Foreign Exchange (Or the Stories You Wouldn't Tell a Stranger)

Founded in 1904, Frankfurt’s Weltkulturen Museum houses a remarkable collection of ethnographic artifacts from Asia, Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, with the aims of advancing public education and fostering innovative anthropological research across a wide variety of contemporary artistic practices.

Developed through artistic research in the Weltkulturen Museum’s Weltkulturen Labor research lab, Foreign Exchange raises questions about the relationship between the museum’s educational and scientific aims and global trade. Together, essays by anthropologists, art historians, artists, and curators form an extended conversation around the historical accumulation and commodification of artifacts and, in particular, the representation of the human body in ethnographic photographs. Rounding out the volume are many previously unpublished photographs of works discussed. Contributing authors and artist include Peggy Buth, Minerva Cuevas, Gabriel Gbadamosi, David Lau, Tom McCarthy, David Weber-Krebs, and Luke Willis-Thompson.

Clémentine Deliss is the former director of the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt (2010-2015), where Yvette Mutumba is the research curator for African art.