Beginning in February 2018, the Mucem is dedicating a new space to the display of its collections: located in Fort Saint-Jean, the Collections Room playfully calls upon the museum’s collection through semi-annual thematic exhibitions presented through the letters of the alphabet. An original way to share the diversity of the Mucem’s collections – encompassing more than 350,000 objects and more than a million items in total – with the general public: what can they tell us about the main topics relating to our fears, our beliefs and our very existence? The great variety contained within the Mucem’s collections makes it possible to cover each of these themes, “from A to Z”. This new operation will be inaugurated on 14 February 2018 with the exhibition Love from A to Z, as part of the cultural season dubbed “MP2018, Quel Amour !”
A for “Amour” (Love), B for “Bijoux” (Jewellery), C for “Cœur” (Heart), “D for “Devoir conjugal” (Conjugal duty), and the list goes on... The main themes of love are broken down into 26 letters in the exhibition Love from A to Z, which breaks down the ABCs, from the tender to the torrid, by means of the Mucem’s collections.
Seduction, declarations, engagements, eroticism, jealousy, break-ups and more: come to Fort Saint-Jean to explore, at your leisure, the multiple nuances of romantic love, as it has been expressed from the 18th century to the present day, in the societies of Europe and the Mediterranean.
“Historical” objects associated with popular tradition (wedding garments, engagement gifts, a Breton box-bed, “Who wears the trousers” fountain, etc.) rub elbows with objects collected more recently by the Mucem’s teams from Italian, Moroccan, Icelandic, Tunisian, British, Russian, French, Serbian and Israeli couples, illustrating the various ways that we love one another today, in any language. Between pledges of love and erotic curiosities, adorable Cupids and “pardon pins”, a plus rabbit and a break-up text message, the Mucem unveils its treasure trove of love, the fruit of nearly a century’s worth of field surveys and patient, loving collecting. Go on, let yourself be tempted to take a cheeky – even indiscreet – look an exhibition whose power of attraction is irresistible!
In parallel, the J4 Forum will be hosting the showcase, How to Say “I Love You” (from 14 February to 12 March 2018), proving that love is also a matter of imagination and creativity!
