The Taíno and Kalinago of the Caribbean at Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac
Statue Taino Zemi
Hispaniola, République Dominicaine
© Vincent Girier Dufournier
The Taíno and Kalinago of the Caribbean
June 4, 2024 — October 13, 2024
"The Taíno and Kalinago of the Caribbean" pays tribute to the exhibition presented thirty years ago at the Petit Palais on the initiative of Jacques Chirac, and considered to be a prelude to the birth of the musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.
In 1994, Jacques Chirac commissioned art collector and dealer Jacques Kerchache to curate an exhibition on the art of the Tainos, a people of the Greater Antilles who were overrun by the Spanish conquest. Presented at the Petit Palais, this event dedicated to a little-known art was a resounding success, initiating a change in the general public’s view of non-Western art.
The Tainos and Kalinagos are two inseparable indigenous societies that inhabited the Caribbean before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492. Despite their virtual disappearance in the 16th century - decimated by disease and forced labour within a decade - many of today’s Caribbean consider themselves to be their descendants.
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