If the dream of flying has accompanied man since Icarus, it is really with the idea of an inflatable sheath, taking the place of the deployment of wings, that it became effective starting from the 18th century. The history of inflatables, parallel with that of aeronautics, is that of the development of a more organic relationship to the aerial. The sheath is a metaphor for the skin, a protection for the body, enabling an immediate proximity with the air. The inflatable carries within itself the idea of the pneuma of breathing; an immediate relationship to the living, to the event, to life.

The exhibition reveals this human dimension of the «pneumatic», from the first industrial and military exploitations (airships, weather balloons, floating assemblies, inflatable decoys...) to the experiences developed by numerous artists designers and architects.

In the middle of the 20th century the appearance of new materials (rubber and derivatives, plastics, woven fishnet...) multiplied the possible uses and practical applications of inflatable structures.

In keeping with the "achieved utopia" by Richard Buckminster Fuller, numerous architects gave inflatables an architectonic credibility, such as Victor Lundy, Walter Bird, Frei Otto, Gernot Minke, Cedric Price and Arthur Quarmby. In May 1967, a symposium on the subject created a stir in Stuttgart and would constitute the reference for the collectives in search of mobile and modular architecture like Archigram, Ant Farm, Eventstructure Research Group, thus for artist the world over such as Graham Stevens or Panamarenko, architects (Jean Aubert, Jean-Paul Jungmann, Antoine Stinco, Hans Walter Muller, Johanne et Gernot Nalbach or Günther Domenig and Eilfried Huth). But it was through a a few mythical exhibitions that the inflatable would find an international echo and a public image, notably the exhibition at the Musée d’art moderne of the City of Paris in 1968, and the pavilions of the Universal Exhibition in Osaka in 1970 (of which those of Yutaka Murata) and finally Documenta V in 1972 in Kassel where artists and architects such as Christo, Hans Hollein, Haus-Rucker-Co, Coop Himmelb(l)take over public spaces with their works.

Henceforth, the inflatable, takes the form of furniture, dwellings, structures. The plastic polymers became more common and opened an extraordinary blossoming of creations, of forms and of colours. Furniture by Bernard Quentin, A.J.S. Aérolande, Quasar, De Pas, Urbino and Lomazzi, would accompany the pop art imagery and that of a "lucidity" of decorations and uses.

The ecological debate would soon take hold of the subject, for if at that time we were not yet wary of plastic and of other derivatives of petrol, inflatable architecture on the contrary appeared to be an "architecture of the air ", removing itself from the definitive and irreversible entry into time and space, escaping foundations and heavy materials. In England for example, the artist Graham Stevens worked on giving an ecological dimension to the use of pneumatic structures.

It also acquired a critical and political function. The ephemeral nature of the inflatable does indeed give it an intemporal dimension, that of the event, of the action, of participation. It is the instrument of an intervention, which did not escape artists such as those of the Gruppo N, or Piero Manzoni, Yves Klein, Hans Haacke, Otto Piene, Marinus Boezem, Lars Englund, Andy Warhol… and the architects who would make it the instrument of an alternative criticism like UFO, Utopia or the creators of the Viennese radical scene. Harbingers of the contestation which rumbled amongst the young generation, the inflatables act as a prism for viewing the world which surrounds us in another way (like the Urboeffimeri of UFO) and in order to live together differently (Instant City, Ibiza, 1971). The inflatable is thus used by the group A.J.S. Aérolande, made up of Jean Aubert, Jean-Paul Jungmannand Antoine Stinco, to call into question the competition the prix de Rome just before May ‘68 and to propose a new way of building, modular, festive and endlessly transformable.

After the petrol crisis at the end of the 1970’s which would sound the death knell of an ideology of the use of plastics, the inflatable progressively faded away, the post-modern current jeopardising the image of this industrial product. But since about ten years, with the appearance of more ecological new technologies, the inflatable has regained its reputation and represents an alternative for a number of architects (Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Nicholas Grimshaw, Arata Isozaki, Herzog & de Meuron, Snøhetta…). The inflatable enables the reinvention of spatial possibilities, introducing different perceptive and cognitive experiences. The recent appearance of organic textiles allows us to foresee the development of research where the inflatable could offer new architectural and design options and introduce new constructive principles, which the experiences of Achim Menges, amid.cero9, Kengo Kuma, Mad Architects Zero, Selgascano demonstrate...

