MAC/VAL tells a story of art in France, creating a bridge between historical collections from the 50’s and more contemporary work. This display is focused upon our place in the world.

All themes question why we are part of this world:

• Light!
• Action!
• Walls
• Landscapes
• Modern life – what surrounds and moulds us
• Facing the world
• Existing

These are the main emphasis which guide the visitor. These themes lure us along a museum-oriented and architectural stroll where the younger artists converse with honorific figures from the French art world.
Thereby creators present in the collection correspond, live together and tell us a story regarding revitalized art.

«All eras can oppose each other, rolling around the wheel of history with each wheel having a different spoke in history such as heritage, opposition, reaction. Fifty years of creation can therefore be imagined (without ever considering it exhaustive) with encounters relating to these new acquisitions for this first presentation. This hypothesis is based on a explanatory process. The successive hangings will help envisage the varied interpretations of art work and the extent of the collection.

In this dialogue between different-period artwork, the older ones help define where to place the younger ones in art history, and the latter illuminate the former with their influence on the present.

This gathering of artists can also trigger a tension, often present in the role of contemporary art museums. On one hand there is the definition of “museum” - a collection, for the future, a heritage and what this public action appropriates regarding know-how, analysis, distance and certitude. And that which a contemporary art museum evokes – art which has recently appeared, art which is in the making, or art which will appear in the future. The unknown, or the poorly known.

This tension between these two essential assignments of a contemporary art museum is part of the challenge to present art history between the past and the future, acquired and upcoming, which relies on the relationship between the artists.

The collection embraces the public and offers dialogue and resonance between art and life, the life which create artists, the art which gives artists meaning and becomes a place for experience, the experience of art.»

Alexia Fabre, Head Curator