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Primitivism
The word 'primitivism' in the title of the exhibition stirred controversy. 'Primitivism' refers to the interest of modern artists in tribal art and culture. Since the turn of the century, tribal masks and sculptures of Africa, Oceania, and North America have had a significant influence on modern artists' work. The aim of the exhibition was to examine the influence of tribal art on modern art, the affinities they share, and the nature of modernist primitivism as a force in Western art over the last century. Although the exhibition's initial intent was to draw parallels between modern artwork and its origins, it served instead to discredit the status of primitivism in the visual arts. It also sparked many written discourses in colonialism and representation.

Those mounting the exhibition were aware of the political implications, as shown in the brochure handed to each visitor:
 * The term "primitivism" does not refer to tribal art itself [...] but only to modern Western interest in it. Our exhibition thus focuses not on the origins and intrinsic meanings of tribal objects themselves, but on the ways these objects were understood and appreciated by modern artists. The artists who first recognized the power of tribal art generally did not know its sources or purposes. They sensed meanings through intuitive response to the objects, often with a "creative misunderstanding" of their forms and functions.