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The collections of the Musée de l’ElyséeAcquisitions and Donations 2019-2020

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The collections of the Musée de l'ElyséeAcquisitions and Donations 2019-2020

Table of content

New Acquisitions Policy and Latest Purchases 3

Donations and Funding 4

Acquisitions 2019 5

Acquisitions 2020 5 Nicolai Howalt prints 6

Rogert Humbert photograms 7

Emil Nicola-Karlen album 8

Donations 2019 9 Hanns Schmid prints 9

Other donnations 2019 10

Donations 2020 10

Pierre Kellers photographic legacy 11 Acquisitions reGeneration1-2-3-4 14

The library and Digitisation 15

Partners 16

Practical Information 17

Cover and opposite: Musée de l'Elysée collections, 2019 All images © Mathilda Olmi


New Acquisitions Policy and Latest Purchases

The collections of the Musée de l’Elysée, built up over the years through various acquisitions and donations, echo the institution’s history with their diverse nature and origins and broad scope. In 2015, the arrival of Tatyana Franck saw a new acquisitions policy that underscores the key points developed since the museum was established and defines its direction for the next few years.

The museum has always been committed to promoting and encouraging the work of female photographers. Two major sets from the Zurich-based photographer Ruth Erdt have thus been added to the collections: the entire series The Gang (donated by the photographer) and a beautiful selection of cyanotypes produced with her daughter Eva Vuillemin (purchase). The wealth of possibilities offered by the medium of photography is celebrated in a composition of cyanotypes by the Mexican artist Cannon Bernáldez, two Polaroids by the French photographer Corinne Mercadier and a video artwork by Estefania Peñafiel Loaiza, an Ecuadorian artist living in France, which examines the nature of our perspective. The self-portrait, the staging of the photographer and his/her work, is one of the new policy’s key points; it is superbly embodied by the diptych in the mirror by Finnish photographer Elina Brotherus. The mirror effect is also at the heart of the work Sonja mit Spiegel by Swiss artist Annelies Strba. The experimental book-object from France’s Aurélie Pétrel, Ex(o/a)graphie, along with a special edition of the monograph of Swiss artist Béatrice Helg and a print, complete the Artist Book section.

The particularity of the collections of the Musée de l’Elysée is to offer a wide-ranging representation of different photographic techniques. Over the last few years, this topic has often been linked to the support of contemporary creation, one of the museum’s most important missions, and in 2020, a contemporary daguerreotype photogram by the American Adam Fuss was added to the collections. In a different register, the museum has also acquired an astonishing work produced in collaboration by the Swiss Yann Gross and Arguiñe Escandón from Spain. The pair recently developed a photographic process using the juice of leaves as a photosensitive material. The result is a “phytotype”, a yellow-hued photographic print that is very sensitive to light. And lastly, the Contemporary section has been enhanced by, among others, a set of three colour prints from France’s Philippe Gronon, acclaimed for his inventories of the formal beauty of unusual objects that are often insignificant and forgotten, in this case, developing baths. 1950s American photography is represented by a very pictorial print by New York’s Marvin Newman.

Corinne Mercadier, Pola 118, Polaroid © Corinne Mercadier represented by the Galerie les filles du calvaire, ParisAdam Fuss, ARK 2012, 2012, daguerreotype photogram © Adam Fuss. All rights reserved


Donations and Funding

Since 2015, the acquisitions strategy no longer uses deposits as a way of enriching its collections. Former deposits are gradually being returned to their owners or turned into donations. The Swiss photographers Peter Binz and Bernard Gardel have agreed to transform into a donation the series deposited several years ago. And in 2019, the family of writer-photographer Nicolas Bouvier also agreed to donate the deposit of black & white and colour negatives, slides and prints made in 1998. This is a superb illustration of the Bouvier family’s and the photographers’ trust in the museum.

In September 2019, the Cercle du Musée de l’Elysée organised its first gala dinner in the museum’s gardens. Among other things, this exceptional event made it possible to raise funds to promote the museum’s collections. During an auction and a silent auction, eight lots were put up for sale. Two buyers chose to donate their acquisitions to the museum’s collections. A monumental print – over 170cm – by Valérie Belin entitled The Stranger, and an original print by Josef Sudek as well as a work by French artist Pierre-Elie de Pibrac were thus added to the collections. Furthermore, the funds raised during the occasion enabled the museum to acquire a magnificent set of eleven photograms by the Basel-based photographer Roger Humbert.

