Abstract
The provocative hypothesis according to which museums are religious public spaces aims to threaten the unwavering secular status of these institutions in the West. In order to interrogate museum agency as secular, we must first ask a question: what is the religion behind every museum? The article proposes the decolonisation of the museum performance, understood as a magical act that in certain conditions produces religious effects. For this purpose, two French exhibitions presented by the Musée du quai Branly were analysed: the museum inaugural exhibition at the Pavillon des Session (2000), at the Louvre, and the short-term exhibition “Mãori. Leurs trésors ont une âme”, presented in the museum’s current building from 4 October 2011 to 22 January 2012, both displaying collections of non-European religious objects.
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