Located in an old harbor warehouse built in the 19th Century, the Museum of Contemporary Art in the City of Bordeaux (MCACB) presents all the major movements in the art world since the 1960s. Works are displayed in monographic or thematic categories, and many young (and local French) artists are given pride of place. Visitors can admire a selection from the almost 1,700 works in the permanent collection as well as several temporary exhibits, which altogether unite around 200 artists. The first contemporary art exhibition to be held in Bordeaux took place in 1973, organized by Jean-Louis Froment. After the success of that exhibition, the Contemporary Arts Center (CAPC) was established in the ‘Laine’ Warehouse. The building, designed by Claude Deschamps), dates from 1824, when it was established with a license to import and re-export goods (including sugar, coffee, cocoa, cotton, spices etc.) from the French colonies. During the twentieth century the building fell into disuse as the main shipping activities in Bordeaux moved, and by the 1970s the warehouse was facing demolition. A campaign to save the building, have it listed in the inventory of historical monuments and purchased by the city was successful and in 1973 the building was taken over by the city and work started to transform it into an arts center. Works were divided into 2 stages, the first to stabilize the building’s structure and provide art facilities (stages, galleries and exhibition areas) was completed by the early 1980’s and took place while the CAPC built up its permanent collection and held regular exhibitions (including Andy Warhol amongst other prominent artists) in the site. In 1984, the young art center, which had quickly been noticed on the international scene, was renamed the Museum of Contemporary Art in the city of Bordeaux. At the time, only the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, could match its dedication to, and collection of, contemporary art. The first items in the collection came from loans, donations and the acquisition of works shown in exhibitions. The second stage of the works at the Laine Warehouse started in 1984 shortly after the CAPC was renamed. Again, largely being carried out while the museum remained open, the second stage saw the addition of more galleries and exhibition space, a storage facility, library, restoration facilities and restaurant. All works were completed in 1990, and since then, the museum has occupied the entire building along with the ‘Rainbow Dream’ architectural center, displaying works from the collection alongside multiple temporary exhibitions. The reopening was celebrated with a major exhibition of works by Richard Senna alongside highlights from the permanent collection. In 2006 Charlotte Laubard became head of the MCACB, taking over from Maurice Fréchure and embarked on a program to reposition the MCACB as a leading international center for contemporary art in all fields, extending the museum’s activities into music, architecture, cinema and literature as well as mass media and popular culture. Visit the museum’s website at … www.capc-bordeaux.fr
The Museum of Contemporary Art in the City of Bordeaux collection contains almost 1,700 works by some 200 artists, presenting European and American trends of the 1960s and 70s through to the modern day, including Land Art, Minimalism, Conceptual Art and Arte Povera. The basis of the collection dates to the early days of the CAPC. Acquisitions and donations were obtained in an ad-hoc manner, sometimes reinforcing the axes and the foundations of the historical collection, sometimes favoring a new generation of artists whose works took the collection in new and exciting directions. However, overall, the history of the museum’s collection reflects what was current in the emerging art scene at the time. The major historical works in the collection mostly favor the artists of the late ’60s and early ’70s (Mario Merz, Jannis Kounellis, Wolfgang Laib, Richard Serra) and are marked by a shift in thinking about art, a questioning of artistic practices and status of the work itself (Joseph Kosuth, On Kawara, Lawrence Weiner, Richard Long). The works of Bruce Nauman put the human body to the test and introduce the question of limits, both artistic and physical. The crisis of the contemporary art market in France in the late ’60s, encouraged the emergence of groups like BMPT (Buren, Mosset, Parmentier, Toroni) or ‘Supports/Surfaces’, represented in the collection by artists including Bioulès, Dezeuze , Viallat Pages. These artists, influenced by American painter such as Mark Rothko became solely concerned with the act of applying paint to canvas, producing increasingly abstract works. In contrast, the 1980’s saw a return to figurative painting in France, well represented in the museum collection with works by Francis Boisrond, Combas, Jean Charles Blais and Hervé Di Rosa as well as contemporary Spanish artists like Jose Maria Sicilia or Miquel Barceló. The “Exposure Traffic” exhibition in 1996 by Nicolas Bourriaud caused a switch in the acquisitions policy to concentrate on young artists who favor relational aesthetics and user-friendly devices (including Andrea Zittel, Dominique Gonzalez Foerster, Philippe Parreno, Liam Gillick). Other more intimate works from a generation of artists marked by the social changes of the late twentieth century include pieces by Nan Goldin, Noritoshi Hirakawa, Jack Pierson and Wolfgang Tillmans. The MCACB collection has recently added significant selections of works by Guillaume Leblon, Diego Perrone, Vincent Lamouroux and Vittorio Santoro. Recent exhibitions that update the relationship between art and popular culture triggered a new line of collection development, forming a coherent set of works acquired by artists such as Stéphane Dafflon, Olaf Breuning, Bruno Peinado and Dewar & Gicquel. The history of the collection of MCAB is also closely linked to the arts in Bordeaux, and local artists such as Buy-sellf, Lawrence Deunff, Benoît Maire, Damien Mazières, Chantal Raguet, Sabrier Jean and Jean-Paul Thibeau all featured strongly.
Two major exhibitions can currently be viewed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in the City of Bordeaux. Until the 4th of April 2011, works from the permanent collection are displayed under the title of ‘Le Chateau (The Castle)”, a journey around thirteen rooms, punctuated by the works of twenty artists and articulated around concepts such as work and the real, the material or its simulacrum, the mental or material, the entry in the space, memory, metaphor of a project. These works offer other views, other possible worlds. The exhibition features both recent acquisitions and pieces from the collection which have not been displayed for some time. “Johan Furåker: Pathological Tourism” is a major travelling exhibition on show at MCACB until 24th April. Dromomania (or travelling fugue), is an uncontrollable psychological urge to wander. People with this condition spontaneously depart from their routine, travel long distances and take up different identities and occupations. Months may pass before they return to their former identities. The term comes from the Greek, dromos (running) and mania (insanity). The most famous case was that of Jean-Albert Dadas, a Bordeaux gas-fitter. Dadas would suddenly set out on foot and reach cities as far away as Constantinople, Prague, Vienna, Istanbul, Moscow or Algeria with no memory of his travels and having always managed to lose all his papers. A medical student, Philippe Tissie, wrote about Dadas in his doctoral dissertation in 1887. In this exhibition, the Swedish artist Johan Furåker explores the fascinating story of Dadas. Many of the works in the exhibition are almost photographic hyper-realistic, but based entirely on Furåker’s imagination, since there is little in the way of a photographic record of either Dadas or Tissie (even in the Bordeaux records). Furåker Johan was born in Uppsala in 1978 and lives in Malmö (Sweden). He graduated from the Art Academy of Malmö. The exhibition at the CAPC is his first solo exhibition in an institution. It is accompanied by a catalog with texts by Gertrude Sandqvist and Alexis Vaillant.