Certain significant purchases could not be made without the invaluable financial support of private foundations and individuals. This year, the Musée de l’Elysée had the honour and good fortune to receive the generous support of the New Carlsberg Foundation to purchase an exceptional set of 26 pieces by the Danish photographer Nicolai Howalt. In 2018, the museum exhibited a selection of prints from the collection of Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla. At the beginning of the year, the couple chose to make a donation to the museum to fund the acquisition of new works. Thanks to this sum, the museum was able to purchase an album by Swiss photographer Emil Nicola-Karlen, a historic, unique and very precious piece.

The Musée de l’Elysée is lucky enough to be able to count on the generosity of individual patrons who regularly make substantial donations to the collections. Gallery owner Alice Pauli made a donation of three beautiful portraits of painters, one by Henri Cartier-Bresson of Henri Matisse, and Martine Franck’s portraits of Marie Helena Vieira da Silva and her husband Arpad Szenes, and Balthus. Bruno Kapferer’s donation includes various pieces that illustrate late 19th and early 20th century techniques (ambrotypes, autochromes, a tintype, and daguerreotypes) as well as several portraits by French photographer and filmmaker André Vigneau. The Jacques Chastan donation is composed of a set of albumen glass plates, flexible negatives and projection plates depicting, among other things, Lavaux and Léman landscapes and portraits of people.

Anonymous, Untitled, autochrome © Collections du Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne. Donation Bruno Kapferer


Some donations complete the significant collections that the museum has been conserving for several years. This is the case for a beautiful set of portraits of children by Suzi Pilet in the 1950s (donated by Chantal de Schoulepnikoff), a set of fourteen prints by Jean Mohr documenting a cruise with the Orchestre de Suisse Romande (OSR) in 1991 (donated by Jean-Pierre and Martine Külling), and a portrait by Francis II de Jongh (donated by Catherine Grand-Margot). The collections now possess an iconoscope (anonymous donation), the device used to view the famous plates by Gabriel Lippmann. The museum has also received a handsome donation of almost 200 prints by the conceptual artist Kenji Nakahashi. And lastly, the photographers themselves often choose to donate part of their work to the Musée de l’Elysée. This was the case for Swiss photographer and graphic designer Hanns Schmid with the fantastic donation of 95 prints representing different periods of his production, and for Monique Jacot, with a sizeable set of Polaroids.

Acquisitions 2019

• Corinne Mercadier (France, 1955): 2 Polaroids• Monique Jacot (Switzerland, 1934): a set of prints, including image transfer photograms• Estefania Peñafiel Loaiza (Equator, 1978): one video work• Philippe Gronon (France, 1964): 3 prints• Elina Brotherus (Finland, 1972): 2 self-portraits• Yang Fudong (China, 1971): one print.• Pascal Convert (France, 1975): one polyptych of Bamiyan• Agnès Geoffray (France, 1973): one artist book• Cannon Bernáldez (Mexico, 1974): one cyanotype composition• Nicolas Faure (Switzerland, 1949): one print• Ryu Kusumoto (Japan, 1982): one artist book

Acquisitions 2020

• Machiel Botman (Netherlands, 1955): 8 prints • Ruth Erdt (Switzerland, 1955): one set of cyanoytpes • Feng Li (China, 1971): one envelope• Adam Fuss (United-Kingdom, 1961): one daguerreotype• Gao Bo (China, 1964): one artist book• Yann Gross (Switzerland, 1981): one print• Béatrice Helg (Switzerland, 1956): one monograph, special edition with one print• Nicolai Howalt (Denmark, 1970): 26 prints • Roger Humbert (Switzerland, 1929): 11 photograms • Marvin Newman (United-States, 1927): one print• Emil Nicola-Karlen (Switzerland, 1840-1898): one album• Aurélie Pétrel (France, 1980): one artist book• Annelies Strba (Switzerland, 1947): one print

Cannon Bernáldez, El Azul, 2018, cyanotype on japan paper © El Azul, Cannon Bernáldez


Nicolai Howalt printsMade possible by the generosity of the New Carlsberg Foundation

Nicolai Howalt was born in Denmark in 1970. In 1992, he graduated from Fatamorgana, Denmark’s prestigious school of photography. His work was presented for the first time at the Maria Lund Gallery in Paris in 2015, and again in 2017. Since then, his art has been shown in Scandinavia, Europe and the United States and has been awarded several prizes. He has also published several books.

