Modernism at the Fair
Other modernisms
8 November 2023

Introduction
•New materials
•New ideas
•Discoveries
•Progress
•
•
•
•London: Great Exhibition, 1851
•Vienna: Weltausstellung, 1873
•Paris: International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, 1925
•Paris: Colonial Exhibition, 1931
•
•

much of today's modern culture has its roots in world's fairs of the past. World expositions can be
seen as manifestations of the struggle by societies to give "meaning to modernity" and to properly
represent their social realities.
Studying the world's fairs helps us to understand the extent to which they modernized the world

World’s fairs, international exhibitions, expositions universelles
Century of Progress - Wikipedia

Exhibitions of all sizes served as crucial vehicles of communicating modernity; they were linked to
industrialisation, progress, the growth of consumer culture and the history of these exhibitions in
many ways reflects the history of progress.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, many large cities and metropolises planned to host a
national or international exhibition that would display the region’s or country’s achievements and
inventions to date. International exhibitions soon became important events that created political
visions about exhibiting nations and states and about the exhibited objects.
World's fairs are large, international exhibitions that date back to the mid-19^th century. They
were initially founded to promote global free trade, but inevitably came to function as vehicles of
cultural and political self-definition. These events also mirrored the rapid changes in culture,
society, politics and economy that took place at the time = modern world.
Inventions and industrial advancements, the increasing importance of international trade and
competition, or the rise and decline of colonial empires were projected into exhibitions. In many
ways, they summarized and reimagined the modern experience in the physical and condensed space of
the exhibition ground.
Inventions and industrial advancements, the increasing importance of international trade and
competition, or the rise and decline of colonial empires were projected into exhibitions. In many
ways, they summarized and reimagined the modern experience in the physical and condensed space of
the exhibition ground.

Exhibitions theory
•Tony Bennett: ”the exhibition complex”
•Walter Benjamin: “sites of pilgrimages to the commodity fetish”
•Paul Greenhalgh: ”ephemeral events”
•Robert Rydell: exhibitions closely linked with global expansion of capitalism and imperialism
Bennett, Tony. “The Exhibitionary Complex,” New Formations 4 (Spring 1998): 73–102.
Benjamin, Walter. “Paris, die Hauptstadt es XIX. Jahrhunderts,” In Allegorien kultureller
Erfahrung. Ausgewihlte Schriften 1920-1940. Leipzig: Reclam. 1984.
Greenhalgh, Paul. Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World's
Fairs, 1851-1939. Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 2000.
Rydell, Robert W. All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions,
1876 – 1916.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Rydell, Robert W. World of Fairs: The Century-of-Progress Expositions. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1993.

Various theorists examined world’s fairs from many points of views. Here are some examples which
have been significant in exhibition studies.
The cultural theorist Tony Bennett described the so-called “exhibition complexes,” where the
various displays, pavilion designs, and even the flow of the crowd were aligned with the official
ideological system of the ruling class—a system supported by the exhibition itself.
Bennett, Tony. “The Exhibitionary Complex,” New Formations 4 (Spring 1998): 73–102.
Walter Benjamin, talking about the 19^th century Parisian expositions, described them as pilgrimage
sites where commodities are fetishized through display.
Benjamin, Walter. “Paris, die Hauptstadtd es XIX. Jahrhunderts,” In Allegorien kultureller
Erfahrung. Ausgewihlte Schriften 1920-1940. Leipzig: Reclam. 1984.
Paul Greenhalgh described world’s fairs as ephemeral – they didn’t survive, they were temporary,
but still made an incredible mark and impact in contemporary culture, society and economy.
Greenhalgh, Paul. Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World's
Fairs, 1851-1939. Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 2000.
Robert Rydell focuses mostly on American fairs, which he sees as “contested terrains” and “sites of
struggle” between various groups, dominant and subordinate.
Rydell, Robert W. All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions,
1876 – 1916.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Rydell, Robert W. World of Fairs: The
Century-of-Progress Expositions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

