MAGICIENS DE LA TERRE

(Paris): Editions du Centre Georges Pompidou, 1989. First printing. Fine in very good plus jacket.. First edition catalogue of this major international exhibition, conceived as a anti-colonialist corrective to the contemporary art-world ethnocentrism typified by MoMA's much-criticized 1985 "Primitivism" show. Much of the groundbreaking nature of MAGICIENS derived from Martin's simple choice to invite equal numbers of Western and non-Western participants, and to treat the latter as individual artists rather than anonymous cultural representatives - far from standard curatorial practice at the time. The 100 exhibiting artists included Marina Abramovic, Dossou Amidou, John Baldessari, Louise Bourgeois, Francesco Clemente, Bowa Devi, Dexing Gu, Hans Haacke, Shirazeh Houshiary, Anselm Kiefer, Agbagli Kossi, Tatso Miyajima, Claes Oldenburg, Nam June Paik, Yousuf Thannoun, Lawrence Wiener, and many others. With essays by Martin, Aline Luque, Mark Francis, Andre Magnin, Pierre Gaudibert, Thomas McEvilley, Homi Bhabha, Jacques Soulillou, and Bernard Marcadé. 14'' x 11''. Original black cloth. Bright yellow endpapers. In original purple dust jacket. Text in French. Illustrated throughout in color and black and white. 271, [1] pages. Light edgewear to boards. Scuffing and light creasing to jacket, with a few small chips to flap folds. Spine faintly sunned. Overall sound and clean.