At last the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco (NMNM) is showing some of its artworks acquired over the last 10 years. Two sections, two venues,one unforgettable experience.
A little over a decade since the prefiguration project for the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco was born (2003) and five years since Villa Paloma opened, the time has more than come to shine a light on an institution still little known to the general public. In 2009, the idea of building a museum over the sea was abandoned in favour of a "villa museum" comprised of the Paloma and Sauber buildings, respectively at the entrance to the Principality and on its seafront. This,
Marie-Claude Beaud (Toulon museums, Fondation Cartier Paris, Mudam, Luxembourg) has been running since 2009, its collections progressively enriched by purchases and donations.
Many marvels
The dual exhibition Building a Collection now on at Villa Paloma (to 7 June) and Villa Sauber (to 27 September) gives an idea of the artworks acquired over the last 10 years, through 37 artists and... less than 10% of the entire collection! This restricted selection is focused on contemporary creativity, that being, in the NMNM's view, "an absolute necessity [...] as it's thanks to living artists that the connection between past, present and future is maintained". Nonetheless remembering that the museum's storerooms also hold the old Musée des Beaux-Arts's historic collections, the Société des Bains de Mer's showbiz-art collection (7000 items), and the Madeleine de Galéa collection of dolls and automata, all regularly loaned out and studied. The relative freedom to do as it sees fit accorded the museum has also enabled it to acquire important pieces worthy of the world's finest collections. Each room displays leading internationally renowned artists, among them Jan Fabre, Hubert Duprat, Daniel Gustav Cramer, Rebacca Horn, Camille Henrot, Hans-Peter Feldmann and Su-Mei Tse, to name but a few.
By Mireille Sartore
Villa Paloma
56 boulevard du Jardin Exotique
Tél. +377 98 98 48 60
Villa Sauber
19 avenue Princesse Grace
Tél. +377 98 98 91 26
Vue d'exposition NMNM Villa Sauber, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Schattenspiel (Shadow Play), détail, 2002.
© NMNM/Andrea Rossetti 2015
Côteweb 2021, création de site Internet sur Nice