World‘s fairs and international exhibitions (selected)
•1851 Great Exhibition, London
•1855 Exposition Universelle Paris
•1869 Exposition des Beaux-Arts Appliqués a l'industrie, Paris
•1873 International Exhibition, Vienna
•1876 Exposition Internationale, Brussels •1876 Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia
•1881 Colonial Exhibition, Australia
•1889 Exposition Universelle, Paris
•1891 Jubilee Exhibition, Prague
•1896 Millenium Exhibition, Budapest
•1900 Exposition Universelle, Paris
•1901 Glasgow International Exhibition
•1904 Louisiana Purchase Exhibition, St. Louis
•1915 Panama Pacific Exhibition, San Francisco
•1922 Colonial Exhibition, Marseille
•1924 British Empire Exhibition
•1925 International exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, Paris
•1930 Colonial Exhibition, Paris
•1933 Century of Progress, Chicago
•1935 International Exposition, Brussels
•1939 World of Tomorrow, New York
•1939 Golden Gate Exhibition, San Francisco
•
A list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_expositions

The phenomenon of an international exhibition, world’s fair or exposition universelle, as they were
known, was very popular in the second half of the 19^th and first half of the 20^th century. These
are just a few examples of such events that took place around the globe.

World’s fairs
•Industries, inventions
•Technology
•Foreign possessions
•Animals, plants
•Art and design
•
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Vue_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale_de_l%27Exposition_univers
elle_de_1889.jpg
•Paris, Exposition universelle, 1889

From London, the phenomenon of exhibitions spread to other countries. They often contained a
similar range of exhibits and pavilions, that included displays of industrial products, inventions,
technology, colonial possessions, cultural achievements, exotic and local animals, plants and
foodstuffs, fine art and design.

The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations of 1851, London
•

The first large exhibition took place in London in 1851 under the official name The Great
Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. Housed in the Crystal Palace, Although the
original aim of the world fair had been as a celebration of art in industry for the benefit of All
Nations, in practice it appears to have been turned into more of a showcase for British
manufacturing: more than half the 100,000 exhibits on display were from Britain or the British
Empire.

Joseph Paxton, The Crystal Palace
•
•

•Henry Clarke Pidgeon (1807-80),  'The Indian Court and Jewels’, 1851
•Industries, inventions
•Technology
•Overseas (colonial) gains
•Foreign sections
•Animals, plants
•Food
•Art and design
•
Henry Clarke Pidgeon, 'The Indian Court and Jewels', 1851. Museum no. E.12-2007. Purchased with the
assistance of The Art Fund and the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851

the exhibition showed many great things of the Victorian age, including pottery, porcelain,
ironwork, furniture, perfumes, pianos, firearms, fabrics, steam hammers, hydraulic presses etc.

•Prince Albert (1819-1861)
•Henry Cole (1808-1882)
princ albert manžel viktorie – Seznam.cz Henry Cole - Wikipedia
Initiators

 Henry Cole, the V&A's first Director, declared that the Museum should be a "schoolroom for
everyone". Its mission was to improve the standards of British industry by educating designers,
manufacturers and consumers in art and science.  Acquiring and displaying the best examples of art
and design contributed to this mission, but the 'schoolroom' itself was also intended to
demonstrate exemplary design and decoration.
The Museum's founding principles, therefore, were to instruct the public on all matters relating to
good design. And what better way, Cole felt, to demonstrate 'correct' design and good taste than to
provide a display of all that should be seen as its antithesis? Alongside displays of outstanding
furniture, ceramics, textiles, glass and metalwork that would, he hoped, create public demand for
"improvements in the character of our national manufactures", visitors were also presented with a
Gallery of False Principles.
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/building-the-museum#slideshow=31131014&slide=0

Henry Cole
•The False Principles Gallery
The worst possible taste: 1852 design exhibition defiantly revived | Design | The Guardian

Bad design: Fabrics and wallpapers with naturalistic images of foliage and flowers were
particularly frowned on, as were over-elaborate objects with excessive ornamentation and any
objects in which the choice of materials or ornament seemed illogical. The failings of these
exhibits were spelled out in the gallery labels, and they were displayed alongside comparative
objects which were judged successful and correct.

•
•
The horse-pattern wallpaper from the exhibition. A convulvulus gas fitting, one of the exhibits in
the design ‘chamber of horrorrs’.

Victoria and Albert Museum
•Museum of Manufactures
•South Kensington Museum
•from 1899 Victoria & Albert Museum
•the largest museum of applied art, crafts and design in the world
•Museum as a classroom for everyone
•A showcase of good design and good taste
6a architects – Victoria & Albert Museum Victoria and Albert Museum Careers and Current
Employee Profiles | Find referrals | LinkedIn

V&A
to educate designers, manufacturers and the public in art and design = Cole.
it was decreed that the whole collection should be displayed by material (all the wood, together,
all the textiles, all the ceramics etc.) in a huge three-dimensional encyclopedia of materials and
techniques.
From the Great Exhibition not just Victoria & Albert Museum, also the Natural History Museum, the
Science Museum, the Royal Colleges of Art and Music, Imperial College, and the Royal Albert Hall.

