The exhibition looks back on the last ten years of work of the French figurative painter Marc Desgrandchamps. “The City of Dijon is very attached to the promotion of contemporary art”, declared François Rebsamen during the inauguration, this Thursday, May 11.
The new temporary exhibition at the Dijon Museum of Fine Arts was inaugurated this Thursday, May 11, 2023. Until August 28, the museum offers to discover recent works by contemporary painter Marc Desgrandchamps.
“All of his work bears witness to the instability of perceptions and the ambiguity of the visible. Through the great plastic originality of his work, Marc Desgrandchamps was able to create an immediately identifiable pictorial universe, which nevertheless resists interpretations, ”explains the Museum of Fine Arts.
90,000 visitors to the Museum of Fine Arts since the start of the year
In launching the official speeches, François Rebsamen (PS, FP), mayor of Dijon, begins by welcoming the attendance at the Museum of Fine Arts post-health crisis: the previous temporary exhibition of works by Maria Helena Vieira Da Silva attracted 45,000 visitors.
Including the permanent collection as well, the museum has welcomed 90,000 visitors since the beginning of the year. The municipality hopes to reach 500,000 visitors to all of its museums by 2023.
In the Salle des Etats of the Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy, adjoining the spaces of the museum, the talk is held in front of nearly 300 people. In particular, several elected officials took part in the opening, including Nathalie Koenders (PS), first deputy mayor of Dijon, and Christine Martin (PS), deputy for culture, as well as representatives of the Ministry of Culture and the prefecture of the Côte-d ‘Or, respectively Aymée Rogé, regional director of cultural affairs of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, and Anne Coste de Champeron, general secretary of regional affairs of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.
“To share ancient art while maintaining a relationship with living artists”
The mayor of Dijon salutes “an important painter on the French contemporary scene”, a figurative artist “recognized in the 80s at a time when abstract art predominated”.
“With this new exhibition, our Museum of Fine Arts is faithful to its primary vocation, which is to share ancient art while maintaining a relationship with living artists,” says François Rebsamen.
“The City of Dijon is very attached to the promotion of contemporary art, to supporting artists so that they can have places to work and that their works are presented”, he adds, in reference to the center of contemporary art Le Consortium as well as at the Interface gallery, at the Vortex workshops or at Hall 38.
“We want culture to be disseminated as widely as possible,” insists the socialist who recalls the free municipal museums.
“Marc Desgrandchamps, one of the most outstanding personalities of painting in France since the 80s”
“The objective of the Dijon Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Marseille, with which we have joined forces, is to reveal to the widest public the recent work of Marc Desgrandchamps, one of the most outstanding personalities of painting in France since the 1980s”, says chief curator Frédérique Goerig-Hergott, about the artist, born in 1960 in Sallanches, who lives and works in Lyon.
According to the director of the museums of the City of Dijon, the exhibition “Silhouettes” corresponds to “the first major monograph devoted to a contemporary French artist” since 2019, with 47 paintings accompanied by some drawings and collages.
Some works come from museums, others from the Leong & Co and Eigen + Art galleries. Still others have been lent directly by the artist and are thus revealed exclusively in Dijon.
“Misplaced silhouettes mingle in an intense light lending to abstract forms”
The exhibition allows us to follow the evolution of Marc Desgrandchamps’ work over the past ten years, since the important presentation that was made at the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, in 2011.
“During this decade, the streaks of the late 90s gradually disappeared, giving way to simple paint transparencies,” points out Frédérique Goerig-Hergott.
“If the motif of the horse and the figure persist, the motif of the city has disappeared in favor of refined landscapes – countryside, mountains, parks, seaside, lake or river – where lost, enigmatic and silent silhouettes mingle , often solitary, in an intense light lending to abstract forms”, develops the director.
“The works are rooted in the personal memories of the artist, his travels and his visits to various archaeological sites, refer to ancient statuary, art history, cinema, music, literature, the media and the contemporary world”, she continues.
