The Remarkable Fall Programme of The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris
This fall, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris welcomes visitors to discover a remarkable three-fold project. With a programme covering from the innocence of childhood to the cruelty of the atom and radioactivity, the museum examines modern history through three frames: a participatory project and two exhibitions.
Starting in October 2024, thousands of children will help produce a participatory work of art entitled A Thousand Voices, conceived by Oliver Beer. The British artist has chosen four artworks from the MAM’s collections (Victor Brauner, Nina Childress, Sonia Delaunay and Georges Rouault) that will be reinterpreted in four films directed by the artist at the end of the project. Music, as the common thread running through the artist’s work, guided the selection of these masterpieces from the museum. Every child will be invited to reinterpret and take ownership of one of the museum’s four works, through a drawing exercise. The drawings from the workshop will then be assembled and printed on film, at 12 frames per second, to create four animated films. Similarly, the sounds recorded by the children will form the main material for a new immersive composition that will accompany the films. The project will unfold in two phases: Chapter 1 will take place from October 4th to January 12th, and will consist of drawing and sound collection workshops; Chapter 2 is the exhibition of the Reanimation films produced by Oliver Beer, which will be held from April 11th to July 13th.
Secondly, there’s the first retrospective in France devoted to Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn (1920-2012) entrusted by the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris to artist Albert Oehlen, who has curated an exhibition offering a free-wheeling exploration of the artist’s work. By retracing the artist’s creative process – interaction with materials, the role of gesture, detail and tireless research – in dialogue with his own, Oehlen has crafted an artistic rendition of his sculptural practice.
Last but not least, the museum is inviting visitors to take a new look at the history of modernity in the 20th century via the imaginary world of the atom. The exhibition is an opportunity to explore the artistic representations sparked by the scientific discovery of the atom and its applications, in particular the nuclear bomb, whose devastating consequences changed the fate of humanity. Bringing together some 250 works – paintings, drawings, photographs, videos and installations – as well as documentation that has often been previously unpublished, the exhibition shows, for the first time in a French museum, the widely differing different stances adopted by artists in the face of scientific advances and the controversies they have given rise to. Dealing with a subject now more topical than ever, the exhibition is in keeping with the museum’s desire to reflect contemporary cultural and social concerns in its programming.
During the exhibition opening, we had the pleasure of meeting Marie Darrieussecq, Dana Schutz, Nina Childress, and Alain Séchas.
Photos: Michaël Huard
