Paris: Parcours des Mondes, An Art Fair Built Around Stories

First of all, there is the object itself, with its form, its patina, its color and especially its emotional strength. And immediately after, comes its story, directing our gaze and inviting us to travel through a particular geography, culture, ritual, belief or moment in daily life. Then we catch a glimpse of the "fragments of time", the title of the exhibition Adrian Schlag is organizing for this 21st Parcours des mondes, and we measure the weight of the millennia that have passed while searching for the oldest work exhibited in this edition: perhaps it will be the abelam ornament from Papua New Guinea presented at the Monbrison Gallery, whose wood has been dated between the 13th and 14th centuries. Traditional non-European arts are the greatest purveyors of fascinating tales, touching the core of the imagination of those who yield to curiosity. First of all, there are the testimonies of the explorers who crisscrossed these distant lands in the 18th and 19th centuries. Thus, to visit Jean-Michel Rostoker is to browse through these treasures, including the book Relation des îles Pelew , which is located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean. On the pages of this book, one discovers the memoirs "of Captain Henri Wilson and some of his officers, who, in August 1783, were…