Nicolai Howalt’s universe essentially revolves around the question of time and the notions of the life and future of the material and immaterial. His approach is a blend of documentary perspectives, experimental research and conceptual creations. He is particularly interested in the chemical nature of the photographic medium. By reinventing traditional photography techniques, and by taking materials’ chemical reactions to their extremes, he manages to combine technical – or even scientific – experimentation and an artistic approach.

The Musée de l’Elysée has had the good fortune and pleasure of the New Carlsberg Foundation’s generosity to purchase a selection of pieces from two of the photographer’s series that represent his research.

For his series Silver migrations (2018), Howalt used a batch of photographic paper that expired in 1962. His only intervention was to develop these sheets. The natural deterioration (oxidation) of the silver ions caused by time and damp was thus halted and frozen in time. In this way, the chemical migration of the photographic material materialises before our eyes. The result is reminiscent of a microscopic view of a micro-organism – photography’s worst enemy – or a slice of vegetable matter. We are in the “before” of the act of photography: no camera is used, no subject is aimed for. So is it still photography? Today, as images are dematerialised by digitalisation, Nicolai Howalt’s approach raises this question.

With his series Elements (2016), the photographer puts the primary elements of the periodic table (gold, silver, copper and iron) to the test. By transferring them using photosensitive emulsion on sheets of different metals, he obtains an “image” of the chemical reaction at work. Once again, there is no depiction of reality, apart from the reality of the substance.

The eighteen pieces from the Silver migrations series and the eight pieces from the series Elements have joined the collection’s Contemporary Section. These unique works bear witness to the advanced research into the medium carried out by certain photographers. With this acquisition, the Musée de l’Elysée has become the first Swiss museum to house the work of Nicolai Howalt.

Nicolai Howalt, Element, 2016, silver bromide on paperNicolai Howalt, Silver Migration 3, 2018, Kodak, Kodabrome II RC, Photographic paper, 1962All images © Nicolai Howalt, courtesy Nicolai Howalt & Galerie Maria Lund


Rogert Humbert photogramsMade possible by the generosity of the doners of the Gala dinner the September 10, 2019

Roger Humbert was born in 1929 in Basel, Switzerland. From 1944 to 1946, he studied graphic art at the Basel School of Applied Arts. He then worked as a photographer’s apprentice for Jacques Weiss, still in Basel. In 1950, he attended the Vevey School of Photography founded by Gertrude Fehr only a few years earlier. He worked as a photographer’s assistant, supervised by Hermann König, taking a course in colour photography that brought the school into the public eye at the time. In 1954, he established himself as a freelance photographer, working for advertising companies by day, and at night, making the most of his free time to carry out his own technical experiments. His work during this period mostly involved photograms and luminograms, two techniques that require working in complete darkness. The image is created using stencils, sheets of Plexiglas, perforated cards or diverse objects that play with the source of light and photosensitive paper. Cameras are not used, only the laws specific to the medium – light and a photosensitive surface – are at work. It has been described as a “drawing of light”. Roger Humbert took this even further, claiming, “I photograph the light!” Inspired by Bauhaus research, his technical explorations produced graphic works, the results of which are sometimes reminiscent of kinetic art.

With René Mächler, Jean Frédéric Schnyder and Rolf Schroeter, Humbert put on the Concrete Photography exhibition in Bern in 1967 at which he presented his minimalist light compositions and thus became one of the founders and major representatives of the eponymous movement in Switzerland.

In 1966, he co-founded the Humbert + Vogt Studio, specialising in photography and graphic design until 1995. Alongside his professional work in the domain of applied photography, he continued to work on his personal projects. In 2005, he discovered digital photography, which offered him a new field to explore.

The acquisition made by the Musée de l’Elysée from Zurich’s Fabian & Claude Walter Gallery is made up of an exceptional set of eleven extremely well preserved photograms that come directly from the artist’s private collection. Produced between 1952 and 2003, the advantage of these pieces is that they cover the photographer’s entire production. As a result, the set offers an invaluable record of the evolution of his work, enabling us to understand the different stages of his creative research into light.

