"Mutations" for the Arts Décoratifs Museum | FREAKS Architecture

MUTATIONS
from 27 March to 5 July 2015

CURATOR
Eric-Sébastien FAURE-LAGORCE

FOR WHO INMA Institut National des Métiers d'Art & Manufacture horlogère Vacheron Constantin

The curatorial project of the exhibition "Mutations" consists in establishing a dialogue between historical objects from the Arts Déco Museum collections and contemporary creations of artists or designers produced especially for the exhibition. This dialogue takes place in the galleries of advertising and graphic design, where all historical walls, floors and ceilings remained voluntarily in their original state within the renewing project done by AJN (Jean Nouvel).

To create the conditions of this dialogue, we propose a radical intervention within that context by installing in each room a white box inside which the visitor is invited to enter.

Each box thematically organizes the dialogue between the contemporary work shown on its own demonstration device (either on the floor, pedestal, suspended, ...) and a historical item from the collections positioned within a framing highlighting remains of the exhibition space (chimney board, moldings, piece of wall …).

This is, in a way, a double reading of the exhibition: first the dialogue itself between the pieces, then the dialogue between the curatorial statement and the outdated aesthetics of the Museum galleries.

The whole scenery is made of materials selected especially for their durability. Once the exhibition is over, some of these will also be given to a company specialized in the recycling and reuse of materials.