Cultural season 2024-2025

Editorial by the Director of the National Museums of the 20th century in the Alpes-Maritimes

From one season to the next

After a very busy 2023-2024 season, the autumn handover between two cultural seasons at the National Museums of the 20th century in the Alpes-Maritimes is going smoothly. Some of the summer's key exhibitions left a lasting impression, such as Awena Cozannet ‘s residency and exhibition at the Musée national Pablo Picasso , La Guerre et la Paix (War and Peace) organised in partnership with the Musée Magnelli, Musée de la Céramique, and the exhibition-event Chagall politique. Le Cri de liberté at the Musée national Marc Chagall in Nice. Other projects such as the exhibition Léger et les Nouveaux Réalismes. Les collections du MAMAC in Biot , which closes on 18 November.

From 12 October to 20 January 2025, the Musée Chagall will be presenting an immersive installation by Jérémy Griffaud,Sous le ciel (Under the Sky ), inspired by Le Message Biblique (The Biblical Message), a cycle of paintings by Marc Chagall and the heart of the museum's permanent collection. The video artist has created an original panoramic mapping covering the surface of the walls, based on preparatory drawings and 3D printed objects. The exhibition thus takes the form of a new experience of painting, between materiality and symbolic language, both enhanced by the contribution of digital technology.

The cultural programme has not been outdone in this Olympic year, with the recent holding of a multidisciplinary symposium devoted to Fernand Léger and the representations of the body and movement in his work. Conceived in partnership with the University of Franche-Comté and the Musée national du Sport, this meeting is the fruit of the research of some fifteen researchers brought together by Christian Vivier, an academic specialising in sport, who spent a year in a research residency at the Musée national Fernand Léger, thanks to the support of the CNRS and the Ministry of Culture. The conference papers will shortly be available online on our website.

As part of its efforts to combat discrimination and anti-Semitism, the museum has joined forces with the Musée de la Résistance azuréeenne and the Association des amis du musée national Marc Chagall to offer an exceptional lecture by Jean-Louis Paniccaci on the subject of Provence in the dark years (1940-1944). With the same aim of raising awareness of the reality of historical events, a resource pack featuring key themes from the political Chagall exhibition will be put online at the end of the year.

2025 coincides with the 70th anniversary of Fernand Léger's death in 1955. To commemorate this date, the Musée national Fernand Léger will be offering a number of highlights throughout the year, in the form of artistic events representative of the spirit of sharing and the creative abundance of Fernand Léger.

These include the creation of a puppet and object theatre show-exhibition by the Atelier des Songes company in autumn 2025. The exhibition programme is also shaping up nicely, with a new tour of the collections this winter focusing on colour, an element that Fernand Léger called ‘as essential as fire and water’. In the spring, the museum's exhibition spaces will be taken over by the artist Karina Bisch, who will be presenting a spectacular installation combining painting, textiles and monumentality, entitled La Tête dans le décor.

In May 2025, the Musée national Marc Chagall will host an exhibition dedicated to Marc Chagall's mosaic creations. Part of a cycle devoted to the various techniques used by the painter, the exhibition co-produced by the GrandPalaisRmn will be accompanied by a richly illustrated scientific catalogue. Inaugurated at the same time as the Marc Chagall Association's catalogue raisonné of the mosaics goes online, the exhibition will be presented in Nice and then in Ravenna, a leading mosaic city, in autumn 2025 as part of the Ravenna International Mosaic Biennial.

Also during the summer, thanks to an exceptional partnership with the Emile Hughes Foundation in Vence, the town where he lived from 1950 to 1966, Chagall will be honoured with an exhibition entitled Marc Chagall, les années vençoises. Finally, in summer 2025, the Musée national Pablo Picasso, La Guerre et la Paix, will be staging an exhibition of the artist's work.

Finally, in summer 2025, the Musée national Pablo Picasso, La Guerre et la Paix, will present an exhibition by the artist Pascale Marthine Tayou, conceived in dialogue with the Picasso chapel. A new mediation system will also enable visitors to discover Picasso's manifesto for peace in a different way.

At the heart of this ambitious and varied cultural season are celebrations of music, dance, art history, aesthetics, cinema, circus and public reading. This programme has been made possible by the commitment of our long-standing partners: the Nice Opera Philharmonic Orchestra, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, the Université Côte d'Azur, Piste d'Azur and the Biot media library.

And for those who enjoy the thrill of being immersed in art, don't forget the virtual tour of the Picasso chapel, now available to the general public via our website ! Thank you to our cultural partners for their trust and loyalty, and thank you to the many visitors who follow us in our desire to continue to make our museums places to live.

Anne Dopffer General Curator of Heritage Director of the National Museums of the 20th century in the Alpes-Maritimes