This exceptional acquisition was possible thanks to the funds raised during the gala dinner organised by the Cercle du Musée de l’Elysée in September 2019. It is of particular importance for the collections because of the strong ties that link the work of Roger Humbert with that of his mentor Gertrude Fehr, whose archives and a large part of her collection are conserved at the Musée de l’Elysée.

Roger Humbert, Untitled, #15, 1966, Photogram on baryta paper © Roger HumbertRoger Humbert, Untitled, #10, 1960, Photogram on baryta paper © Roger Humbert


Emil Nicola-Karlen, Photographs from E.Nicola-Karlen Berne Switzerland, 1876, album with albumen prints, Collections du Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne.

Acquisition of the album Photographs from Emil Nicola-Karlen, Berne, Switzerland, 1876Made possible by the generosity of collectors Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla.

A trained pharmacist, Emil August Friedrich Nicola (1840-1898) probably began his photographic work around 1860 in the Wolff & Nicola studio in Bern, which he co-owned. He then opened his own studio at Christoffelgasse 186. In 1870, he married Emma Karlen. Three years later, he was granted “freedom of the city”, the Swiss recognition for upstanding citizens. The Nicola-Karlen studio was renowned for the excellent quality of its studio photographs – the Federal Councillors were some of his loyal customers. From 1870, Emil Nicola-Karlen worked in parallel as an insurance agent. He employed several collaborators to handle his studio’s commissions. During the 1870s, Nicola-Karlen’s work was shown at several Expositions Universelles or world fairs, winning numerous awards. He also took part in the 1883 Swiss National Exhibition and regularly received commissions from the Federal Staff Bureau, the Bern Clinic and other scientific institutions. In 1883 or thereabouts, he abandoned photography and his studio was taken over by Arnold Wicky.

The album acquired by the museum was presented in the Swiss Pavilion during Philadelphia’s Centennial International Exhibition in 1876. The photographs are organised into three sections: taking measurements on the Rhone glacier in 1874 (eleven photographs), the Jura’s railways in 1859-1860 (fifteen photographs), and the river training work (building dams) for the river Gürbe, a tributary of the Aar River, in 1872. The first series was produced by one of his studio collaborators, a certain J. Birfeld, on the request of the Federal Bureau.

This album sheds fascinating light on the role of photography in the development of civil engineering and on geology in the second half of the 19th century. Although at the time Switzerland was not a pioneer in the field of scientific photography, the skills of its engineers were already recognised. In this context, photography contributed greatly to the celebration of modernity and humankind’s command over nature; it offers a tangible record of the technical prowess in the domains of railways, and the construction of bridges and dams. Albumen prints are incredibly precise and seductively beautiful, and have become iconic. However, the pictures are made on glass negatives with collodion emulsion, heavy and cumbersome equipment that had to be transported. Furthermore, the process cannot wait – it was crucial to have a portable laboratory on-hand to sensitise the plates and develop them immediately. The studio’s technical mastery is undeniable.

This acquisition meets several criteria of the museum’s acquisition policy: mountain photography, 19th century Swiss photography, scientific and documentary photography, the history of studios and the importance of Expositions Universelles. The museum plans to carry out significant research to learn more about the Nicola-Karlen Studio and its role in the history of Swiss and international photography.


Donations 2019Hanns Schmid prints

Born in 1958 in the canton of Aargau, Hanns Schmid is a Swiss photographer, graphic designer, film director and editor. After training as a laboratory technician, he began a photography apprenticeship. He later opened his own studio and worked freelance for several newspapers. He produces both photo reports and artistic photographs, especially still lifes.

In 1980, he came across an exhibition of the Magnum Photos agency and it was a pivotal moment for him. He decided to travel round southern Europe to hone his sense of observation, sharpen his perspective and capture those moments in life in pictures that do not only record reality but also tell stories.

In the early 1980s, he was put in charge of the contemporary photography section of the prestigious Galerie zur Stockeregg in Zurich, founded in 1979 by Kaspar M. Fleischmann. Schmid became deeply committed to promoting and showcasing Swiss photographic creation, supporting new talent in particular. He has also published several books on photographers.

