the musée de l’elysée in 2019 - musée de l'Élysée...first exhibition of vasantha...

Elysée Lausanne Press kit

The Musée de l’Elysée in 2019

2/14Press kit Program 2019 Elysée Lausanne 2/12

The Musée de l’Elysée in 2019

Table of content

Exhibitions

Until January 27• Liu Bolin. The Theatre of Appearances 3• Matthias Bruggmann. An Act of Unspeakable Violence 4 From February 20 to May 5 • Martine Franck 5• Vasantha Yogananthan. A Myth of Two Souls 6

From May 29 to August 25 • Yann Mingard. Everything is up in the air, thus our vertigo 7• Conversion of the museum’s upper level, as the work on

the collections begins towards the move to PLATEFORME 10 8

From September 18, 2019 to January 5, 2020 • Jan Groover 9

Prix Elysée, 3rd EditionThe Nominees’ Book 10 Partners 11 Practical information 12

Cover: Martine Franck, Tory Island, Comté de Donegal, Irlande, 1995 © Martine Franck / Magnum Photos


Until January 27, 2019Liu Bolin. The Theatre of Appearances

The first museum exhibition in Switzerland of Liu Bolin’s work, The Theater of Appearances brings together almost fifty monumental photographs and several sculptures illustrating the main themes addressed by the Chinese artist over his career: the political and economic strategies of the Chinese government, ancestral traditions and religious and cultural symbols, individual or collective acts of resistance, the transformation of the urban environment, ecological damages and a hyper-consumerist society.

In 2005, his series “Hiding in the City” opened with a self-portrait of Liu Bolin, immobile, covered in paint and melting into the rubble of his own studio located in the artists’ quarter razed by the Chinese government. Since then, any and all locations may be a potential source of creation, but in which he will only appear paradoxically: imperceptible and incredibly present at the same time.

In this retrospective exhibition, the sculptor, performer and photographer Liu Bolin, known as “the invisible man”, presents an extraordinary selection of photographs taken in China from 2005 to 2017. By challenging the viewer to find where the artist’s body is hidden in the image, Liu Bolin creates an unprecedented effect of a mirror turned towards the person who is looking at him. “Put yourself in my place”, he seems to be asking.

Posing sometimes for hours in front of a wall, a monument or a landscape, Liu Bolin thus totally fades into the background, with the invaluable help of his assistants and without any other form of manipulation. At the end of the process, the performance is immortalized in a photograph that creates an image which is playful on the surface but which actually conveys a deeper meaning: “Some would say that I disappeared into the landscape; personally, I would say that the environment swallowed me up.”

Liu Bolin is represented since 2008 in France by the Gallery Paris-Beijing, which made it possible to hold the exhibition.

Curation Marc Donnadieu, Curator in Chief, Musée de l’Elysée, assisted by Emilie Delcambre-Hirsch, Exhibitions’ Department, Musée de l’Elysée

CatalogueA book published by the Musée de l’Elysée under the direction of Marc Donnadieu accompagnies the exhibition. Unpublished texts provide original insights into Liu Bolin’s creative principle, bearing a strong symbolic charge.

Liu Bolin, Mobile Phones, from the series “Hiding in the City”, 2012 © Liu Bolin / Courtesy Galerie Paris-Beijing

Liu Bolin, Unify the Thought to Promote Education More, from the series “Hiding in the City”, 2007 © Liu Bolin / Courtesy Galerie Paris-BeijingCover of the catalogue Liu Bolin. The Theatre of Appearances, Musée de l’Elysée, 2018


Until January 27, 2019Matthias Bruggmann. An Act of Unspeakable Violence

Matthias Bruggmann is the winner of the second edition of the Prix Elysée, with the support of Parmigiani Fleurier, for his project on Syria. Hoping to “bring, to Western viewers, a visceral comprehension of the intangible violence that underlies conflict”, he takes the gamble of hiding nothing in his explicit and brutal pictures. Taken in the field, they force the viewer to slow down and take stock of the war — geographically distant, admittedly, but made omnipresent by the media.

