2 PARIS, 1937: COLONIAL QUESTIONS AND PEACE 95An internAtionAl exHibition
When the French government first committed itself to the exposition in
December 1929, it had intended that it would serve largely as a means
of ‘consolidating French claims to cultural authority’.^30 By 1936, how-
ever, changed political and economic conditions demanded its reconcep-
tualisation. France at that time was suffering from economic recession
and had become politically polarised, this second factor being reflected
in the fiercely fought elections of May 1936 which saw the victory of
the anti-Fascist Popular Front. In view of these considerations, the Blum
government organised the exposition with a view to alleviating France’s
economic problems and healing social divisions through promoting a
thicker sense of cultural and national identity.^31
In the official book of the exposition, the French minister of com-
merce, Fernand Chapsal, observed that against the background of a large
movement of opinion in favour of abandoning the exposition which was
supported as much in parliament as in Paris’s Municipal Council, the
government had determined that the project of the exposition ‘must
be integrated into the plan of economic recovery and the battle against
unemployment.’^32 That the exposition was intended to have a socially
palliative effect was epitomised by Blum’s declaration that he hoped that
the exposition would foster among the citizens of France a ‘feeling of
national cohesion’ and render them ‘more greatly aware of their pro-
found unity and strength’.^33
A key role was to be played by art in these respects. Although not
formally part of the exhibition, one might call attention here to an enor-
mous state-sponsored retrospective entitled Chefs-d’oeuvre de l’art
(^30) Arthur Chandler, ‘Duality,’ in Confrontation: The Exposition Internationale des Arts et
Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937), expanded and revised from World’s Fair Magazine
8, no. 1 (1988), http://www.arthurchandler.com/paris-1937-exposition.
(^31) Ibid. See also Bertrand Lemoine, preface to Lemoine, ed., Paris 1937: Cinquantenaire
de l’Exposition internationale des arts et des techniques dans la vie moderne, 13–4.
(^32) Fernand Chapsal, introduction to Ministère du Commerce et de l’Industrie, Livre
d’or officiel de l’Exposition internationale des arts et techniques dans la vie moderne (Paris:
Éditions Spec, 1937), 14.
(^33) Léon Blum, 1937, quoted in Ihor Junyk, ‘The Face of the Nation: State Fetishism
and Métissage at the Exposition Internationale, Paris 1937,’ Grey Room, no. 23 (2006):
96–112, 104.