In 1985, he left the gallery to set up Edition Schmid, his own publishing house, and began running his own business as an independent editor and graphic designer. In 1987, he was made responsible for overhauling the concept of the Grand Prix Suisse de la Photographie organised by the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS). Open to both amateurs and professionals, this competition rewards the creativity and technical skills of photographers who compete on set themes that have to embody a particular aspect of life in Switzerland. In the late 1980s, Schmid completed his training with two diplomas, one in visual communication and the other in graphic design. In 1993, he began freelance work as a graphic designer and editor, founding his own agency, Hanns Schmid Grafik Design, in 1995, and gaining international recognition for his work. Between 2006 and 2008, he took a course in documentary filmmaking in Zurich, and from 2011, has taught at the Technikerschulen in Aarau and Basel.

During the 1980s, Schmid regularly showed his photographic work in solo and collective exhibitions. He has won numerous international prizes that reward his work as a graphic artist.

In 2018, Hanns Schmid made a donation to the Musée de l’Elysée of a set of 95 prints. The donation includes photographs mainly taken in Europe – particularly Italy – during his days as a press reporter. There are street scenes, portraits, architectural views and a set of still lifes. The prints from the 2000s are digital prints taken in Yemen between 2002 and 2006, and in Cairo in 2008.

The Musée de l’Elysée is delighted to house this beautiful collection that has been added to the section devoted to Swiss photography.

Hanns Schmid, Auberginen, 1983, gelatin-silver testHanns Schmid, Portugal, 1981, gelatin-silver test Hanns Schmid, Shibam, Jemen, 2006, digital inkjet printAll images © Musée de l’Elysée, Hanns Schmid


Peter Binz, Untitled, 1985-1992, gelatin-silver print © Artbinz

Other donations 2019• Various authors, some anonymous: glass plates, flexible negatives, one daguerreotype, one photographic camera. Donated by Mr Jacques Chastan• Various authors including André Vigneau (France, 1892-1968) and anonymous authors: diverse 19th and early 20th century processes including ambrotypes, autochromes, daguerreotypes, one tintype and gelatin silver prints. Donated by Mr Bruno Kapferer. • Valérie Belin (France, 1964): one print. Donated by Antonie and Philippe Bertherat• Peter Binz (Switzerland, 1948): 26 prints• Nicolas Bouvier (Switzerland, 1929-1998): photographic collection turned from a deposit in 1998 to a full donation. Donated by the Bouvier family• Henri Cartier-Bresson (France, 1908-2004): one print, and Martine Franck: two prints. Donated by Mrs Alice Pauli• Pierre-Elie de Pibrac (France, 1983): one print and Joseph Sudek (Czech Republic, 1896-1976): one print. Donated by the Cercle du Musée de l’Elysée• Francis II de Jongh, Untitled, 1890-1900: one print. Donated by Mrs Catherine Grand-Margot• Sterenn Denys (Belgium, 1975): one print. Anonymous donation • Ruth Erdt (Switzerland, 1965): entire series The Gang and the original dummy of the eponymous book. Donated by the photographer• Bernard Gardel (Switzerland, 1951): 10 prints. Donated by the photographer• Monique Jacot (Switzerland, 1934): Polaroid collection, a set of almost 4,000 negatives and instant prints in black and white, 780 contact sheets, 490 prints, 170 instant prints, various objects and 3 framed colour prints. Donated by the photographer. • Jean Mohr (Switzerland, 1925-2018): 14 prints. Donated by Jean-Pierre and Martine Külling. • Kenji Nakahashi (Japan, 1947-2017): 182 prints, archived papers and greetings cards, objects. Anonymous donation in memory of Kenji Nakahashi.• Suzi Pilet (Switzerland, 1916): 22 prints and one newspaper cutting. Donated by Chantal de Schoulepnikoff• Hanns Schmid: 95 prints. Donated by the photographer• One iconoscope (device used to view Gabriel Lippmann’s interference plates). Anonymous donation Donations 2020• Nadim Asfar (Lebanon, 1976): 3 photograms and two publications. Donated by the photographer • Etienne Rougery-Herbaut (France, 1984): Etienne Rougery-Herbaut, one print. Donated by the photographer


All images: Pierre Keller, Untitled, undated, Polaroid © Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

