The 1980s in the Lambert Collection
From March 28, 2026 – all year round
In order to renew perspectives on the permanent works housed in Avignon, the Collection Lambert has opened the spaces of the Hôtel de Caumont on a continuous basis. The galleries now host monographic presentations of artists or highlight key periods in the collection and in the history of contemporary art, following a rotation throughout the year.
Current developments in the art scene in France and abroad, as well as encounters with artists from all disciplines, provide opportunities for these frequent gallery changes. Each of these recurring occasions showcases the richness of this Avignon-based collection, unique in Europe, and breathes a particular vitality into it—continually renewing curiosity for the Collection Lambert and its masterpieces, which invite constant rediscovery.
The title is borrowed from a text written by the renowned gallerist Paula Cooper in the catalogue Rendez-vous, published on the occasion of the inauguration of the Collection Lambert in 2000: “Recollections: We are therefore extremely fortunate that Yvon has made his personal collection available to the public so that everyone may see it, study it, reflect upon it, and revisit it.”
During the group exhibition New York/New Wave, organized by Diego Cortez at PS1 (New York) in 1981, Jean-Michel Basquiat was given an entire wall on which he presented around fifteen works that brought him to the attention of the New York art world. The gallerist Annina Nosei took a particular interest in him and made this known. The idea of a collaboration between them quickly emerged. Jean-Michel Basquiat asserted a strong presence in the group exhibition that Annina Nosei was preparing in her gallery—Public Address—in September 1981. The exhibition featured artists with highly diverse formal languages, united by a shared engagement with the sociopolitical issues of the time. Among them were Bill Beckley, Mike Glier, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, and Peter Nadin.
In the early 1980s, the trajectory of Yvon Lambert’s gallery was often associated with the return of painting to the contemporary art scene and market, notably through the presence of artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jean-Charles Blais, Miquel Barceló, Robert Combas, and Julian Schnabel. However, the collection assembled by the dealer-collector tells a more complex story of 1980s art—closer to the initial overview presented in Annina Nosei’s aforementioned exhibition. While it is true that a certain kind of painting—figurative and expressive—established itself in galleries and institutions with extraordinary vitality, other artistic gestures emerged from the ashes of the American and European neo-avant-gardes, in an extraordinary creative ferment, resonating strongly with the social upheavals of the time.
The inaugural display of this dynamic, ever-changing collection throughout the year will focus on the 1980s. This pivotal decade, marked by profound aesthetic, political, and social upheavals, stands out as a moment of reaffirmation of the power of the image, characterized by a return to the human figure. The role of the body is central: whether exuberant, absent, or pushed to the margins, the body portrayed is situated within a deeply political dimension.