If the tens of thousands of pictures of torture taken by Syrian photographers do not attract the attention of a Western audience, what can a foreigner who doesn’t even speak Arabic hope to accomplish? The photographs of Matthias Bruggmann take a critical look at the representation of the atrocities of war. They give Westerners a more nuanced picture of the reality of an armed conflict and blur the boundaries between photojournalism and contemporary artistic photography.

Matthias Bruggmann explains: “Formally, my previous work put viewers in a position where they were asked to decide the nature of the work itself. A scientifically questionable analogy of this mechanism would be the observer effect in quantum physics, where the act of observing changes the nature of what is being observed. My Syrian work builds on this framework. From a documentation perspective, it is, thus far and to the best of my knowledge, unique as the work, inside Syria, of a single Western photographer, in large part thanks to the assistance and hard work of some of the best independent experts on the conflict. Because of the nature of this conflict, I believe it is necessary to expand the geographical scope of the work. At its core is an attempt at generating a sense of moral ambiguity. The design of this is to make viewers uneasy by challenging their own moral assumptions and, thus, attempt to bring, to Western viewers, a visceral comprehension of the intangible violence that underlies conflict. One of the means is by perverting the codes normally used in documentary photography to enhance identification with the subject.”

Curation Lydia Dorner, Exhibitions’ Department, Musée de l’Elysée

Publication The exhibition is accompanied by a book co-published by Éditions Xavier Barral and the Musée de l’Elysée, produced thanks to the funding of the Prix Elysée. Several specialists in the Syrian conflict sign a text in the book.

Matthias Bruggmann, Marmarita, Reef Homs, September 11, 2013 © Matthias Bruggmann / Contact Press Images. Courtesy Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne and Galerie Polaris, Paris / Matthias Bruggmann, Reef Idlib, February 20, 2013 © Matthias Bruggmann / Contact Press Images. Courtesy Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne and Galerie Polaris, Paris / Book cover Matthias Bruggmann. An Act of Unspeakable Violence, co-published by Éditions Xavier Barral and the Musée de l’Elysée, 2018

“Two men mourn their brother who died decapitated by a regime shell. The fear of bombings was such that families stopped organizing large funerals.” Matthias Bruggmann

“The swimming pool at Al-Khair Hotel, above Marmarita. A number of the young men are from the Christian militia that protects Marmarita and helps besiege both the Krak des Chevaliers and al Husn, the Sunni village built around it. The Krak fell to the Syrian army in March 2014. Reuters, quoting Lebanese medical sources, reported that over forty of the opposition fighters fleeing the area were wounded in an ambush on the way out, with eight dead.” Matthias Bruggmann


From February 20 to May 5, 2019Martine Franck

Wishing to showcase the pioneering work of female photographers in the 20th century, the Musée de l’Elysée is presenting a major retrospective dedicated to Martine Franck (1938-2012). Conceived by the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris and co-produced with the Musée de l’Elysée, this exhibition, exceptional in its scope, gathers almost 140 photographs, some of which have never been shown before and many of them chosen by the photographer herself.

In addition to the photographer’s unique perspective of her entire body of work, this exhibition and publication project is based on an in-depth study of the Martine Franck archives, distinguishing it from previous retrospectives.

Martine Franck was a key figure of 20th century photographic art, a member of Agence VU in 1970, the co-founder of Agence Viva in 1972 and a member of the Magnum cooperative from 1983 as well as being a journalist, reporter and portrait artist. She came to photography via a personal approach linked in no small part to her travels in Asia and Europe. When she decided to devote herself to a career in photography, she chose a field that included very few women at the time. Nevertheless, she managed to carve out a place for herself by concentrating on subjects rarely addressed by her male colleagues such as the work environment, women, old age, solidarity and humanitarian issues. For almost fifty years, independently of any aesthetic trends, she thus built up a personal body of work that was largely dedicated to the human condition throughout the world.

By programming this exhibition, the Musée de l’Elysée will give the public the opportunity to rediscover a major body of work that, in addition to the diversity of its themes, offers an intense and unique perspective of our times. PublicationA book published by Éditions Xavier Barral, reproducing nearly 300 photographs and diverse documents accompanies the exhibition. With a preface by Agnès Sire, texts by Anne Lacoste and Dominique Eddé, and a biography by Cécile Gaillard with Aude Raimbault.

