Face à Arcimboldo

Centre Pompidou Metz
Scenography of the exhibition Face à Arcimboldo
Status: Completed, 2021
Curators: Chiara Parisi with Anne Horvath
Scenographer: BERGER&BERGER
Team: Théo Vachon

https://www.centrepompidou-metz.fr/en/programme/exposition/arcimboldo-face-to-face

Conceived in a dialogue between Maurizio Cattelan and Chiara Parisi, director of Centre Pompidou-Metz and curator of the exhibition with Anne Horvath, Arcimboldo Face to Face offers an unprecedented journey, away from any chronology, into the meandering thought and timeless vocabulary of this mysterious sixteenth century painter.
Although Arcimboldo’s composite portraits are now universally known, the richness and diversity of his work remains to be discovered. Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526-1593) was an inventor and a thinker whose thoughts and works go far beyond the question of portrait painting.
Arcimboldo Face to Face reflects the current state of art through 130 artists, whose selection was guided by the influence - assumed, unconscious or fantasized - that the Lombard master exerts on their thinking and art. Each of the 250 works in the exhibition bears the imprint of Arcimboldo’s unique creative freedom and follows a golden thread through the centuries until the present day.
The layout of the scenography is articulated with the structural and architectural framework of the building designed by Shigeru Ban.
The hexagon, the geometric matrix of the Centre Pompidou, serves as the generator for the scenographic plan. The exhibition is in correlation with the spatial grid derived from the hexagon.
The scenography is a composition of parallel walls, which generates a gradual gradient of natural light. This light comes from the single bay window of the Grande Nef, open to the square.
The guiding lines of the hexagon define the position of the openings and, in turn, the circulation created within the walls. The artworks themselves are arranged regularly at the points of this grid. The scenographic setup is made using a standard construction element: the concrete block.
In order to experience the artworks immediately (without mediation), without the interference of technical and historical information, we separate the artworks from their captions.
The captions are systematically placed on specific wall surfaces dedicated to them, facing the artworks.