Pierre Kellers photographic legacy Pierre Keller was born on January 9th 1945 in Gilly, Switzerland, and died on July 7th 2019 in Lausanne. From a very early age, he began to study art and in 1965, graduated in graphic design from the École Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL). He began working in Switzerland before moving to Genoa, Italy from 1964 to 1965. There, he rubbed shoulders with Max Bill, Germano Celant, Lucio Fontana, Richard Paul Lohse, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Jesús-Rafael Soto and Victor Vasarely, thus combining his knowledge of modern applied arts vocabulary, his interest in optical and kinetic art and his curiosity about the avant-gardists. He then visited the United States and Canada, in particular the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax. It was here that he discovered conceptual art and, sometime later, produced his famous Kilo-Art, inventing a new unit that was approved by Bern’s Federal Bureau of Weights and Measures. Despite several international exhibitions from the 1970s onwards – the Warsaw International Poster Biennale, the 9th Paris Biennale, and the 17th São Paulo Biennale – he prided himself on the fact that he never sought to take up a noticeable position on the arts scene. He could be seen weaving his way through roles and genres, between regions all over the world, and working variously as a graphic designer, painter, taxi driver, art and art history teacher, photographer, editor, art consultant, collector and oenologist. Keller was a cultural ambassador in the canton of Vaud, in Switzerland and abroad, and from 1988 to 1991, he was a Vaud State Council Delegate responsible for organising Switzerland’s 700th anniversary celebrations. In 1995, he became Director of the École Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL), taking it in just a few years into the top 5 of Europe’s art schools. Despite being a self-proclaimed individualist, his many cultural and educational initiatives paradoxically express a constant preoccupation with community and the common good. In 2007, he set up the ECAL in Renens in a disused industrial building renovated by the Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi. Four years later, he left his post as director to become chairman of the Vaud Wine Office until 2018. He also sat on the PLATEFORME 10 Steering Committee.

His capacities as a unifier, catalyst and entrepreneur were honoured throughout his career and rewarded with numerous prizes and substantial recognition. Made an “Officier des Arts et des Lettres” by the French Republic, Keller was appointed tenured professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 2004. Two years later, he received the Vaud Foundation for Culture’s “Prix du Rayonnement” (outreach prize). In 2007, he was made Docteur Honoris Causa of Barcelona’s European University and was honoured with the prestigious Merit Design Preis Schweiz. He received the Prix de Lausanne in 2009 in acknowledgement of his contribution to raising the city’s profile and increasing its influence, and in 2011, he was awarded the cultural recognition merit from the city of Renens.


A lot of artists are captivated by their work, but capture nothing of their era. Pierre Keller, however, was captivated by art – the art of others, and then his own – using it to experience and inhabit the reality of his time. He produced his first photographs in the early 1970s, the majority of them with a Polaroid SX70 camera he had bought on a whim from a shop opposite Lausanne’s station. With no career plan and no technical training, for almost twenty years, Keller compulsively took photographs, his camera always present in the pocket of his cargo pants. In the art world, instant pictures began to allow a sense of liberation from the traditional codes of photography, as well as an immediate shot of the present and a certain recklessness. At the same time, the minimising of technical skill made it possible for major art figures such as Andy Warhol to turn to new areas of experimentation, and to examine in greater depth the question of mechanical processes, subjectivity, and even their absence. Pierre Keller’s photographic practices are based more specifically on his uninterrupted experimenting with travel and encounters, on his art of revealing to express the body and its desires, a personal account at a time when life mostly took place in the street or in places to have fun, and exceed any notions of genre. His pictures are taken in abandoned or derelict and often dangerous places, usually at night. They are the result of intentional accidents; the unbalanced framing and truncated bodies, as well as the negligent workmanship of the shots – fuzzy, over exposed – can almost make the viewer feel dizzy. The play of dark light and the physical presence of bodies add a pictorial or sculptural dimension. The sculptural dimension is expressed almost as abstraction in some of the larger formats, by inflating colours, or by the striking close-ups, such as those in the famous series Horses, twenty-three colour enlargements measuring one square metre from Polaroids taken during a chance trip to the Cluny stud-farm in 1988. His photographs of horses’ rears obviously echo iconic figures from the history of art (from Géricault to Felix Vallotton) and literature (from Baudelaire to Guillaume Apollinaire), but also the formal vocabulary of Caravaggio or Zurbaran, which Keller always admired for its shadowy power. “For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror”, as Rilke pointed out.

