Archives des Travelling Objects - Barbier-Mueller Museum

Exhibition: “Jean Dubuffet, A Barbarian in Europe”

musee — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 13:19:45 +0000

On loan at the MEG :

Antoine Rabany (1844-1919) ? Barbu Müller sculpture . France, Auvergne, Chambon-sur-Lac? Late 19th-early 20th century. Volcanic stone. 51 x 19 x 23 cm. Former Josef Müller collection, acquired in 1939 from Mme Vignier, Paris. Inv. 104-9.

Musée Barbier-Mueller, photo Luis Lourenço.

L’article Exhibition: “Jean Dubuffet, A Barbarian in Europe” est apparu en premier sur Barbier-Mueller Museum.

Exhibition “Félix Fénéon: The Anarchist and the Avant-Garde-From Signac to Matisse and Beyond”

musee — Mon, 18 May 2020 14:45:48 +0000

On loan at the Museum of Modern Art, New York:

Heddle pulley. Côte d’Ivoire, Southern Guro region. Wood. H. 21 cm. Former Félix Fénéon, Stephen Chauvet and Morris Pinto collections. Inv. 1008-10. Musée Barbier-Mueller.

Musée Barbier-Mueller. Photo Studio Ferrazzini Bouchet.

Friends of the Musée Barbier-Mueller can have free access to the exhibition by writing an email 48h before their visit to jcmappus@barbier-mueller.ch or calling +41 22 312 02 72 and presenting their 2020 member card at the MoMA front desk.

L’article Exhibition “Félix Fénéon: The Anarchist and the Avant-Garde-From Signac to Matisse and Beyond” est apparu en premier sur Barbier-Mueller Museum.

Exhibition “Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara”

musee — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 11:34:18 +0000

On loan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:

Statuette with raised arms. Dogon, Mali. 15th-18th century. Wood, ochre patina. H. 76 cm. Former Emil Storrer, Josef Mueller, Barbier-Mueller collections, acquired circa 1950. Inv. 1004-3. Musée Barbier-Mueller.
Ornament. Djenne-jeno culture, Inland Niger Delta, Mali. 13th-15th century. Cuprous alloy. H. 11.4 cm. Former Barbier-Mueller collection. Inv. 1004-85. Musée Barbier-Mueller.
Pendant. Djenne-jeno culture, Inland Niger Delta, Mali. 13th-16th century. Cuprous alloy. H. 9.6 cm. Former Barbier-Mueller collection. Inv. 1004-125. Musée Barbier-Mueller.

Friends of the musée Barbier-Mueller can have free access to the exhibition upon showing their member card.

L’article Exhibition “Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara” est apparu en premier sur Barbier-Mueller Museum.

Exhibition “Gods, Directions for Use”

musee — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 13:33:58 +0000

On loan four objects of the Musée Barbier-Mueller collection

Three ifa divination trays. Yoruba, Nigeria. Wood. W. 30.5 cm; 32.8 cm; 43 cm. Inv. 1011-74c; 1011-74d; 1011-167. Musée Barbier-Mueller.

Ifa is a form of West African divination centred on the Yoruba, though it has been taken up by neighbouring peoples. Its first step involves translating the way manipulated objects fall to make marks on the central panels of these boards. The boards are dusted with ground residue from termite-eaten wood to provide a suitable medium and although the deity to be invoked is Orunmila, he is approached throught the trickster, messenger god, Eshu, whose face occurs in the outer perimeter of each board and normally serves to orientate it for the diviner. Boards of famous diviners are held to acquire special powers over time.

Effigy of a deceased person sitting on a box. Bembe, Republic of Congo. Hard wood, shiny patina, pearls and resin. H. 28 cm. Inv. 1021-12. Musée Barbier-Mueller.

The figure is sitting on a box containing a closed receptacle made of a pliable material decorated with imported pearls and brass nails. It may contain relics such as nails and hair. Thus, the sculpture is both a reliquary figure and an image commemorating the deceased.

The Friends of the Musée Barbier-Mueller enjoy free entrance to the exhibitions presenting loans from the Musée Barbier-Mueller.

L’article Exhibition “Gods, Directions for Use” est apparu en premier sur Barbier-Mueller Museum.

Musée Barbier-Mueller 40th Anniversary, An Exhibition Outside the Museum’s Walls at the Fondation de l’Hermitage

musee — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 10:35:26 +0000

In 2004 the Fondation de l’Hermitage had the privilege of exhibiting for a few months the treasures of pre-Colombian ceramics from the Barbier-Mueller collection. At present, it is an honour and a pleasure to welcome one of the major pieces from the collection, a nineteenth-century Teke-Tsaayi mask. This extremely rare mask with a very pure geometrical decoration belonged to André Derain, one of the first Western artists to take an interest in cultures outside Europe. In 1906 the young Fauve painter trembled with emotion at the sight of the African art collections in the British Museum: “It was mind-boggling, terrifying in its expression”, he exclaimed at the time, fascinated by these “forms that issued forth from the out of doors, the light”. The Table (1904–1905) a painting by Derain done shortly before that crucial confrontation and belonging to the collection of the Bührle Foundation, encounters that mask in the halls of the Hermitage. By its simplified forms, its strong lines and its powerful colours, this painting manifests a desire for new artistic resources, an aspiration to “escape the circle in which the realists enclosed us”, and which the discovery of African art would decisively encourage.

Sylvie Wuhrmann, Director of the Fondation de l’Hermitage

L’article Musée Barbier-Mueller 40th Anniversary, An Exhibition Outside the Museum’s Walls at the Fondation de l’Hermitage est apparu en premier sur Barbier-Mueller Museum.

