down the easy dichotomy ofcivilised versus savage. At the Bois de Vincennes, departure from thenorm meant freakishness; for Aragon, departure from the norm meantliberation.

Aragons cultural exhibit in the Exposition Anticoloniale must also beconsidered in the context of his own political and creative evolution.Geoghegan shows that the two years surrounding the ExpositionAnticoloniale marked a period of painful transition for Aragon duringwhich he tried to reconcile the interests, principles and aesthetics of sur-realism with those of the Communist Party, gradually edging toward hisbreak with Breton in favour of communist engagement (Geoghegan, 1978:20). At the second International Congress of Proletariat Writers (RAPP) inKharkov in the fall of 1930, Aragon (accompanied by Sadoul) acted as adhoc French delegate, and argued for surrealism as the intellectual currentbest fitting the communist agenda of permanent revolution. Yet, beforehis departure from Kharkov, he (and Sadoul), under pressure from theFrench Communist Party (PCF), signed the autocritique, therebydenouncing surrealism (including major points of Bretons SecondSurrealist Manifesto), withdrawing criticisms of PCF policies in France,and accepting control of the PCF over their literary activities. Then, uponhis return to France, Aragon was persuaded by Breton to sign the tract



titled Aux intellectuels rvolutionnaires, reversing his stance taken inthe autocritique, and renewing his support for surrealism. Following thisseries of events and shifting positions, Aragon was left on the margins ofthe Communist Party in Moscow, the PCF, and the Surrealists, fullytrusted by none (Geoghegan, 1978). Late in 1931, while the ExpositionAnticoloniale was still attracting visitors, Aragon published LeSurralisme et le devenir rvolutionnaire in Le Surralisme au Service dela Rvolution, another example of Aragons efforts to reconcile surrealismand communism, though tilting increasingly toward the latter(Geoghegan, 1978: 20). In 1932, Aragon published the poem FrontRouge, which led to his arrest on charges of conspiring to incite violence.The Surrealists, led by Breton, circulated a petition in his defence,arguing that while poetry might have a revolutionary role to play, it wasa work of the imagination, and should therefore not be taken literally(Geoghegan, 1978: 21). Even at this point, Aragon failed to act decisively:it took him two months to condemn the surrealist petition. On the otherside, LHumanit accused the Surrealists of paying mere lip service to therevolution.

As is well known, the Second manifeste du surralisme (1930), withits excommunication of several members and declaration of the move-ments inherently political nature specifically its declaration of solidar-ity with communisms idea of continual revolution created deep riftsin the surrealist movement. According to Aragon, during this contentioustime, condemnation of colonialism and organised religion were the only twoquestions upon which all factions could still agree. In the course of theirdiscussions,

la question stant pose de chercher, de trouver une plate-formecommune dunion, on en tait arrive conclure que lunanimit nepouvait se faire quen laissant la libert chacun dagir sa guise, ensunissant sur une question restreinte, mais propos de laquelle sefaisait lunanimit: la lutte contre la religion. (Aragon 1975: 178)

Of course, colonialism and clericalism were also issues where theSurrealists and Communists shared some common ground. Anti-religionbeing an issue that Aragon took seriously, he (and Sadoul) had collab-orated on a Communist-affiliated newspaper whose title made its missionclear: La Lutte antireligieuse et proltarienne, published by the UnionFdrale des libres-penseurs rvolutionnaires de France (a section oflInternationale des libres-penseurs proltariens) (Aragon, 1975: 179).

Conclusion

In light of Aragons political and creative turmoil in the early 1930s, hissection of the Exposition Anti-imprialiste dealing with the cultural and



religious implications of colonialism can be seen as one of his attempts tobring together surrealist and communist concerns, and straddle their dif-ferent and profoundly conflicting values and goals. His integration ofaesthetics and politics was a mise-en-scne of surrealist political action.The technique of creating astonishing juxtapositions, as in the case ofcombining hand-crafted primitive sculpture with Western industrialkitsch was, of course, an established surrealist device conceived to revealand destabilise ides reues. But what also fundamentally distinguishedhis section of the Exposition Anticoloniale is that visitors were proddedinto questioning societal assumptions and the status quo, without beingprovided with clear answers or solutions; whereas Thirions sectionsposited Soviet-style expansion as the answer to colonialism, and engage-ment in the Communist Party as appropriate action for individuals whowished to change the social order. It is clear from the various writtenaccounts of the Exposition Anticoloniale that visitors reacted to Aragonsexhibit differently than to the other sections as something provocative,humorous, even refreshing. The ambiguous structure of his displaypushed the mind open to new possibilities, performing the type of psy-chological revolution that the Surrealists sought as an essential stage pre-ceding social and political revolution. An exhibit of this style, thoughpresented in the context of communist propaganda, effectively avoidedserving that specific cause because it proposed no concrete solution to theproblem of colonialism. Consequently, Aragon avoided using art to anypartisan agenda, whether republican France with its promotion of impe-rialism, or the Communist Party with its sanction of socialist realism. Infact, given the nature of Aragons exhibit, the Marxist quote, Un peuplequi en opprime dautres ne saurait tre libre, which hung in the back-ground, also takes on multiple meanings, especially as Aragon was beingpulled in so many directions. In that period of his life, the slogan couldhave been referring to imperialism, the Communist Party, or even AndrBreton, for his efforts to maintain control over his group of Surrealists.31The lack of clarity, however, is significant in that it reveals to what extentAragon was still invested in the surrealist vision of revolution, even as hegravitated toward commitment to the Communist Party.