Curators: Frédéric Migayrou, Deputy Director - Musée national d’art moderne – Centre of Industrial Creation, Centre Pompidou and Valentina Moimas, custodian of the department of Architecture at the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre of Industrial Creation Centre Pompidou.

"For myself, a stained-glass window represents the transparent partition between my heart and the world’s heart. The stained-glass window is thrilling, it needs to be serious and fascinating. It has to live by the light which passes through it." Marc Chagall

From November 2020 to March 2021, the Centre Pompidou -Metz is to present an unprecedented Chagall exhibition. The Emissary of Light which will explore the importance of light and of the stained-glass window in the artist’s work.

Models of stained-glass windows produced for numerous buildings, in the Grand Est region (Metz, Reims, Sarrebourg), neighbouring Germany (Mayence) and at the international level (Israel, United States, England, Switzerland) will be brought together for the first time and will be matched with an important group of paintings sculptures, ceramics and drawings from the collections of the Centre Pompidou, the Musée national Marc Chagall de Nice, from international museums and private collections. These creations will enable the rediscovery of an oeuvre which freely passes from one technique to another, from the secular to the sacred, from Judaism to Christianity, from shared history to the intimacy of the artist, between tradition and subversion and outside of any dogma. It will highlight the historical and political context of each commission and clarify the way in which Chagall used and transformed signs and symbols in a humanist ideal of liberty and peace.

In post Second World War France and in the context of the renewal of sacred art, Chagall attempted to reinvigorate "exhausted humanity, during a time when the old religious or other ideals were withering and aspired to catch a glimpse of a ray of light which would illuminate a new meaning of life". Convinced of the necessity of a supernatural power for the survival of any society or individual, Chagall’s work revives the polysemous nature of religious signs, their porous nature, and the possibility of a non-conformist narrative, freely scattered with personal recollections.

The stained-glass window represents for Chagall the place par excellence for the apparition of this invisible force. Above and beyond a technique, he considers it as a phenomenon, "something mystical which passes through the window". The artist exalts the glass matter which fusions with painting, which in turn joins forces with celestial beams and architecture to open up the work, becoming an interface, to new dimensions. This alchemy, results from the association of the talent of the painter with the unique skills of the master glass makers Charles Marq and Brigitte Simon. The exhibition will show the different stages of the elaboration of a stained-glass window, from the first drawings to its integration into the architecture.

This exhibition will be part of the celebrations for the eight-hundredth anniversary of the cathedral in Metz, in which several stained-glass windows were created by Marc Chagall. It will also mark a high point in the Centre Pompidou’s existence, which will celebrate this very year, its tenth anniversary.

Curator:
The curation of this exhibition will be led by Elia Biezunski, Mission Head assigned to the Director of the Centre Pompidou-Metz, with the collaboration of Anne Dopffer and Jean-Baptiste Delorme, curators of the exhibition at the Musée national Marc Chagall, Nice.

Exhibition designed in partnership with the Musée national Marc Chagall, Nice

Pour les passionnés et les curieux, une visite exceptionnelle de deux heures vous fera pénétrer au cœur de l'univers d'Yves Klein. Accompagné par un médiateur, vous découvrirez une nouvelle approche de l’art détachée de toute matérialité, qu'il a partagé avec de nombreux artistes européens au lendemain de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Bousculés par la conquête de l’espace, ces artistes s’approprient le ciel à travers des représentations du cosmos et des créations de sculptures aériennes. Avec Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein explore le mouvement spatialiste qui définit une unité du temps et de l’espace née de l’interaction avec le spectateur. L’espace est selon lui habité par la sensibilité de chacun : il développe alors une « Architecture de l’air » (1958-1961), où le ciel, infini et immatériel, devient son atelier.

Pour les passionnés et les curieux, une visite exceptionnelle de deux heures vous fera pénétrer au cœur de l'univers du Folklore. Accompagné par un médiateur, vous découvrirez les relations, parfois ambigües, qu’entretiennent les artistes avec le folklore, de l’emprunt formel à l’imitation d’une méthode, de la fascination à l’ironie critique. Se concentrant essentiellement sur une définition et une histoire européennes du terme, l’exposition Folklore offre également une rencontre entre histoire de l’art et histoire des sciences humaines, car elle dévoile en parallèle l’invention et l’institutionnalisation progressive d’une discipline, notamment grâce aux fonds du Mucem, héritier du Musée national des arts et traditions populaires.

CALENDRIER JUILLET, SEPTEMBRE 2020

Samedi 25 juillet à 15h

Samedi 26 septembre à 15h