Exhibitions introduce
•Taste
•What is good design
•Means of new technology
•Canon of modern art and design
•
•
•Museums

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Montage_Plan_Weltausstellung_1873.jpg
Vienna

Exhibitions put on almost in all states in Europe, framed by political situation of the day
This grand project showcased science and industry as well as contemporary culture and civilisation.
The different pavilions were located in the Prater park and hosted about 26,000 exhibitors from
thirty-five nations.

World’s fair, 1873, Vienna
•“To direct the gaze of the world towards Austria and ensure the recognition of the participation
of our fatherland in the promotion of the wellbeing of mankind through work and instruction.”
•Archduke Carl Ludwig, 1873
•
•Motto “Culture and Education”
http://www.inst.at/trans/12Nr/04_9.jpg

960 meter long and 205 meter wide Industrial Palace
Various motivations
after political struggles with neighbours, wars, need to show the level of civilisation, progress,
possession of colonies,
Power, dominance, progress, civilisation
But in Austria Hungary, internal politics and the place of Habsburg monarchy within Europe were
also given a significant place: the new political identity of the Empire was shown as a bridge
between East and West.
As individual nations and peoples in the Monarchy were claiming more and more autonomy and
recognition, the empire found an increasing need to strengthen and centralise itself. The
Weltausstellung was meant to do exactly that.

•Lobmeyr glass factory
•Machine hall
Die Welt ausstellen – Wien als Schauplatz der Weltausstellung | Die Welt der Habsburger

Around 200 buildings, foreign countries – Britain, France, America, Russia, Japan...presenting
industries, education, housing, arts, religion, sciences...

•
•Ottoman pavilion
http://pro.corbis.com/images/IH161842.jpg?size=67&uid=93710EA3-EFD2-47ED-92DE-F1046E7F47CC
Datei:Persisches Haus.jpg Leopoldstadt: Das war die Weltausstellung 1873 - Leopoldstadt
Chinese display
Persian pavilion

They contained displays of industries and technology, agriculture, science, arts and national
domestic industries (or arts and crafts), next to foreign exhibits of the British colonies, and the
Japanese, Chinese, Persian or Egyptian sections.
The domestic was combined with the exotic.
There was also an “ethnographic village” with European farmhouses and model schoolhouses.

The peasant ʻvillage’ at the 1873 Vienna World’s Fair
Large ethnographic displays: Vienna
•Examples of other foreign displays:
•American wigwam
•Japanese garden

In the displays of the individual nations of the Habsburg monarchy, the minorities were usually
portrayed as rural and backward
On the one hand countryside of the provinces usually poor, but this emphasised by the state – to
justify the dominant ruler, who brings progress and education
= colonial mindset
In Vienna, there was for example a display of farmhouses from Upper Austria, Transylvania, cottage
from Galicia, Croatia, mostly in wood, putting emphasis on the traditional (and obsolete) way of
building.
This supported an emphasis on hierarchy – Germanic (Austrian, Viennese) culture was at the top,
while at the bottom were the cultures of Romania, Slovakia, Galicia ... – these were the economic
peripheries which the Emperor needed to protect.
= museums, open-air museums

Skansen by Artur Hazelius (1833–1901)
Folk dance at the Skansen in 1904
Open air museums

Some of the display items ended in collections in Vienna
Other types of museums
The ethnographic displays had a growing tradition in Europe. The recently opened Skansen open air
museum in Stockholm featured Swedish village houses with guides in traditional costumes and
demonstrations of dances, songs and craft making. The Skansen, which gave a name to the open air
museum, was founded in Sweden by Artur Hazelius (1833–1901) in 1891. These museums were set up as a
reaction to industrialisation and an attempt to preserve the traditional life and culture. Hazelius
bought around 150 houses from all over Sweden and some from Norway, and had them shipped piece by
piece to the museum, where they were rebuilt to provide a unique picture of traditional Sweden.
Only three of the buildings in the museum are not original and were painstakingly copied from
examples he had found.