Pierre Keller’s photographs paradoxically express the impossible portrayal of crudeness, desire and pleasure. For him, sex was always one of the worlds of wonder – like music – where submerging oneself into the night-time universe opens up unprecedented sensual, poetic and artistic perspectives, where the power of desire is enough to connect imagination and reality, each intensifying the other. In the foreword to his 1986 exhibition catalogue at the Farideh Cadot Gallery in Paris, his friend Jean Tinguely wrote, “Pierre Keller’s painting overwhelms me. I call it painting, because, ultimately, it does not matter to me if the picture’s medium is photographic. All that counts is the image; the image that seems to me to constitute a new revolutionary force. What Pierre produces is not pornographic. If anything, it is anti-porn. In all his naturalist depictions of the human body in action, arousing and sexual, we can see an unhappy ending. This is the transfiguration of porn, in a way. Nothing is closed. I even see an opening in his work.”



This collection now represents more than four thousand Polaroids taken over almost fifteen years like so many traces of a contemporary adventure, just before art entered the digital age, the reign of fakes and simultaneous dissemination, the digital revolution so often being a false promise of subversion. Looking back at Keller’s work today involves reconsidering the link between the 1970s and 1980s and the 21st century, between the generations marked by the libertarian counter revolutions and, twenty years later, caught up by the disaster of AIDS and now by the Covid 19 pandemic, the long winter of love that profoundly altered our rapport with the body and representation. His pictures thus remember those who risked their lives in the name of unconditional freedom, like Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, David Wojnarowicz, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Larry Clark, and Nan Goldin. He shared their conviction that sexuality is seminal, the origin of art and at the same time its ultimate goal. And that all the photographs that were seen as improper, revolting or perverted will inevitably return one day to examine the content and history of creation and the invention of a different modernity. Today, they present themselves to us as a powerful antidote to renunciation or destiny, much like the explosion of colour in his latest series – Flor de Cuba – an insolent incentive to life and the future of the world.



Acquisitions reGeneration1-2-3-4

Established in 2005, the first edition of the reGeneration exhibition already aimed to offer a freeze frame of emerging photographic creation in a given period. Exhibited and published, the works at the time were acquired so as to have a tangible trace of a moment in the history of photography in the collections of the Musée de l’Elysée. William A. Ewing, the institution’s director at the time and responsible for launching the project, imagined it as a kind of treasure chest that, years later, would make it possible to retrieve the youthful works of major photographers who had gone on to find fame. This is how, today, the early work of Pieter Hugo and Raphaël Dallaporta, for example, are in the collections.

While the vast majority of works from reGeneration1 were added to the collections, every single piece from the 2nd and 3rd editions was acquired in 2010 and 2015 respectively. In total, there are no fewer than 847 photographic objects that now belong to the Musée de l’Elysée, each recounting a slice of the history of both photography and the museum. These acquisitions, which provide a lasting trace of the exhibitions, also make it possible to distinguish the reGeneration programme from other initiatives carried out to promote emerging photographers throughout the world. This is because although prizes, festivals and other publications and exhibitions undeniably provide photographers with recognition and support, reGeneration has a unique heritage aim. There is nothing anodyne about collecting such a sizeable number of works by very young, inexperienced artists: it is a striking illustration of the Musée de l’Elysée’s confidence in the next generation. With this gesture, it is also a vision of heritage that the institution wishes to transmit – the vision of open, lively heritage, enriched by the newest and youngest contemporary reflections.

The acquisitions of 264 works from reGeneration1, 223 photographs from reGeneration2 and 360 objects from reGeneration3 are the result of both donations and purchases. The acquisitions policy was not so much devised in terms of financial support for artists but with the aim of securing both their recognition and the force of the collections of the Musée de l’Elysée. Now, in 2020, the museum’s relationship with young photographers has evolved for several reasons. On the one hand, the museum context has changed to recognise the essential role of artists in its economy; and on the other hand, young photographers are starting earlier and earlier to boost their careers with exhibitions, publications and the support of some galleries. To adapt to these changes, the Musée de l’Elysée has decided to change its acquisition policy and to bring in certain works from reGeneration4 exclusively through purchases, which will be decided after the exhibition, to reaffirm its support for emerging artistic creation.