Curation Agnès Sire, Artistic Director at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, and Marc Donnadieu, Chief Curator at the Musée de l’Elysée, assisted by Emilie Schmutz.

Press conference: Tuesday, February 19 at 10am Vernissage: Tuesday, February 19 at 6pm

Martine Franck, Le pèlerinage de San Isidro, Musée du Prado, Madrid, 1993 © Martine Franck / Magnum PhotosMartine Franck, Piscine conçue par Alain Capeillères, Le Brusc, été 1976 © Martine Franck / Magnum Photos Martine Franck, Ballymun, quartier nord de Dublin, Irlande, 1993 © Martine Franck / Magnum Photos


From February 20 to May 5, 2019 Vasantha Yogananthan. A Myth of Two Souls

With the aim of supporting and promoting contemporary institutional creation, the Musée de l’Elysée is presenting the first exhibition of Vasantha Yogananthan’s project A Myth of Two Souls. Born in 1985, a self-taught photographer of French-Tamil origin, Yogananthan belongs to a generation that likes to blur the lines between fiction and reality. This series was inspired by the Ramayana, a fundamental epic poem from Hindu mythology written in Sanskrit somewhere between the 3rd century BCE and the 3rd century CE. Constantly updated, the Ramayana can be seen by Western readers as an invitation to understand India beyond mere exoticism.

For almost four years, Vasantha Yogananthan made regular trips to India and Sri Lanka to complete his project, the seven chapters of which will be exhibited together for the first time. A specific area for each chapter will be set up on the lower level of the Musée de l’Elysée, creating a particular atmosphere specific to each of the stylistics called upon by the artist to develop his story in seven stages. While the first few rooms – and indeed, chapters - will be relatively traditionally laid out, exhibiting framed prints on the wall, the following rooms will make it possible to showcase alternative systems of exhibiting, such as screening, paperhanging and installation. The artist develops different processes according to the chapters of the Ramayana and explores or takes a fresh look at ancestral techniques. This is particularly true of the earlier chapters, made up of black and white photographs taken with a view camera and then coloured by hand by an Indian painter in keeping with the 19th century tradition before the advent of colour film. Vasantha Yogananthan reclaims this technique while at the same time modernising it, taking his photographs outside the studio and using passers-by as actors. The field of domestic portraits is thus expanded to cover society as a whole – with no class distinction – as well as the entire land, from huge cities to the depths of the countryside.

The seven chapters exhibited – Early Times, The Promise, Exile, Dandaka, The Quest, Lanka, The Epilogue – will offer visitors the chance to wander through both time and geography whilst introducing them to rarely used photographic techniques and an original scenography. The exhibition includes photographic works, repainted prints and a multi-channel video installation.

Publication Each chapter developed in the exhibition will also be accompanied by a publication. To date, the following have been published by Editions Chose commune: Early Times (2016), The Promise (2017), Exile (2017) and Dandaka (2018), all of which available at the museum’s bookstore.

Curation Lydia Dorner, Exhibitions’ Department, Musée de l’Elysée

Press conference: Tuesday, February 19 at 10am Vernissage: Tuesday, February 19 at 6pm

Vasantha Yogananthan, The Evening Before, Janakpur, Nepal, 2016 © Vasantha YogananthanVasantha Yogananthan, Cricket Match, Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh, India, 2013 © Vasantha Yogananthan


From May 29 to August 25, 2019Yann Mingard. Everything is up in the air, thus our vertigo

The project Everything is up in the air, thus our vertigo was created by Swiss photographer Yann Mingard between 2015 and 2018. It presents another milestone in the artist‘s career-long interest in creating „photographic diagnostics of contemporaneity“ in connection to large-scale natural, technological and social phenomena and their impact on our current state of mind and of the world at large. Besides being a european premiere, the exhibition also represents the Musée de l’Elysée’s continuing commitment and support of emerging and mid-career Swiss artists in line with shows such as the ones by Nicolas Savary and Matthias Bruggmann.

