You are here

Home » Exhibits » Temporary exhibitions
Contemporary art

Floor-naments
An exhibition marking the 40th anniversary of the Centre Pompidou

Major sculptures from Centre Pompidou on view on the floors of the Monnaie de Paris

Curators : Camille Morineau, Director of Exhibitions and Collections at the Monnaie de Paris.
Based on an idea by Bernard Blistène, Director of the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre de création industrielle
Associate curators : Mathilde de Croix, Monnaie de Paris, Frédéric Paul, curator, Musée national d’art moderne - Centre de création industrielle

Sans titre - Michel BLAZY | Collection Centre Pompidou Musée national d’art moderne - Centre de création industrielle, Paris © Martin Argyroglo / Monnaie de Paris © Adagp, Paris

Camille Morineau, director of Exhibitions and Collections at the Monnaie de Paris, will launch its cultural programming by curating an exhibition based on an idea from Bernard Blistène, the director of the Musée nationale d’art moderne. The subject is of essential importance to the history of 20th century sculpture: the transition from the purely vertical aspect of the monument to one encompassing horizontality and its immediate relationship with the ground.

In 1917, with Trébuchet [Trap], Marcel Duchamp attached a coat-rack to the floor that should normally have hung on the wall: the shift from sculpted object to found object and from the vertical plane to the horizontal one are two revolutions that deeply marked the History of Sculpture in the 20th century. “Floor-naments” explores this “flattening” of one of the trade’s essential technique: instead of placing works on plinths, instead of a quest for monumentality or a choice of conventional subjects, Modern and Contemporary sculpture lies directly on the floor.
 
Hybrid objects coexist, often taken from everyday life, and noble materials interact with rough ones. This is a sculpture that develops in “its extended field”, to use Rosalind Krauss’s formulation: it no longer complies with a unity of place but reaches out beyond the enclosed space of the museum to grasp the landscape until, potentially, it merges with it. Finally, the living body appears in sculpture: performances and videos documenting this renewed form finalize a deconstruction of the classic view. All these practices overturn the notion of a single medium.
 
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Centre Pompidou, la Monnaie de Paris and the Centre Pompidou display this unique journey in the exhibition spaces of la Monnaie de Paris.
 
Pittura pura luce - Claudio PARMIGGIANI | Collection Centre Pompidou Musée national d’art moderne - Centre de création industrielle, Paris © Martin Argyroglo / Monnaie de Paris © Claudio Parmiggiani
The Monnaie de Paris celebrates 40 years of the Centre Pompidou
affiche_pompidou_40ans.png

In 2017, the Centre Pompidou celebrates its 40th birthday across France. To share this anniversary with the broadest possible audience, it has come up with a groundbreaking program of exhibitions, exceptional loans, activities and events throughout the year, in forty French cities and in partnership with other institutions.

floornaments_booklet_cover.png

Exhibition booklet

Attachment Size
Exhibition booklet Floor-naments | pdf 893 Ko
Exhibition's catalogue
Catalogue exposition A pied d'oeuvre(s)

Exhibition's catalogue of « Floor-naments » at la Monnaie de Paris, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Centre Pompidou.

Unpublished texts of Bernard Blistène, director of Musée national d’art moderne – centre de création industrielle, and Camille Morineau, director of Exhibitions and Collections Department.

64 pages, bilingual edition : french-english, 8 €
ISBN : 978-2-902004-01-0