June 23, 2024 – January 19, 2025

A Creative Impulse in Continuous Motion

A collection of contemporary art is above all a promise of discovery in permanence, an enchantment that is continually renewed and shared through encounters. Over seven months, the exhibition program “Alchemy of Encounters” presents a fresh presentation of works from the Lambert Collection across both 18th-century townhouses.
Like squares on a board game, each museum room carries a distinct theme, evoking the rich history of this extraordinary institution. In this playful arrangement, works from different epochs and genres intersect through their connections with poetry, literature, and art history. Amidst this wealth of references, books, fictions, and personal memories, several mysterious objects from neighboring museums or borrowed from friendly collections will also be on display.
Like a journey through thought and time, certain clues will remind attentive visitors and museum regulars of major past exhibitions such as “À Fripon Fripon et Demi,” “The Disappearance of Fireflies,” and “Figures of the Actor.” Some rooms will also highlight prominent figures from the collection, such as Cy Twombly, Marcel Broodthaers, Anselm Kiefer, and Richard Long, whose 1969 installation will be reactivated for the first time.
Referencing the protocols of the new American avant-gardes supported by Yvon Lambert since the 1960s, where works serve as guides to new sensory experiences, the exhibition rooms define their own rules of engagement, invoking monographic presentations, group exhibitions, and ephemeral events in turn.
This generation of pioneers championed by Yvon Lambert (conceptual artists, minimalists, land artists, artists of attitudes) will be summoned through the reactivation of the protocol imagined by John Cage in 1993—Rolywholyover A Circus. Over 60 works from the 1960s-1970s will be permanently reinstalled in public view, according to precise directives from software designed specifically for the exhibition. By subverting the usual conventions of the institution, this hanging protocol invites perpetual renewal and reveals the poetry behind the daily routines of installers, harmonizing with the artworks and museum display rules to create a ballet of a new kind.
To enrich this dynamic, the Lambert Collection will collaborate with allied artists such as Adrien Vescovi, who will offer works resonating with this hanging game. Similarly, architect and scenographer Olivier Vadrot will be invited to design a setup fostering exchange and dialogue, installed at the heart of the museum rooms and regularly activated by invited figures from the world of art and culture who will engage with the public and museum teams.

The Artists

Partnerships with the Museums of Avignon

Musée Calvet / Muséum Requien / Bibliothèque Ceccano / Archives Municipales d’Avignon / Maison Jean Vilar / Antenne avignonnaise de la BnF.