In this instance Mingard, who lives in Colombier and also has a background in horticulture, has created a body of work that has been inspired by notions and methods borrowed from geology such as sedimentation and layering. It thereby activates sometimes paradoxical and sometimes also dystopian metaphors and contexts that manage to combine phenomena from various temporalities, thereby teleporting the viewer between the instant now and our pre-historic past. To illustrate this, in one sub-chapter the artist delves into both our current mediascape as well as into the history of art, juxtaposing webcam images of skies from different Chinese metropolis with details of skies from William Turner paintings. These double movements in both time and space were inspired by the study of an atmospheric scientist studying long-term climate change through visual evidence contained in a large set of historical paintings.

By combining his own often dark photographic signature still life and landscape images with documents and footage ranging from a wide range of sources such as the US secret services and the Vatican, he manages to assemble a synoptic visual itinerary. This places side by side scenarios about near nuclear-accidents from the cold-war with de-extinction attempts of the wooly mamooth in synthetic biology and the evolution, or better inversion, of a century-old catholic vow used in the Aletsch region of Switzerland to influence the status of its glacier.

The global contexts and geological time frames of climate change and the Anthropocene – or the Great Acceleration –, as a geological period of planetary scale human intervention, are played out here as sometimes absurd and very localized and historically specific sub-chapters. Ultimately the show asks us to reconsider our own role and positioning as citizens and consumers in a world that increasingly seems often out of bound and in vertigo in the face of our destiny as a planetary network of human and non-human actors.

CataloguePublished in English and French by Editions GwinZegal, the book Everything is up in the air, thus our vertigo accompanies the exhibition

CurationLars Willumeit, Exhibitions’ Department, Musée de l’Elysée

Press conference: Tuesday, May 28 at 10amOpening: Tuesday, May 28 at 6pm

Yann Mingard, Everything is up in the air, thus our vertigo, Chapter « Ice Core », Institute for Geosciences and Environmental research, GLACE team, Grenoble, France, 2017 © Yann Mingard / Courtesy Parrotta Contemporary Art / Yann Mingard, Everything is up in the air, thus our vertigo, Chapter « Evolution », A full mount maned lion, Evolution auction, Billingshurst, UK, November 25th 2015 © Yann Mingard / Courtesy Parrotta Contemporary Art


From May 29, 2019 Conversion of the museum’s upper level, as the work on the collections begins towards the move to PLATEFORME 10

The move to PLATEFORME 10 gives the Musée de l’Elysée the opportunity to launch a major work on its collections. One of the main stages of a project such as this is stocktaking, in other words, verifying the physical presence of the works in accordance with the inventories. Stocktaking also provides an opportunity to establish the inventory of a collection at a given moment and to conceive a detailed programme of actions to be taken over several years to guarantee the correct conservation and documentation of this collection.

In order to showcase this considerable mission, the museum’s upper level will be converted to welcome visitors from May 29 2019 onwards, enabling them to follow the work progress in real time. From that date, admission to the Musée de l’Elysée will be free of charge. The Studio area, redesigned for the occasion, will base its programming on the collections and this project in collaboration with the LabElysée.

Given the magnitude of the task – the Musée de l’Elysée’s collections include over a million phototypes – preparing the works to move them will mobilise all the museum’s teams. The work will be organised by project, following a meticulously prepared protocol. First, this involves establishing the operating procedure for the work on the collections and defining how it links up with the move. Actions to be carried out rapidly to ensure the artworks’ safety before moving – to guarantee their full protection (material damage and loss) and to avoid any contamination of the new storage areas (mould, dust, etc.) – and more long-term actions will then be established. While the move and the collection project are very closely connected, in reality, they both obey a different chronological reality: the former is subject to a fixed deadline, which is not the case for the latter.

At PLATEFORME 10, the Musée de l’Elysée’s new storerooms are designed to ensure optimal conditions to conserve the artworks, respecting the various types of photographic materials. The museum will dispose of three storerooms at different temperatures: one storeroom at 6°C for negatives on supple media, one storeroom at 12°C for colour prints and one at 18°C for monochrome prints. This improvement will require considerable work sorting the collections beforehand, since until now the different media have all been stored together. For several years the museum has been confronted with the problem of lack of space and currently has three external storerooms. At PLATEFORME 10, the storage area will be tripled and the works can thus be housed together at a single site.