The spectacle of the exhibition
•Pageants / tableaux vivants
•Life performances
•Human zoos
•Recreations of streets, villages, e.g. Rue de Caire
•wildness and civility
•nature and culture
•black and white
•female and male
​
Colonial Exhibition in Paris African dance. France, 1931.

The rural ‘primitivism’ on display here consisted of peasant houses and outbuildings, costumes and
objects of everyday and festive life. Placed next to the technical, cultural and scientific
achievements of the ‘civilized’ urban middle classes, it provided a stark contrast between the more
developed, urban culture and the “backward” rural regions.
This was often symbolised through the contrast between wildness of the countryside (local or
foreign) and the civility of the city,
contrast between nature x culture, black x white in the way people were classified racially, and
also the contrast between the male x the female – where women were often exoticized in the roles of
dancers, performers or hosts.
These exotic references and contrasts were also often displayed through live pictures, or tableaux
vivants, performances such as dances and music, or through recreations of various customs,
traditions and habits.
Often presented as spectacle but with deeper meaning and ideologz

The spectacle and the other
Burlesque and the Subtle Tease of Sally Rand | ATOMIC Ballroom | Irvine, CA in Orange County (OC) A
Legacy of Theatricality: Antonin Artaud's Encounter with Balinese Gamelan - Smithsonian's National
Museum of Asian Art
Balinese dancers in 1931
Sally Rand in Chicago 1933
Little Egypt in Chicago, 1893

Male, white middle-class self, the savage other (a woman, a primitive, dark skin,)

Exhibited colonies
figure
Rue de Cairo, Paris, 1889

A few example

Colonial displays
•1878 Algerian village in front of Trocadero Palace, Exposition universelle, Paris

1889 a negro village – human zoos, also Carl Hagenbeck
Paris: Here 400 people
Non-Western people, under control of the white men, of the organizers, - global hierarchy of races
A village placed in contrast with grand buildings, displaying latest inventions, fine art works –
to show the primitive nature of the natives, with their huts, tools, habits – to portray them as
savages, -
France as protector of its people, colonies – the more educated, powerful, advanced
Villages considered as scientifically accurate, based on drawings, writing, research, but in fact
imagined to fit the intention of the organizers
Needed to be presented as a spectacle, entertaining, e.g. local daily life, in which weddings or
shopping at a bazaar were enacted – brought the experience of the orient to Paris

A recurrent notion was: ‘they’ are where ‘we’ were. I.e. they remained stuck at a primitive stage
of existence whereas ‘we’ (i.e. the West) have developed, moved on.
F:\Documents\teaching\leeds\inter decor\Art Deco\pav_afriq_1925.jpg
http://ia310831.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/0/items/crystalpalaceits00lond/
crystalpalaceits00lond_jp2.zip&file=crystalpalaceits00lond_jp2/crystalpalaceits00lond_0021.jp2&scal
e=4&rotate=0

They don’t have what defines western civilisation
In art, this means that art works are seen as primitive, underdeveloped, sometimes pure,
expressions of the people
Art is looked at from the western point of view, through a westernised lense
Art and culture as a curiosity

cartoon
1. European powers came into direct control of ca. ¾ of the world’s population.
2. It brought Europeans into contact with cultures that technologically were far less advanced
(Sub-Saharan Africa, North America, South Seas) or who had radically alien customs and beliefs
(Central America).
3. It produced a close relation of economic interdependence and exploitation. E.g. black slavery in
the  US, sugar plantations in the Caribbean, Tea plantations in India and Sri Lanka, rubber
plantations in Malaysia etc.
Colonialism

France and its colonies



Paris exhibitions before 1900
•1855 Exposition universelle des produits de l'agriculture, de l'industrie et des beaux arts •1867
Exposition Universelle: Agriculture, Industrie et Beaux-Arts •1878 Exposition Universelle:
Technologies Nouvelles •1889 Exposition Universelle: Centenaire de la Révolution française •1900
Exposition Universelle et Internationale: Le bilan d'un siècle
•

Colonisation explicitly displayed in France
Displays of technology, inventions
The 1867 exposition in Paris established an important division of foreign participations into
national pavilions. There was, for example, a British, American, or Japanese pavilion, the latter
played an important role in communicating to the public what Japanese art, especially woodcuts,
looked like.

