Musée d'art moderne et d'art contemporain
Encyclopedia
The Musée d'art moderne et d'art contemporain, also known as MAMAC, is a museum dedicated to modern art
and contemporary art
, opened on 21 June 1990, in Nice
.
. The monumentality of the project developed on the cover of Paillon allow to connect through a terrace, called the Promenade des Arts, the museum to the theater. With its square plan, the architecture of the building is inspired by the neo-classicism rules. The available area is approximately 3,800 m2 distributed over nine showrooms. The facades are covered with smooth white Carrara
marble. The entrance and the shop are located at the level of the esplanade which overlooks the Place Yves Klein. The gallery spaces are devoted to temporary exhibitions on the first floor, and to the permanent collections on the second and third floors. The museum is free and opens daily from 10.00 am to 6:00 pm, except Mondays and some holidays.
In October 2001, Niki de Saint Phalle bequeathed a large part of her collection to the city of Nice for the museum. Donation consists of 170 works including 63 paintings and sculptures, 18 prints, 40 lithographs, serigraphs and 54 many original documents.
In 2004, artist Albert Chubac gave a hundred works to the museum.
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
and contemporary art
Contemporary art
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
, opened on 21 June 1990, in Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
.
Location
The museum is located near the Place Garibaldi. It was designed by architects Yves Bayard and Henri Vidal, and is shaped like a tetrapod arch straddling the course of PaillonPaillon
The Paillon is a coastal river of the Alpes-Maritimes that flows into the Mediterranean Sea in Nice, near the old district. Its source is north of Lucéram...
. The monumentality of the project developed on the cover of Paillon allow to connect through a terrace, called the Promenade des Arts, the museum to the theater. With its square plan, the architecture of the building is inspired by the neo-classicism rules. The available area is approximately 3,800 m2 distributed over nine showrooms. The facades are covered with smooth white Carrara
Carrara
Carrara is a city and comune in the province of Massa-Carrara , notable for the white or blue-grey marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione River, some west-northwest of Florence....
marble. The entrance and the shop are located at the level of the esplanade which overlooks the Place Yves Klein. The gallery spaces are devoted to temporary exhibitions on the first floor, and to the permanent collections on the second and third floors. The museum is free and opens daily from 10.00 am to 6:00 pm, except Mondays and some holidays.
Collections
The collections present an overview of the artistic creation avant-garde, from the late 1950s to today, which belong around different movements:- The European New Realists with ArmanArmanArman was a French-born American artist. Born Armand Pierre Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman is a painter who moved from using the objects as paintbrushes to using them as the painting itself...
, Yves KleinYves KleinYves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...
and Martial RaysseMartial RaysseMartial Raysse is a French artist born in Golfe-Juan on 12 February 1936. He lives in Issigeac - France.-Biography: Raysse was born in a ceramicist family in Vallauris and began to paint and write poetry at age 12. After studying and practising athleticism at a high level, he began to accumulate...
, alongside César BaldacciniCésar BaldacciniCésar Baldaccini , usually called César was a noted French sculptor.César was at the forefront of the Nouveau Réalisme movement with his radical compressions , expansions , and fantastic representations of animals and insects.- Biography :He...
, Christo, Niki de Saint PhalleNiki de Saint PhalleNiki de Saint Phalle, born Catherine-Marie-Agnès-Brandon Fal de Saint Phalle was a French sculptor, painter, and film maker.-The early years:...
, Mimmo RotellaMimmo RotellaDomenico "Mimmo" Rotella, , was an Italian artist and poet best known for his works of décollage and psychogeographics, made from torn advertising posters.Rotella was born in Catanzaro, Calabria....
, François Dufrêne, Jean TinguelyJean TinguelyJean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...
, Gérard DeschampsGérard DeschampsGérard Deschamps is a French contemporary artist. Deschamps lived in Lyon until 1944, when he then moved to Paris, where he lived until 1970.- Career :His first exhibition took place in 1955 at the Gallery Fachetti in Paris...
, Daniel SpoerriDaniel SpoerriDaniel Spoerri is a Swiss artist and writer born in Romania, who has been called "the central figure of European post-war art" and "one of the most renown[ed] [artists] of the 20th century." Spoerri is best known for his "snare-pictures," a type of assemblage or object art, in which he captures...