Plan for the layout of the upper level of the Musée de l’Elysée for the construction of the collectionsOne of the storage areas for the collections of the Musée de l’Elysée © Reto DurietIn the collections of the Musée de l’Elysée © Reto Duriet

Bureau collections

Depot téchnique

10cm

ouverture fenêtreavec plexi180xh90cm

ouverture fenêtreavec plexi180xh90cm

parois alvéoléeLab + plexi

panneau coulissant

ESPACECHANTIERCOLLECTIONS

ESPACEMEDIATIONSTUDIO

LABELISEE

Depot caisses expos ?

PROJET CHANTIER COLLECTIONS 2019MEL/05.10.2018/sr

prisesréseauDSI

panneauplexi

tableau électrique


From September 18 2019 to January 5, 2020Jan Groover

This exhibition looks back for the first time over the life’s work of Jan Groover (1943-2012), the American photographer whose personal collection was added to the Musée de l’Elysée’s collections in 2017. Based on a selection of archives from her personal collections, the exhibition will evoke not only the artist’s years in New York but also her years in France – a less known part of her career. The exhibition displays the results of the considerable research into the collection conducted by the museum – from the perspective both of conservation (in-depth analyses of processes and photographic materials, restoration processes) as well as historical documentation (contextualising the work and its critical and institutional reception).

“Formalism is everything.” Taking Jan Groover’s statement as a guiding principle, the exhibition highlights the eminently plastic design pursued by the photographer throughout her career. Conducted in a spirit of endless experimentation, this research and the creative process it involves are emphasised not only by the presentation of early tests and experiments but also by the inclusion of documents, notes and preparatory notebooks.

In the early 1970s, abandoning her earlier vocation as a painter, Jan Groover began to attract attention with her photographic polyptychs constructed around the motifs of the road, cars and the urban environment. As the early stages of her formal and aesthetic explorations, they offer an opportunity to re-examine the reflections initiated at the time by the conceptual trend (especially with regard to notions of seriality and sequence). By 1978, Jan Groover had radically changed subject, turning to still life. She embarked on pictures that were to form the main body of her work and thanks to which she remains to this day one of the eminent figures of the genre in contemporary history of the medium.

Mostly created in her studio, her compositions use a variety of processes. In the 1980s, they actively contributed to the recognition of colour photography. Despite the indisputable pre-eminence of her photographs of objects, Jan Groover’s work is also studded with landscapes, bodies and portraits, often in monochrome. She developed a keen interest in the technique of platinum and palladium, which she studied in greater depth when she arrived in France, with several series in a very specific elongated format (banquet camera) concluding the exhibition.

Publication A catalogue will be published in French and English by Éditions Noir sur Blanc - Musée de l’Elysée Lausanne collection.

CurationTatyana Franck, Director, and Émilie Delcambre-Hirsch, Exhibitions’ Department, Musée de l’Elysée

Scientific advisorPaul Frèches

Press conference: Tuesday, September 17 at 10amVernissage: Tuesday, September 17 at 6pm

Bruce Boice, Jan Groover, around 1968 © Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne – Jan Groover archivesJan Groover, Untitled, 1985 © Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne – Jan Groover archives


Prix Elysée, 3rd Editionwith the support of Parmigiani FleurierThe Nominees’ Book

The Prix Elysée is a prize to support production in the field of photography. The result of a partnership between the Musée de l’Elysée and Parmigiani Fleurier, it offers financial assistance and museum support to mid-career artists who are passionate about photography and books so that they can take a decisive next step in their career.

Published by the Musée de l’Elysée, this book presents the projects of the third Prix Elysée’s eight nominees. Laia Abril, Mathieu Asselin, Claude Baechtold, Alexandra Catière, Alinka Echeverría, Gregory Halpern, Nicola Lo Calzo and Luis Carlos Tovar were selected by the museum from among almost 325 candidates from all over the world. They each received a contribution of CHF 5 000 and were given carte blanche to launch a new project, the initial results of which are brought together in this collective publication.