Exposition universelle, Paris 1889
•Rue de Cairo
Exposition universelle de 1889, Paris. Vue du Palais des
The Machinery Hall

The Parisian expositions also constructed various villages of native people from the colonies and
recreated entire streets. One of the most famous was the Rue de Cairo in 1889, which consisted of
Egyptian architecture as well as the native African people, who were also put on display here. (At
this time, French colonies included Algeria, large parts of NW Africa, India, Syria and the Near
East.)

Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, Paris, 1925
Plan Général à l'exposition de Expo Paris 1925

The Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes was supposed to bring
together the nations of the world and to show, if not quite a unified front, at least some sense of
a developing common aesthetic among the practitioners of decorative art and architecture. However,
many nations chose not to participate.
This exhibition was – as the name suggests – focused on art and design rather than purely on
economy and trade, even though there was an undeniable commercial benefit sought by the organizers
and exhibitors. In terms of the exhibition politics, it was motivated by France's ambitions in the
postwar years to promote French taste and luxury goods. The French organizers aimed to showcase a
new style that became known as Art Deco.

Materials
• diverse, often precious (expensive) materials
• various combinations of man-made materials (plastic, bakelite, aluminium, reinforced concrete)
and natural materials (nephrite, silver, ivory, obsidian, chrome, crystal, zebra skin).
•
•Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, a table with rotating wooden top and ivory inlay, 1925

•Sonia Delaunay
Sonia Delaunay, Boutique Simultanée, Paris 1925 Exhibition | Sonia delaunay, Delaunay, Design
museum Sonia Delaunay, Paris, 1925 Photo by Edward Steichen | Art deco photography, Art, Edward
steichen Sonia Delaunay | Wall Street International Magazine Vogue Cover - Sonia Delaunay -
WikiArt.org
Vogue cover, 1926
Boutique for the exhibition, 1925

Polish pavilion
•Architecture by Józef Czajkowski, Wojciech Jastrzębowski •Sculptor Henryk Kuna, painter Tadeusz
Gronowski, Józef Mehoffer and Zofia Stryjeńska
•
Zofia Stryjeńska

Czechoslovak pavilion
A picture containing text, different, several, variety Description automatically generated A
Century Exhibited: 1925 A vintage photo of an old building Description automatically generated
Josef Gočár
Pavel Janák
František Kysela

Austrian pavilion
•Josef Hoffmann
Explore Articles About Overview Exhibitions Research Collection Publications Public programs CCA
c/o Calendar Current Past Info Visit us Opportunities Support us Press room Contact us Opening on
Saturday 13 November: “A Section of Now” Could you ... Interior view of the Main Exhibition Hall of
the Austrian Pavilion showing exhibit cases, International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and
Industrial Arts [Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes], Paris,
France
Main exhibition hall
Study

architect, Josef Hoffmann: Built of concrete with bold horizontally moulded walls, the mass of this
Pavilion was striking. It was top lit except for the vestibule, and contained an excellent gallery
both the exterior and interior decorated in “exuberant floral- and folk-derived calligraphy” of
Dagobert Peche, a recently deceased director of the Wiener Werkstätte, making the pavilion the
organisation’s showcase. The heavy decorations were criticized by the architect Adolf Loos, who saw
them as a symptom of Vienna’s conservativism bordering on kitsch.
Criticised by Loos

Alternatives
•Le Corbusier, Pavilion de l'Esprit Nouveau
•
a, b The plan of the Esprit Nouveau Pavilion and a photograph during... | Download Scientific
Diagram

Alternativy
There’s not ONE modernism
Konstantin Melnikov’s Soviet pavilion or Le Corbusier’s L’Esprit Nouveau, were more innovative in
their approach to the architectural space, material, light and colour.
The exhibition grounds therefore became a place of various competing views of the place of
decoration and decorative arts in the modern world.
1.Le Corbusier’s construction, using reinforced concrete, glass and steel, challenged the view of a
model house.
the French architect Le Corbusier’s functionalist model house l’Esprit Nouveau, put emphasis on the
function of buildings and denounced decoration. The abstract, geometric structure was deemed
incompatible with the overall concept of the exposition and a twenty-foot-high fence was
temporarily put up around it.
Makaryk, April in Paris; Marilda Azulay Tapiero, ‘Arquitectura española y la exposición
internacional de artes decorativas e industriales modernas (parís, 1925): actitudes, impresiones e
implicaciones,’ in Las exposiciones de arquitectura y la arquitectura de las exposiciones. La
arquitectura Española y las exposiciones internacionales (1929-1975) (Pamplona: T6, 2014), 157-166;
Richard Anderson, ’Ginés Garrido, Mélnikov en París, 1925,’ Cahiers du monde russe  55, no.
3-4 (2014): 406-410; R. J. Difford, ‘Infinite Horizons : Le Corbusier, the Pavillon de l’Esprit
Nouveau dioramas and the science of visual distance,’ Journal of Architecture 22, no. 5 (2017):
825-853.

