Abstract. – An analysis of interviews highlights the instability of the subject/object boundary in the discourse of primitive art collectors. While an object may become autonomous to the point of acquiring the status of a quasi person, collectors tend to lose their autonomy to the point of viewing (or imagining) themselves as pieces in a collection. This imaginary blurring of identities shapes the conceptualization of the relation construed as an exchange in which what each receives is proportional to what each has given. As shown by examples borrowed from literature and ethnology, the fusion between persons and things is not specific to primitive art collectors, but is also apparent in other forms of passionate involvement. [collection, primitive art, passion, aesthetic experience, subject/object relation, exchange]