By accepting to share the early stages of their new research, each nominee presents a previously unpublished part of their photographic work in progress, thus highlighting the creative process of which the public is so often unaware. Like a “making-of”, this book showcases the necessary work prior to any publication by giving pride of place to mock-ups, statements of intent, diagrams, preparatory pictures and other discussions between artists and curators.

Among other things, the Nominees’ Book will be used by an international jury that will meet next spring to select the winner whose name will be announced at the Nuit des images in 2019 and who will receive CHF 80 000 to produce his/her project and publish a book with the publisher of his/her choice. The Nominees’ Book and that of the winner are printed by one of the Sandoz Family Foundation’s printing companies.

The book is due to be released to coincide with the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie in Geneva in January 2019.

Technical informationBilingual French / English edition32 x 23.5 cm 128-144 pages1000 copies

www.prixelysee.ch

Model for the nominees’ book © Courtesy Musée de l’Elysée, LausanneThe 8 nominees for the 3rd Edition of the Prix Elysée. From left to right, standing: Laia Abril, Nicola Lo Calzo, Alinka Echeverría, Gregory Halpern, Mathieu Asselin. Seated: Claude Baechtold, Alexandra Catière, Luis Carlos Tovar © Mathilda Olmi

http://prixelysee.ch/


Partners

The Musée de l’Elysée thanks its valued partners for their support in 2019

Partenaire global Global Partner Global Partner

Partenaires privilégiés Preferred Partners Premiumpartner

Partenaires principaux Main Partners Hauptpartner

Soutiens privés, mécènes et institutionnels Private Partners, Patrons and Institutional Partners Private Förderer, Mäzene und Institutionen

Fournisseurs officiels Official suppliers Offizielle Lieferanten

Partenaires médias Media Partners Medienpartner

Partenaires Partners Partner

Le Musée de l’Elyséeest une institutiondu Canton de Vaud

The Musée de l’Elyséeis an institutionof the Canton of Vaud

Le Musée de l’Elysée remercie ses précieux partenaires pour 2018The Musée de l’Elysée thanks its valued partners for 2018Das Musée de l’Elysée dankt seinen geschätzten Partnern für 2018

ab

Das Musée de l’Elyséeist eine Einrichtung des Kantons Waadt

VINZEL

Châteaula Bâtie

Châteaula Bâtie

VINZEL

Châteaula Bâtie


The Musée de l’Elyséeis an institutionof the Canton de Vaud

The Musée de l’Elysée

The Musée de l’Elysée is one of the world’s leading museums entirely dedicated to photography. Since its establishment in 1985, it has improved public understanding of photography through innovative exhibitions, key publications and engaging events.

Recognised as a centre of expertise in the field of conservation and enhancement of visual heritage, it holds a unique collection of over one million phototypes and more than a dozen Collections and full Archives including those of Charles Chaplin, René Burri, Nicolas Bouvier, Ella Maillart or Sabine Weiss.

By 2021, the City of Lausanne and the Canton of Vaud will see three of their flagship cultural institutions brought together on a single site. The Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Design and Contemporary Applied Arts (mudac) and the Musée de l’Elysée will be housed just a few yards from the station in the former CFF locomotive hangars. www.plateforme10.ch

Practical information

Press contactJulie Maillard +41 (0)21 316 99 [email protected]

Address18, avenue de l’ElyséeCH - 1014 LausanneT + 41 21 316 99 11www.elysee.ch

Twitter @ElyseeMuseeFacebook facebook.com/elysee.lausanneInstagram @ElyseeMusee

HoursTu - Su, 11am - 6pm Closed on Mondays, except bank holidays Open until 8pm the last Thursday of the month

Free admission from May 29, 2019 onwardsUntil the museum opens on the PLATEFORME 10 site, admission to the Musée de l’Elysée will be free of charge.

Musée de l’Elysée © Reto Duriet A museum two museums, the building of the Elysée and Mudac Museum in PLATEFORME 10 © Aires Mateus

the musée de l’elysée in 2019 - musée de l'Élysée...first exhibition of vasantha...

Documents