, Raymond HainsRaymond HainsRaymond Hains was a French artist and photographer.-Biography:In 1945, Hains briefly enrolled in the sculpture course at the École des Beaux-Arts, Rennes and met Jacques de la Villeglé that same year. He then collaborated with E. Sougez as a photographer for France-Illustration...
, Jacques VillegléJacques VillegléJacques Villeglé, born Jacques Mahé de la Villeglé is a French mixed-media artist and affichiste famous for his alphabet with symbolic letters and decollage with ripped or lacerated posters...
; the Americans Pop artPop artPop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
is represented by a collection of works by Roy LichtensteinRoy LichtensteinRoy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...
, Robert IndianaRobert IndianaRobert Indiana is an American artist associated with the Pop Art movement.-Life and work:Robert Indiana was born Robert Clark in New Castle, Indiana. His family relocated to Indianapolis, where he graduated from Arsenal Technical High School...
, Andy WarholAndy WarholAndrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, James RosenquistJames RosenquistJames Rosenquist is an American artist and one of the protagonists in the pop-art movement.-Background and education:...
, Claes OldenburgClaes OldenburgClaes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...
, Tom WesselmannTom WesselmannTom Wesselmann was an American artist associated with the Pop art movement who worked in painting, collage and sculpture.-Early years:...
, and neo-Dadaist assemblages of Rauschenberg. - The School of Nice: Sacha SosnoSacha SosnoAlexandre Joseph Sosnowsky, , better known by his name Sacha Sosno, is an internationally renowned French sculptor and painter. Working most of the time in Nice, in the last decades he has achieved international recognition for his monumental outdoor sculptures in Côte d'Azur, France...
, Robert Malavaal and Ben VautierBen VautierBen Vautier , also known simply as Ben, is a French artist.Vautier lives and works in Nice, where he ran a record shop called Magazin between 1958 and 1973...
is close to several representative works of FluxusFluxusFluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
. - The Arte PoveraArte PoveraArte Povera is a modern art movement. The term was introduced in Italy during the period of upheaval at the end of the 1960s, when artists were taking a radical stance. Artists began attacking the values of established institutions of government, industry, and culture, and even questioning whether...
includes artists such as Pier Paolo Calzolari, Michelangelo PistolettoMichelangelo PistolettoMichelangelo Pistoletto is an Italian painter, action and object artist, and art theorist. Pistoletto is acknowledged as one of the main representatives of the Italian Arte Povera...
, Enrica Borghi and Jan FabreJan FabreJan Fabre is a Belgian multidisciplinary artist, playwright, stage director, choreographer and designer.He studied at the Municipal Institute of Decorative Arts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp...
. - Supports / Surfaces are represented through Noel Dolla, Marcel Alocco, André-Pierre Arnal, Louis Cane, Daniel DezeuzeDaniel DezeuzeDaniel Dezeuze is a French artist and a founding member of the French group of artists called Supports-Surfaces. This group started to form in 1966...
, Vincent Bouliès, Marcel Devade, Christian Jaccard, and Claude Pagès and Bernard Viallat. - The American minimalism and color field is shown with Morris Louis, Kenneth NolandKenneth NolandKenneth Noland was an American abstract painter. He was one of the best-known American Color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School...
, Jules OlitskiJules OlitskiJules Olitski was an American abstract painter, printmaker, and sculptor.-Early life:Olitski was born Jevel Demikovski in Snovsk, in the Russian SFSR , a few months after his father, a commissar, was executed by the Russian government...
, Ellsworth KellyEllsworth KellyEllsworth Kelly is an American painter and sculptor associated with Hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and the Minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing the simplicity of form found similar to the work of John McLaughlin. Kelly often employs bright colors to...
, Larry Poons and Frank StellaFrank StellaFrank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
.
Donations and deposits
Since the opening, Klein has a room which displays about twenty of his works, several of them belonging to the permanent collection of the museum.In October 2001, Niki de Saint Phalle bequeathed a large part of her collection to the city of Nice for the museum. Donation consists of 170 works including 63 paintings and sculptures, 18 prints, 40 lithographs, serigraphs and 54 many original documents.
In 2004, artist Albert Chubac gave a hundred works to the museum.