Two works by Marc Desgrandchamps join the museum’s collections
To make Marc Desgrandchamps’ work known in the long term, the City of Dijon acquired the diptych “Silhouettes” in 2022 for the sum of 56,000 euros from the Lelong & Co gallery. In addition, the artist donated the painting “The Young Mod’s Forgotten Story” – a 2 x 1.5 meter oil on canvas, painted in 2012 – referring to English Mod culture, of which the Kinks were the best-known representatives in the 1960s.
These are two works that will join the permanent municipal collections after this exhibition. According to the director of municipal museums, the Fine Arts museum’s acquisition policy aims to “support major contemporary artists who take a personal look at their time and the history of art”.
The “Silhouettes” diptych is inspired by a “Flagellation of Christ”
The untitled diptych acquired by the City of Dijon – an oil on canvas two meters by three – was spontaneously baptized “Silhouettes” by the contributors since it was used to create the poster for the exhibition.
The painting is inspired by a major work of the Italian Renaissance, “The Flagellation of Christ” by Piero della Francesca [NDLR : réalisé en 1460, le tableau est conservé à la Galleria nazionale delle Marche à Urbino, en Italie].
«[Marc Desgrandchamps] took over the frame with this interior-exterior architecture”, explains Frédérique Goerig-Hergott, “with female figures who, equipped with a laptop, face a mystical sculpture which refers to a famous arm-relief in history art”. “It’s interesting this confrontation of two different temporalities.”
An evocation of the confinements of the health crisis
Completed in April 2020, just at the start of the health crisis, Marc Desgrandchamps slipped in a figure – which is obviously not found in the work of Piero della Francesca – to evoke confinement.
“I started to paint the environment of this Flagellation”, recalls Marc Desgrandchamps, “but, I stopped; at one point, I said to myself “I’m not going to go all the way with the copy and I’m going to reintroduce figures from my own universe” and, perhaps, from our common universe. This gave rise to this painting where we have these two female figures who are facing this sculpture, which could perhaps evoke a museum place, or other, but I did not necessarily have that in mind at the time. departure. It is also part of the way in which paintings are conceived, that is to say that there are interactions which can be created but which are created as the painting is constructed”.
“I am happy to exhibit in these places”, soberly concludes Marc Desgrandchamps, “now it will be up to the public to judge the relevance of what is presented”.
A renovated temporary exhibition space
On the third floor, the temporary exhibition space has been revised to be separated from the circuit dedicated to the permanent collection. Access can be direct from the west of the Cour de Bar – the former main entrance to the museum – vertically above the golden roof. An elevator leads to the third floor, at the level of the contemporary architectural incise established in 2019, and to the entrance of the new renovated space.
The curatorship of the “Silhouettes” exhibition was provided by Frédérique Goerig-Hergott and Pauline Nobécourt. Skira editions published a catalog of 216 pages. The Nomade visit application offers content in French, English and German. A cultural program is available around the exhibition – including meetings with the artist on June 15 and 28 – with, in particular, activities aimed at young audiences.
The presentation at the Museum of Fine Arts is extended by a hanging at the Magnin Museum, entitled “Dia-logues” and designed by Sophie Harent, composed of lithographs and prints integrated into the permanent collections.
Jean-Christophe Tardivon
Useful information
«Marc Desgrandchamps – Silhouettes»
from May 12 to August 28, 2023
at the Dijon Museum of Fine Arts
Place de la Sainte-Chapelle 21000 DIJON
Opening
Open every day except Tuesday
from October 1 to May 31: 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
June 1 to September 30: 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Closed on January 1, May 1 and 8, July 14, November 1 and 11, December 25
Free
All year round, the permanent collections are free for everyone.
Contact
03 80 74 52 09
[email protected]
musees.dijon.fr
Access
Free Divia City shuttle, “Beaux-Arts” or “Théâtre” stop
Bus > Liane 6 “Theatre” stop
Bus > Line 11 “St Michel” stop
Car parks: Darcy, Dauphine, Grangier, Monge, Sainte-Anne
The Museum of Fine Arts is fully accessible to people with reduced mobility.
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