Alchemy of encounter
Group show featuring Daniel Gustav Cramer

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.

With works by
The Artists Carl Andre, Shusaku Arakawa, David Askevold, Mirosław Bałka, Miquel Barceló, Robert Barry, Roland Barthes, Bill Beckley, Joseph Beuys, James Bishop, Pierre Bismuth, Louise Bourgeois, Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, André Cadere, Mircea Cantor et Gabriela Vanga, Christo, Robert Combas, Daniel Gustav Cramer, Nicolas Daubanes, Daniel Dezeuze, Jan Dibbets, Jason Dodge, Spencer Finch,

Claire Fontaine, Vincent Ganivet, Pierre Giner, Nan Goldin, Douglas Gordon, Dan Graham, Joseph Grigely, François Halard, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, David Horvitz, Koo Jeong A, Donald Judd, On Kawara, Idris Khan, Anselm Kiefer, Joseph Kosuth, Thierry Kuntzel, Louise Lawler, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Stéphane Mallarmé, Rutilio Manetti, Robert Mangold, Christian Marclay, Brice Marden,

Gordon Matta-Clark, Jason Matthew Lee, Olivier Mosset, Hans Namuth, Bruce Nauman, Damir Očko, Dennis Oppenheim, Giulio Paolini, Giuseppe Penone, Edda Renouf, Kay Rosen, Robert Ryman, Anri Sala, Fred Sandback, Markus Schinwald, Richard Serra, Andres Serrano, Catherine Sullivan, Niele Toroni, Richard Tuttle, Cy Twombly, Olivier Vadrot, Adrien Vescovi, Francesco Vezzoli, Lawrence Weiner.