The African and Asian Arts Museum

Artist in exile and national hero in Vietnam. Hàm Nghi, Emperor of Annam in 1884, was a political prisoner in Algiers from 1889 during the colonization of Indochina by France. Exiled, stripped of his title of emperor, the man reinvented his own space of freedom through artistic creation.

Trained in fine arts by French painters and sculptors, Hàm Nghi is the first modern Vietnamese artist. Called the Prince of Annam, he stayed regularly in mainland France and rubbed shoulders with the intellectual and artistic circles of his time. His work was influenced by impressionism, post-impressionism, and Auguste Rodin, of whom he was a student.

Through his paintings and sculptures, the exhibition retraces the unique journey of an artist. Personal objects and correspondence bear witness to an intimate universe but always crossed by the historical context, that of colonial France in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In an interactive scenography, you will experience the universal dimension of the exhibition. To begin with, the wheel of protection offers luck, love, fertility, power… It is up to the visitor to associate these requests with amulets and talismans from various sources. The search for protection is timeless and global because humans are aware of the passage of time and the dangers that threaten them.

Thus, objects of protection, statuettes of protectors, recourse to specialists show the human desire to control one’s destiny.

Exposed civilizations, ancient and contemporary: China, India, Japan, Nepal, Indonesia, Philippines, Madagascar, Ethiopia, DR Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Niger.

This exhibition highlights the museum’s collections and new donations.