Willem van Genk in reopened LaM museum

2010-2011 LaM, Villeneuve d’Asq.

With a total exhibition space of some 4,000 m2, the LaM is now the first museum to present simultaneously collections of modern art, contemporary art, and the largest French collection of art brut, which was donated by L’Aracine in 1999. The concomitant display offers a fresh approach to the art of the 20th and 21st centuries, and throws new light on the history of art through major temporary exhibitions.

The inaugural exhibition The World as a Poem -presenting Willem van Genk out of the Stadshof Collection- opens this new era by highlighting the links between art brut and contemporary art.

25 September 2010 / 30 January 2011.
info: www.musee-lam.fr

The museum was designed to house the donation made by Geneviève and Jean Masurel to the Lille Métropole urban community in 1979. This collection consists of Cubist masterpieces by Georges Braque, Henri Laurens and Pablo Picasso, as well as significant series of works by Fernand Léger, Joan Miró and Amedeo Modigliani. Fauvism, Surrealism, the School of Montparnasse, the School of Paris, Art Naïf and artists from northern France are also represented in it.

In 1999, these collections were enriched with the largest collection of art brut in France, thanks to the donation made by the association L’Aracine. The biggest names in art brut are represented in it: Aloïse Corbaz, Fleury Joseph Crépin, Henry Darger, Auguste Forestier, Madge Gill, Jules Leclercq, Augustin Lesage, Adolf Wölfli and Carlo Zinelli. It was because of the size of this donation that the Lille Mé- tropole urban community decided in 2004 to renovate the museum and build an extension.

The exhibition The World As a Poem highlights the way that artists, as well as writers and film-makers, can dwell poetically in the world. Past, present and future, interior and exterior blend together, and the everyday is no longer separated from the work of art or the viewer it attracts. The frontiers between private and collective life are blurred by casting doubt on everyday life. A way of dwelling poetically in the world that gives a subtle twist to the everyday gestures that appear so obvious: sleeping, dressing, moving around, living indoors, and eating.

Bringing the three collections together (particularly contemporary art and art brut), The World As a Poem takes the form of a promenade through the different spaces of the museum (exhibition rooms, auditorium, park, website) contemporary works and performance art are given a predominant place.