•
Pavillon de l'esprit nouveau | Corbusier interior, Modern house design, Interior Esprit Nouveau
Pavilion / Le Corbusier – Modern Architecture: A Visual Lexicon

Soviet pavilion
•Konstantin Melnikov
The Soviet pavilion at the 1925 Paris Exposition | Architecture, Pavilion, Futuristic architecture
Gallery of Spotlight: Konstantin Melnikov - 5

Melnikov’s dynamic composition of the different geometrical shapes joined by a diagonal staircase
disrupted what would be then seen as a traditional national pavilion
The design of the Soviet pavilion at the 1925 Paris expo was by Melnikov and its dynamic
composition was in stark contrast to the middle class commercialised tone of the other pavilions,
Melnikov used the aesthetic of the factory combined with the thrusting diagonal expression seen in
Constructivist compositions.

•Alexander Rodchenko, The Worker’s Club
1925 Art Deco Exposition: History, Images, Interpretation — Ideas

Inside, the sparse decor emphasized worker solidarity. Peasant art was on display as a sign of
eternal rural vigor in the Russian landscape. But it was Rodchenko's workers' club that showed the
vision of the urban future for Russia: hard, geometric chairs without cushions facing a common
table designed to hold magazines and pamphlets. On the walls are posters proclaiming the good of
the Soviet Republic, and racks of periodicals for workers to read. The Soviet pavilion announced
clearly that the Russian view of corporate life in the twentieth century that would eventually,
inevitably, capture the higher echelons of political and economic power in the world.

Colonial exhibition, Paris, 1931
•France and her colonies
•The Netherlands
•Belgium
•Italy
•Japan
•Portugal
•United Kingdom
•United States
The Colonial Exposition of 1931 | Monument du Palais de la Porte dorée

Other nations participated in the event, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy (with a pavilion
designed by Armando Brasini), Japan, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States
Politically, France hoped the exposition would paint its colonial empire in a beneficial light,
showing the mutual exchange of cultures and the benefit of France's efforts overseas.

•
•

 Most exhibition pavilions showcased native architecture from various Asian and African colonies,
as well as efforts by the colonialists to improve the lives of the colonised peoples, in an attempt
to justify and glorify the notion of colonialism. As such, displays of agricultural production and
a wide variety of statistics, as well as the history of Indochina were exhibited at the Cambodian
Pavilion.
French colonial policy makers felt genuinely that France could and should exert her powerful
civilizing influence on the under-developed nations of the world.

•
•
undefined Angkor Wat Travel | Ultimate Guide | Asia Highlights

Angkor Wat, testimony to the decayed Khmer high culture of the 12th century – the original of which
was a vine-covered ruin when it was “discovered” by Europeans in the mid-19th century –, was copied
by the architects Charles and Gabriel Blanche in 1931 in Paris and protected – this was the gesture
– from being forgotten, as it was linked with western art and placed under the watchful eye of the
metropolitan police.
Plaster casts
On the outside the Angkor Wat pavilion was a stunningly detailed replica made possible by the
disciplinary complex of social sciences studying colonized cultures. Simultaneously, the inside
demonstrated the use of this knowledge to reconstitute Khmer culture and to make it the basis for a
revitalized Cambodian culture.
Video

Criticism
•
•"Here we have rebuilt the marvelous stairway of the temple of Angor Wat, and we watch enthralled
the sacred dancers; but, in Indo-China, we are shooting, we are deporting, we are imprisoning these
people.”
•
•Léon Blum Le Populaire, May 7, 1931
•
His. Thème 4 - Colonisation et décolonisation - MDeforge

Mentioned in lecture on primitivism
the socialist leader Léon Blum commented acidly: "Here we have rebuilt the marvelous stairway of
the temple of Angor Wat, and we watch enthralled the sacred dancers; but, in Indo-China, we are
shooting, we are deporting, we are imprisoning these people.” "Moins de fêtes et de discours, plus
d'intelligence humaine," in Le Populaire, May 7, 1931
Do not visit the exhibition https://www.arthurchandler.com/aragon-text

