Construire une collection - NMNM - Nouveau Musée National de Monaco

Geert Goiris, Abyss (detail), 2000
Lambda print on Dibond
200 x 247 cm
Collection NMNM, n°2013.10.1
©Geert Goiris

Nouveau Musée National de Monaco (NMNM) presents the exhibition Construire une Collection (Building a Collection), a selection of works purchased over the past ten years. It will take place in both exhibition areas of the NMNM, first of all from January at Villa Paloma, and then from March at Villa Sauber.

Since by definition a national museum is rooted in the history of the country in which is it situated, its mission is to acquire, preserve and promote collections to help safeguard the natural, cultural and scientific heritage. Over the years, the NMNM’s collection has therefore been enriched—in light of Monaco as a unique territory and the historical collections from the former Museum of Fine Arts (Musée des Beaux-Arts), the long-term loan of a collection of theatrical items from the Société des Bains, a donation of dolls and automata collected by Madeleine de Galéa—with works purchased, donated or on long-term loan thanks to state funding and the support of private patrons, particularly the Association of Friends of the NMNM and UBS AG, the Museum’s main partner.

The enhancement of a collection of heritage or historical importance is inextricably linked to considering contemporary art, because it is through living artists that the link between the past, present and future is maintained. The idea of contemporaneity is therefore self-evident, and, one could say, absolutely essential.

The exhibition at Villa Paloma will therefore feature works by William Anastasi, Richard Artschwager, Michel Blazy, Pascal Broccolichi, Daniel Gustav Cramer, Alain Declercq, Jean Dubuffet, Hubert Duprat, Jan Fabre, Jean-Pascal Flavien, Geert Goiris, Gary Hill, Rebecca Horn, Anish Kapoor, Jochen Lempert, Yinka Shonibare MBE, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Su Mei Tse and Cerith Wyn Evans. These artists offer a revisiting of form and Nature with the aim of re appropriating Nature in their own way to give it a new symbolic meaning They therefore allow a redefinition of landscape while highlighting the relationship between art and science.

The second part of the exhibition will open to the public on 21 March at Villa Sauber. It will bring together works by Arman, Robert Barry, Christian Boltanski, Lourdes Castro, César, Mark Dion, Erró, Hans Peter Feldmann, Claire Fontaine, Jeppe Hein, Linda Fregni Nagler, Camille Henrot, Bertrand Lavier, Anne and Patrick Poirier and Hans Schabus. Most of the works presented here were either inspired by collections or the collections themselves have become works of art or have inspired works of art; in other words, a collection of collections.

Construire une Collection (Building a Collection) is also an opportunity to review progress made since the project for the Museum was first conceived just over ten years ago in 2003, and five years after the opening of Villa Paloma , which, with Villa Sauber (which had housed the Madeleine de Galéa Collection of Dolls and Automata for 35 years until 2009), definitively formed the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco.

Curators: Marie-Claude Beaud, Célia Bernasconi and Cristiano Raimondi