Located right next to the Lausanne train station, Platforme 10 is Lausanne's new museum district with no less than 3 museums. With the autumn days getting shorter and the weather colder, let's have a look at some of the exhibitions happening over the next few months !
MCBA
The MCBA currently has 4 exhibitions: "The Collection", "René Auberjonois – Louis Soutter. The Return to Innocence", "Sarah Margnetti. Supportive Structures" and "Lubaina Himid. So Many Dreams".
Plateforme 10 - MCBA, building designed by Barozzi/Veiga and completed 2019
Lubaina Himid. So many dreams
04.11.2022 – 05.02.2023
Lubaina Himid, born in 1954 in Zanzibar, is a contemporary British artist. She initially trained as a theatre designer and then completed a master's degree at the Royal College of Art in London. She was awarded the prestigious Turner Price in 2017.
The current exhibition is organised by the Tate Modern in collaboration with the MCBA and offers an overview of Lubaina Himid's body of work from the 1980s to today. It starts on the first floor of the MCBA with a collection of large flags, among them "So Many Dreams" and "Why Are You Looking" from 2018, followed by a large scale installation of the verse "Our kisses are petals, our tongues caress the bloom" by British poet Essex Hemphill. Keeping the theme of language, "Metal Handkerchief" from 2019 references the language of health and safety guidelines.
Lubaina Himid, So Many Dreams, 2018
Lubaina Himid, Metal Handkerchief, 2019
Lubaina Himid, Our kisses are petals, our tongues caress the bloom, 2018
The second gallery is called “How Do You Distinguish Safety from Danger?” and shows works exploring the theme of the sea. Wooden wagons, part of the series Feast Wagons, are exposed here as well as on the second floor of the exhibition. They refer both to the origin of western theatre when shows were staged on wagons that could be drawn from town to town, as well as the forced movements of people, such as refugees and migrants.
Lubaina Himid, Feast Wagons, 2016
Lubaina Himid, Plan B, 1999
Created with Magda Stawarska-Beavan, the installation Blue Grid Test offers a reflection on the question of musical and visual rhythm. It is composed of a continuous blue line running over different objects, the whole in a sound environment where Lubaina Himid pronounces sentences in three languages.
Lubaina Himid, Blue Grid Test, 2020
The second floor is entitled “What is the Strategy?”. It starts with the monumental installation "Old Boat/New Monday" from 2019, which even includes the sound of waves.
Lubaina Himid, Old Boat/New Money, 2019
Two works from Lubaina Himid’s early career are also shown here: "Freedom and Change" and "A Fashionable Marriage". Both use materials generally employed to build theatre sets. "Freedom and Change" borrows the composition from Picasso's 1921 painting "Two Women Running on the Beach", while "A Fashionable Marriage" references William Hogarth' painting "Marriage A-la- Mode: The Toilette" from 1743.
Lubaina Himid, Freedom and Change, 1984
Lubaina Himid, A Fashionable Marriage, 1984 - 1986
The Collection
While the MCBA's permanent collection contains more than 10000 works of art, around 300 works are currently exposed under the slogan “Come and see here what you won’t see elsewhere!”. It's a great excursion through art history from the 15th century to modern times.
François Dubois' "Le massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy" is the best known contemporary representations of the the massacre of the Protestants that happened in Paris on 24 August 1572. It is also interesting to note that François Dubois, born in Amiens in 1529, was a protestant himself and hence fled France after 1572 and moved to Geneva.
François Dubois, Le massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy, approx. 1572-1584
There are also some beautiful views of the Léman and the Alps.
Charles Gleyre Les Romains passant sous le joug, 1858
Ferdinand Hodler Le lac Léman vu de Chexbres, 1911
Eugène Burnand, Taureau dans les Alpes, 1884
The 20th century is also well represented, for example with Ernest Biéler's art nouveau painting "L'eau mysterieuse", or Paul Klee and Jean Dubuffet.
Ernest Biéler, L’Eau mystérieuse, 1911
Paul Klee, "Am Nil (On the Nile)", 1939
Jean Dubuffet, 1950 - 1952
The second floor contains contemporary art. "Zenith" by Silvie et Chérif Defraoui, composed of 17 canvases, is one of the last artworks and I always find it interesting to try to determine the individual words!
Julian Charrière Pacific Fiction – Study for Monument, 2016
Silvie et Chérif Defraoui, Zénith, 1991
mudac / Photo Elysée
The mudac's current exhibition is A Chair and You, while Photo Elysée is showing no less than 4 exhibitions: After Nature, #Ukraine, Josef Koudelka and 60 Species of Photographic Spaces.
Plateforme 10 - mudac, Photo Elysée, building designed by Aires Mateus and completed in 2022
Plateforme 10 - mudac, Photo Elysée, building designed by Aires Mateus and completed in 2022
A Chair and You
28.10.2022 - 05.02.2023
A Chair and You presents Thierry Barbier-Mueller's chair collection, staged with sound and light by Robert Wilson. Started in the 1990s, it is one of the largest private collections of artist, designer and architect chairs in the world.
Robert Wilson conceived the exhibition like an opera in four acts. Occupying in total 1500 square meters, each act happens in a completely different immersive world.
The exhibitions starts in the "Bright Space", showing the most colourful chairs.
A Chair and You - Bright Space
A Chair and You - Bright Space
From here, we transition to the "Medium Space" where many chairs a exposed behind windows, almost as in a showroom.
A Chair and You - path to the medium space
A Chair and You - Medium Space
A Chair and You - Medium Space
Through a tiny opening in the wall, almost crawling, we enter the dramatic "Dark Space" where the lighting plays on the chairs shadows, sometimes creating images of faces.
A Chair and You - Dark Space
From the darkness, we get almost blinded by the light in the last act, the Kaleidoscope.
A Chair and You - Kaleidoscope
A Chair and You - Kaleidoscope
Update: Thierry Barbier-Mueller died on January 24, 2023 at the age of 62 due to cardiac arrest. The exhibition has been extended until February 26.
Photo Elysée Photobooth
After going down the stairs towards the Photo Elysée exhibitions, we are now greeted by the 1970s photobooth, that had already been an integral part of the Musée de l'Elysée at its previous location. It was installed on the occasion of the 2012 exhibition "Behind the Curtain - the Aesthetics of the Photobooth" and then never left the museum !
Photo Elysée photobooth
#ukraine Images of War
17.11.2022 – 29.01.2023
The exhibition examines the approaches and the complexity of producing images in the context of war. Given the sheer amount of images circulating these days, offering many times contrasting views, we must ask ourselves how they can contribute to establishing the facts ! Photo Elysée's exhibition shows examples from documentaries through social networks to the artistic scene.
Elena Subach, a photographer from Western Ukraine has created a series (and book) "Hidden", documenting how workers and volunteers tried to conserve Lviv’s cultural relics from destruction for example by protecting statues or hiding paintings.
#ukraine Images of War
Elena Subach, Hidden, 2022
Polish photographer Rafał Milach, professor at the Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School in Katowice and associate member of Magnum Photos, documented bomb shelters in Lviv in spring of 2022.
Lisa Bukreyeva is a photographer based in Kyiv. Her series "Scars of Lost Humanity" shows the destruction the war creates, be it at a playground, at a building or in a field and forest.
Rafał Milach, Bomb Shelters, 2022