Musée Barbier-Mueller 40th Anniversary, An Exhibition Outside the Museum’s Walls at The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum

musee — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 10:25:44 +0000

This Sri Lankan face mask, distorted by a “desperate rictus”, was chosen by our museum because it immediately made me think of the gueules cassées of World War I a hundred years ago, soldiers whose faces were completely ravaged by the industrial mechanization of war, their haggard appearance caused by the physical and psychological suffering inflicted on them. The horror of what they had seen, endured, or perpetrated and the ensuing trauma transformed and marked them forever.

Beyond that first visual reminiscence, the mask could symbolize all the suffering that human beings inflict on their fellows, in a litany whose origins remain unknown and whose end is unforeseeable. In actuality, the mask is used in rituals of exorcism to fight against certain diseases.

Is it possible to fight against war? Will it be eradicated someday through the recognition that war never solved anything? Is exorcism all that remains?

Roger Mayou, Director of MICR

L’article Musée Barbier-Mueller 40th Anniversary, An Exhibition Outside the Museum’s Walls at The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum est apparu en premier sur Barbier-Mueller Museum.

Musée Barbier-Mueller 40th Anniversary, An Exhibition Outside the Museum’s Walls at the MEG

musee — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 16:18:20 +0000

The Musée d’Ethnographie of Geneva (MEG) and the Musée Barbier-Mueller have coexisted in the same city since 1977. What they have in common is the study and celebration of the creativity of cultures from the five continents. The MEG, however, is a museum of ethnography, with a great diversity of objects and documents to provide information about these cultures, whereas the Musée Barbier-Mueller is an art museum, where the most accomplished masterpieces of great artists, known or anonymous, from the most varied traditions stand side by side. Another fundamental difference is that the collections in the MEG are of very diverse provenances and have been shaped by generations of directors and curators, while the collections of the Musée Barbier-Mueller can be attributed to the eye of its founder, Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller, who took on the mission of developing a collection begun by Josef Mueller in 1907. The MEG is now honoured to welcome, for the duration of the Barbier-Mueller’s anniversary events in 2017, these few pieces, some of the most important from the art museum’s Oceanic collection.

Boris Wastiau, Director of the MEG

L’article Musée Barbier-Mueller 40th Anniversary, An Exhibition Outside the Museum’s Walls at the MEG est apparu en premier sur Barbier-Mueller Museum.

Musée Barbier-Mueller 40th Anniversary, An Exhibition Outside the Museum’s Walls at the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac

musee — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 16:15:48 +0000

The Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac is happy to salute the fortieth anniversary of the Musée Barbier-Mueller. The Geneva institution, in opening to the public its collections of non-Western art, pioneered the recognition of the world’s cultures and arts, rigorously balancing a scientific approach and aesthetic imperatives.

Monique and Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller have demonstrated a remarkable generosity toward French public collections. Whether through the Nigeria collections, then the Indonesia collections, sold to the Museums of France, or major pieces that went to the Pavillon des Sessions at the Musée du Louvre, or, finally, regular gifts such as the treasure of Indonesian jewelry, they have permanently enriched the collections of the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac. Two important masks from New Ireland in Papua New Guinea have come from Geneva to celebrate our close relationship. Upon entering the museum, visitors will immediately be offered a vision of the genius of Oceanic art, which we share in a spirit of friendship.

The Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac Museum wishes you a very happy anniversary!

Stéphane Martin, President, and Yves Le Fur, General Curator for Heritage at the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac

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Musée Barbier-Mueller 40th Anniversary, An Exhibition Outside the Museum’s Walls at the Musée d’art et d’histoire, Geneva

musee — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 15:46:27 +0000

This bust of an officer from Trajan’s time resonates with two prestigious works exhibited at the Musée d’art et d’histoire and also complements the series of funerary monuments, which include both sarcophagi and closures for burial niches.

Among the jewels of the Roman collection are a full-length statue of a triumphator from the region of Ancona (inv. 8938). It represents the front view of a nude man with a mantle over his shoulder; in his left hand, he holds a sword inserted into its sheath. Whereas the nude body is idealized, the head with prominent features is that of a man of mature years. Is this Trajan or his father? The identification is not certain. A bust of Emperor Trajan, larger than life-size, dressed in a breastplate and military coat (inv. 19049), enriches the gallery of Roman portraits. The unknown officer in the Barbier-Mueller collection sports the same hairstyle as the emperor, with locks combed forward to form a fringe on the forehead. That act of imitation is a sign of loyalty.

Béatrice Blandin, Curator of the Archaeology Department at the Musée d’art et d’histoire, Geneva

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Musée Barbier-Mueller 40th Anniversary, An Exhibition Outside the Museum’s Walls at the Centre d’art contemporain, Geneva

musee — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 15:12:25 +0000

This female figurine, dating to the third millennium BC, is from Mehrgarh (present-day Pakistan), one of the most ancient archaeological sites in South Asia. The work, generously entrusted to the Center by the Musée Barbier-Mueller on the occasion of its fortieth anniversary, finds a particular resonance in some fifteen sculptures by Roberto Cuoghi exhibited at the same time. Hybrid and deformed, these figures seem to belong to time immemorial. Cuoghi, who is passionate about ancient cultures, studied Assyrian rituals and the Assyrian language for two years and produced a monumental reproduction of a figurine of the Mesopotamian demon Pazuzu, held at the Musée du Louvre. The voluptuous forms of the Mehrgarh figurine, associated with the cult of fertility, stand in contrast to the truncated bodies created by Cuoghi, but all attest to the evocative force of a divine and ancestral form of representation.

Andrea Bellini, Director of Centre d’art contemporain

L’article Musée Barbier-Mueller 40th Anniversary, An Exhibition Outside the Museum’s Walls at the Centre d’art contemporain, Geneva est apparu en premier sur Barbier-Mueller Museum.