In this sense, the Exposition Anticoloniale as a whole seems to havebeen at odds with itself: effectively, it contained two separate exhibitions,with the cultural/religious display reflecting surrealist revolutionaryvalues, and Thirions political exhibits adhering to the Party line onpolitical and social revolution. It appears, then, that the friction betweenThirion and Aragon during the Exposition Anticoloniale stemmed fromlarger, irreconcilable differences between the collectivist and ultimatelyconformist but often efficient political revolt espoused by theCommunist Party, and the individualist, irreverent, psychological revolu-tion envisioned by the Surrealists with their joie de vivre and unfocused



political activity. Part of Aragons goal was undoubtedly to expose theFrench republics complicity in harnessing aesthetics and the arts toconstruct cultural hierarchies that would support colonial policy. And,as Blake, Norindr and others have noted, the Surrealists were not aboveindulging in a certain amount of unexamined exoticism. But by mountingan exhibition replete with ambiguities, and therefore explicitly not con-tributing to the communist didactics employed in Thirions sections,Aragon equally demonstrated a refusal to allow surrealism to become theservant of the Communist Party or any political movement. The exhib-itions additional anti-religious layer may have provided other commonpolitical ground for Surrealists and Communists, but Aragons protestagainst the churchs stranglehold on the creative mind precisely thetype of colonialism which the Surrealists found most repugnant alsoopened the door to provocative parallels with the Communist Partysauthoritative approach. Perhaps these are all reasons why, like Aragon,we might term his cultural display lessentiel of the Exposition Anti-imprialiste.

Notes1. For detailed critical readings of the Exposition Coloniale, see Paul Reynaud, Ministre

des Colonies, as quoted in Ageron (1984: 573). See also Hodeir and Pierre (1991),Lebovics (1992) and Morton (2000).

2. In his memoirs (1972), Andr Thirion gives 20 September as the opening date; how-ever, the report filed by Roger Gaillard in a 2 December 1931 document addressed tothe secretariat of the Ligue Internationale states that the anti-exposition opened on 19September (Note sur lExposition Anticoloniale, 1931).

3. LExposition Coloniale de Vincennes (1931).4. The question of whether or not the counter-exposition was well attended depends

on perspective. In Note sur lExposition Anticoloniale (1931) Roger Gaillardrecorded total attendance to that point at 4266 visitors (with still two months beforeclosing). He also noted that Sunday was always the most popular of the three days perweek that the counter-exposition was open, and the single day on which the greatestnumber of visitors had been recorded (488) was a Sunday in November. In his mem-oirs cum poetry, Aragon (1975: 180) also implies that the exhibition was wellattended. In reference to his colonial art exhibit, he says that le pavillon ne dsem-plissait pas.

5. Artefacts documenting the anti-colonial exposition include two photographs of theSurrealists exhibit, which appeared in Le Surralisme au Service de la Rvolution(December 1931), photographs of the Melnikof pavilion (dating from the Expositiondes Arts Dcoratifs), the memoirs of Andr Thirion and Louis Aragon, a few articlesin LHumanit, and a few Communist Party memos.

6. The first detailed examination of La Vrit sur les colonies, written by Hodeir andPierre (1991: 12534) was for the most part descriptive. See Norindr (1996: 5271),Spector (1997: 1779), Morton (2000: 98110) and Blake (2002: 3558) for criticalreadings.



saemigimHighlight

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7. Le portage became the subject of impassioned parliamentary debate and restrictivelaws after the publication of Voyage au Congo (1927) by Andr Gide.

8. See also Stora (2001) for statistics on Algeria, and Pennell (2000) on Morocco. Duringthe course of the Exposition Coloniale, LHumanit published a number of articlesdealing with economic misery in the colonies.

9. Because Sadoul seems not to have left a written account of the exposition, I will focuson Aragons role here. Film critic and Surrealist Georges Sadoul (who joined theCommunist Party in 1932) collaborated with Aragon on the Exposition Anticoloniale.Georges Sadoul (190467) accompanied Aragon to the USSR in 1930. When Aragonquit the Surrealists for the Communist Party in 1932, Sadoul sided with him againstAndr Breton (Julliard and Winock, 1996).