Milada Marešová
•
•
Pestrý týden 1931

Brussels International Exhibition, 1935
•Joseph van Neck, The Exhibition Hall
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•The Indian village
•The Belgian Congo pavilion
Indian Village at the Exhibition Expo Brussels 1935 Official Pavilion of the Belgian Congo at the
Exhibition Expo Brussels 1935

Congo
The first hall on the right was devoted to works of civilisation and the Catholic missions.
colonial education, teaching in the Congo
Indian village
This set of buildings, of a rigorous and colourful authenticity, had been realized by the
"Associated American Indian Group",
A whole tribe
Now business

Human zoos
•Brussels 1897
•Brussels Expo 1958
Brussels International Exposition (1897) - Wikipedia Human Zoo

•Geronimo and Apache tribe members at the St. Louis fair 1904
•When I was at first asked to attend the St. Louis World’s Fair I did not wish to go. Later, when I
was told that I would receive good attention and protection, and that the President of the United
States said that it would be all right, I consented… Every Sunday the President of the Fair sent
for me to go to a Wild West show. I took part in the roping contests before the audience. There
were many other Indian tribes there, and strange people of whom I had never heard… I am glad I went
to the Fair. I saw many interesting things and learned much of the white people. They are a very
kind and peaceful people. During all the time I was at the Fair no one tried to harm me in any way.
Had this been among the Mexicans I am sure I should have been compelled to defend myself often.
•
•Geronimo, biography
Geronimo Cadillac
Geronimo in a Locomobile Model C (not a Cadillac) at the Miller brothers’ 101 Ranch, 1905

Geronimo also kept a stash of hats to sell and sold pictures of himself. He was a celebrity and
marketed himself, even as others marketed him for their own purposes. He regularly appeared at
fairs–notably the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis–
It is noteworthy that many Indians took jobs in Wild West shows and appeared in fairs, and early
Western films.
Geronimo and Native peoples were, like other people in the U.S., becoming modern. By 1905 some were
using cars as a practical means of transportation. The experience of Native Americans has been
distinct, of course, in that modernity came for them as part of defeat and policies of coercive
assimilate.
https://historicalhorizons.org/2015/12/18/what-do-we-see-in-a-picture-of-geronimo/

USA
•Chicago 1893
•St. Louis 1904
•San Diego
•San Francisco 1913
•Philadelphia 1926
•Chicago 1933
•New York 1939
•San Francisco 1939

New York, The World of Tomorrow, 1939/40
•
1939's 'World of Tomorrow' Shaped Our Today | WIRED 1939 New York World's Fair
Vintage Travel Poster – Vintagraph Art

X Perisphere, Trylon
The 1939–40 New York World's Fair was a world's fair held at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park
in Queens, New York, United States. It was the second-most expensive American world's fair of all
time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. Many countries around the
world participated in it, and over 44 million people attended its exhibits in two seasons.^[2] It
was the first exposition to be based on the future, with an opening slogan of »Dawn of a New Day«,
and it allowed all visitors to take a look at »the world of tomorrow«.

•Norman Bell Geddes, Futurama
2 Bel Geddes' Futurama 'Highways and Horizons' exhibit sponsored by... | Download
Scientific Diagram Futurama (New York World's Fair) - Wikipedia
The world of tomorrow

Technologie je budoucnost,
More things for more people
Futurama Bel Geddes designed the General Motors Pavilion, known as Futurama, for the 1939 New York
World's Fair. For that famous and enormously influential installation, Bel Geddes exploited his
earlier work in the same vein: he had designed a "Metropolis City of 1960" in 1936
Vice věcí pro vice lidí

Exhibitions show
•Taste
•What is good design
•New technology
•Canon of modern art and design
•New materials
•Future, progress
•Knowledge
•
•Museums
•Human zoos
•Hierarchy

Conclusion
World’s fairs, international exhibitions and expositions universelle carefully constructed an
idealized image of reality – these exhibition projecting a miniature, idealized version of the
state or locality accessible to a mass audience. Such exhibitions therefore told the story of the
ruling ideology in which minorities were often under- or misrepresented.
National, international and universal exhibitions that originated in the so-called west can be very
much seen as a western phenomenon.
= ideas of what is modern