Matières en lumière. Sculptures de Rodin à Louise Bourgeois

The exhibition offers a survey of two hundred years of creative expression, focusing on works that have maintained a connection with the figure, nature, or objects, a connection that has been endlessly reexamined.

The Museum’s second floor features a 700 m2 space that is beautifully lit from the north. This lighting is identical to what artists traditionally sought in a studio space because the light is uniform throughout the seasons. These were studios that witnessed the birth of so many works, modeled in clay or plaster, carved in stone or wood. For the first time since the museum’s new building was inaugurated, MCBA is taking advantage of this grand uninterrupted platform and devoting it to sculpture.

The exhibition offers an overview of two hundred years of artmaking, highlighting works that maintain a connection — endlessly reexamined — with the figurative, nature, or the object. It questions the use of materials, the gestures employed, the limits of sculpture, and its lasting redefinition. A major piece by Richard Long that measures nine meters in diameter, entitled Wood Fire Circle, is an exceptional loan from a private collection and a center piece here. Eight thematic sections unfold around it, and deal with the questions raised by this singular form of art, by the meeting of material and light. Over sixty works are on display, in dialogue, each responding to others in the show. A dancer by Edgar Degas strikes a pose opposite Jeff Koons’ ballerinas; the couple embracing in Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss recall a second couple in Lynn Chadwick’s Conjunction XII. Visitors are invited to multiply the comparisons, the contrasts, and the perspectives for themselves by freely wandering throughout this magnificent space.

Curator: Camille Lévêque-Claudet