10. Norindr reproaches the Surrealists uncritical use of exoticism, but it must be notedthat none of the articles in LHumanit seem ill at ease with this kind of animationeither. Blake and Spector see the use of exoticism in the Exposition Anticoloniale asa reversal of the aesthetic being promoted at the Bois de Vincennes, and consequentlyultimately reinforcing the same dualistic thinking that justified Western colonialism(Blake, 2002: 55; Spector, 1997: 179).

11. Thirion identifies Alfred Kurella as having written an article critical of theCommunist Party, which appeared in LInternationale Communiste in 1926. This arti-cle led to an effort to oust him from the Party; however, in the end, the incident seemsto have strengthened Kurellas position within it. He became one of theKominterniens, those

commis voyageurs en rvolution race dhommes assez extraordinaires, effi-caces, intelligents, modestes, appels parfois jouer des rles politiquesessentiels, mais en restant dans lombre et sans espoir den tirer dautres avan-tages que lorgueil davoir redress une erreur, rtabli une situation compro-mise, prpar des actions considrables. (Thirion, 1972: 308)

Kurella had also been one of the German delegates at the International Congress ofRevolutionary Writers (organised by RAPP) at Kharkov the preceding November.

12. As Norindr notes (1996), Kurella was probably referring to the surrealist tract headedNe visitez pas lExposition Coloniale (1980), distributed two days before the grandopening.

13. By the time of his resignation, Thirion had achieved a relatively high stature withinthe French Communist Party through his accomplishments in Paris. According to hisown account, he had revived the Plaisance cell and all auxiliary organisations(including the International Red Aid, Friends of the USSR, the Committee of theDefence of Humanity) in the fourteenth arrondissement; he had established a Marxiststudy group for employees and youths; he had enhanced the Party coffers by organis-ing a dance, and had revived some trade union newspapers (Thirion, 1972: 258).

14. Other collaborators of varying degrees included Tristan Tzara, Paul luard and YvesTanguy (Blake, 2002: 48).

15. Javais beaucoup travaill cette exposition, jen avais organis la garde, et pourmassurer que tout mon monde tait prsent, je passais de longues heures avenueMaturin-Moreau. Jarrivais souvent le premier et je partais le dernier (Thirion, 1972:320).

16. As Aragon tells it, at the Conference in Kharkov, the Party had chastised him andSadoul for insisting that the Surrealists were the only true revolutionary writers and



les seuls tratres la classe bourgeoise dont les Remy, Israti, Barbusse sont, au boutdu compte, les serviteurs sous des dguisements divers (Aragon, 1975: 274). Also inAragon (1931: 5).

17. At the time of the exposition, Sadoul had just begun writing for LHumanit, thanksin part to Thirions support: Je souhaitais que Aragon et Breton obtinssent aussi viteque possible un emploi rvolutionnaire, insistant sur le fait que les discussions surles pointes dpingle avaient assez dur (Thirion, 1972: 307).

18. For more on the distrust by the Communist Party of the Surrealists, see Caute (1964)and Rose (1991).

19. And in fact, at Kharkov, Sadoul had been criticised for having adopted un ton deplaisanterie in a letter of insults that he had sent to the valedictorian of the militaryschool of Saint-Cyr (Thirion, 1972: 300).

20. The CGTU was one of the labour organisations named in the confidential memo of29 September 1931 among groups whose support the Communist Party sought forthe Ligue Anti-imprialiste.

21. To quote Norindr:

[The anti-colonial exposition] strove to shed light on unsettling aspects ofcolonial truth and reality put forward and affirmed by the ExpositionColoniale by fracturing the bourgeois vision of colonial order with its own sur-real assemblage of disparate installations, which included, under the sameroof, the ethnographic [my emphasis] exhibit organised by Aragon and a widearray of anti-colonial propaganda materials, ranging from pictures and draw-ings to maps, political cartoons, and captions. (Norindr, 1996: 53)

22. The first was entitled, Ne visitez pas lExposition Coloniale; the second was pub-lished on 3 July 1931, following the destruction by fire of the Dutch Indies pavilion.Aragon also names the Surrealists support of mass public demonstrations in Spanishtowns that had resulted in the torching of churches (Aragon, 1975: 180).

23. Reprinted from Aragon (1931: 4).24. That Surrealists valued such flea-market Christian statuettes as objets trouvs, when

they were obviously rejected by the art establishment, adds another layer of tensionto Aragons exhibition.

25. The Galerie Pigalle was owned by the Baron de Rothschild. Numerous reviewers ofthe exhibition commented on the recent consideration of such primitive sculptedobjects and masks as art some with appreciation, others with derision. See, forexample, Clouzot (1930), Kunstler (1930), Cogniat (1930), Reynal (1930), Saint-Cyr(1930).

26. Such debates focused not on the problem of whether useful objects could be con-sidered art, but rather on the aesthetics of such objects.

27. Inaugurations by government ministers seem to have been the ultimate mark of bour-geois approval, and therefore the ultimate insult for those outside the mainstream.When reporting on the opening of the counter-exposition, LHumanit remarkedproudly that it had taken place without the presence of any ministers. Note surlExposition Anticoloniale (1931) gave an additional reason for the low-key opening:

partir du 29 aot lExposition sera non pas ouverte solennellement etpubliquement, mais le comit dorganisation invitera personnellement une sriede personnalits plus ou moins sympathisantes, une srie dorganisations



ouvrires, visiter lExposition Ce nest pas quune semaine aprs quelExposition sera ouverte publiquement. Linterdiction sera dj devenue moinsfacile, des masses dj assez grandes seraient intresses et il sera plus facile deles appeler lutter effectivement pour imposer la tenue ouverte de lExpositionet pour organiser sa protection contre les coups de force probables.

28. I have discussed elsewhere this conflicted reaction to a diminished sense of exoticismin the wake of the civilising missions progress with respect to the Algerian pavilionat the Exposition Coloniale (Palermo, 1998).

29. Despite Reynals fears, however, the statues still had sufficient power to provoke, as evi-denced by the fact that seven of them were temporarily withdrawn from the exhibit. Itseems that some young ladies viewing the sculptures had been shocked by their ral-isme trop vident, as Le Journal delicately phrased it. Protesting their withdrawalfrom the exhibition, Tzara countered that, if anything, these statues were no less sug-gestive than Greek statuary which nobody would consider banning from public muse-ums and parks. The following is one account of the scandal that erupted around theexhibit at the Galerie Pigalle in Paris, as reported in Le Journal on 1 April 1930:

On saccorde trouver aujourdhui que lart ngre a exerc, depuis un quart desicle, une influence relle sur la peinture et la sculpture modernes. La plas-tique sauvage, prne jadis, ltonnement, voir lindignation des bour-geois, par les peintres Derain, Matisse, Picasso et Vlaminck, est devenue quasiclassique.

Or, voici quun conflit assez curieux vient de natre propos dune exposi-tion dart africain et dart ocanien qui se tient actuellement au Pigalle.

Sept statuettes ont t juges dun ralisme trop vident par le BaronHenri de Rothschild, qui les a fait expulser et les tient la disposition de leurspropritaires, de riches amateurs qui les avaient prtes.

Le principal organisateur de lexposition, le pote Tristan Tzara, protestecontre ces victions au nomm de plusieurs victimes.

Je mtonne, ma-t-il dit, que la pudeur de M. de Rothschild se soit alarmeau bout de trois semaines et qui, sous prtexte que lexposition est visite pardes jeunes filles, il ait pris une mesure de rigueur lencontre des statuettes.Il ny a pas dimpudeur en art, mais sil pouvait y en avoir, la statuaire ngre,qui est trs stylise, pourrait tre considre comme bien plus exacte que lastatuaire grecque. Or personne ne songe procder des expulsions dans lesmuses et dans les jardins publics.

M. Tristan Tzara mannonce ensuite que, par lorgane de M. RaymondHubert, il va demander auprs du tribunal de la Seine, sigeant en audiencede rfr, de commettre un expert leffet de donner son avis sur le caractrepurement artistique des objets exposs et ventuellement, dordonner leurrintgration solennelle lexposition! (Une controverse, 1930)

30. Inside the Pavillon des Missions catholiques, the exhibit included tout au long de lanef les autels paens et les emblmes ftichistes, qui ont peu peu cd la place lautel dispos l-bas dans le fond de lglise, sous le rayonnant vitrail (Tharaud andTharaud, 1931).

31. The two photographs of the cultural/religious exhibit mounted by Aragon andSadoul, which appeared in Le Surralisme au Service de la rvolution, 4 (December1931: 40), have been reproduced in Spector (1997: 178) and Blake (2002: 50).



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Saint-Cyr, Charles de (1930) Art: Une trs belle exposition Afrique et Ocanie, Semaine Paris, 14 March: n.p.

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Suret-Canale, Jean (1971) French Colonial Africa, 19001945, trans. Till Gottheiner. New York: Pica.

Tharaud, Jerome and Tharaud Jean (1931) Les Pavillons des missions, LIllustration, spe-cial number on LExposition Coloniale.

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Lynn E. Palermo is Associate Professor of French at SusquehannaUniversity. Address for correspondence: Department of ModernLanguages, Susquehanna University, 514 University Avenue, Selinsgrove,Pennsylvania 17870, USA [email: [email protected]]



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