© Rochelle Brockington, from the series Skin + Hair Stock photos, 2018© Cristina Velásquez, Los huevos en mi casa los puso mi mamá [The eggs at home were laid by my mother] (2019), from the series The New World, 2019


The Library and Digitisation Far more than a mere resource centre, the Musée de l’Elysée’s Library is a veritable research site that lies at the very heart of the museum’s practices and missions. It is enriched with significant themed collections as well as precious books and artists’ books that illustrate the close relationships uniting photography with the idea of publishing, as proved by the numerous “dummies” or preparatory book models.

In 2018, the Zurich collector and gallery owner Kaspar M. Fleischmann, specialist and staunch defender of photography since the very beginning, donated his library to the museum. It is mostly devoted to photography from the first half of the 20th century, and is currently being fully digitised.

In 2019, it was the turn of Mrs Regine Born to donate Peter Born’s collection of almost 1,000 books to the museum. In the centre of our future Musée de l’Elysée – musée de design et d’arts appliqués contemporains (mudac) building at the PLATEFORME 10 site, most of these books can be consulted in situ by the general public or in digital format via our future website. And lastly, the library’s precious collection has been enhanced with Intervalle, a book by the French artist Agnès Geoffray, and Renjishi, a book by the Japanese artist Ryo Kusumoto.

Library of the Musée de l'Elysée, 2019 © Mathilda Olmi


Partenaires

The Musée de l’Elysée thanks its valued partners for their support in 2019 and 2020

Partenaire global Global Partner Global Partner

Partenaires privilégiés Preferred Partners Premiumpartner

Partenaires principaux Main Partners Hauptpartner

Soutiens privés, mécènes et institutionnels Private Partners, Patrons and Institutional Partners Private Förderer, Mäzene und Institutionen

Fournisseurs officiels Official suppliers Offizielle Lieferanten

Partenaires médias Media Partners Medienpartner

Acquisitions et donations 2019 – 2020 Elysée Lausanne Dossier de presse 16/17

Partenaires Le Musée de l’Elysée remercie ses précieux partenaires pour leur soutien en 2019 et en 2020

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VINZEL

Châteaula Bâtie

Châteaula Bâtie

VINZEL

Châteaula Bâtie

Fondation UBSpour la culture

Fondation notaireAndré Rochat

I NT E G R I T A S - I N D U S T R I AC O N C O R D I A


The Musée de l’Elysée

The Musée de l’Elysée is one of the world’s leading museums entirely dedicated to photography. Since its establishmentas a photography museum, it has improved public understanding of photography through innovative exhibitions, key publications and engaging events.

Recognised as a centre of expertise in the field of conservation and enhancement of visual heritage, it holds a unique collection of over one million phototypes and more than a dozen Collections and full Archives including those of René Burri, Sabine Weiss, Jan Groover, Olivier Föllmi, Charles Chaplin, Nicolas Bouvier or Ella Maillart..

By 2021, the City of Lausanne and the Canton of Vaud will see three of their flagship cultural institutions brought together on a single site. The Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Design and Contemporary Applied Arts (mudac) and the Musée de l’Elysée will be housed just a few yards from the station in the former CFF locomotive hangars.www.plateforme10.ch

Practical information

Press contactLana Cueto+41 (0) 21 316 99 [email protected]

Address18, avenue de l’ElyséeCH - 1014 LausanneT + 41 (0) 21 316 99 11www.elysee.chwww.plateforme10.ch

Twitter @ElyseeMuseeFacebook @elysee.lausanneInstagram @elyseemusee

HoursTu - Su , 11am - 6pmClosed on Mondays, except bank holidaysOpen until 8pm the last Thursday of the month

Free admissionUntil the museum opens on the PLATEFORME 10 site, admission to the Musée de l’Elysée will be free of charge.

Le Musée de l’Elyséeest une institutiondu Canton de Vaud

Musée de l’Elysée, Nuit des images 2019 © Gregory Collavini Un musée deux musées, le bâtiment du Musée de l’Elysée et du mudac à PLATEFORME 10 © Aires Mateus

The collections of the Musée de l’Elysée Acquisitions and ...€¦ · Romande (OSR) in 1991...

Documents

Transcript of The collections of the Musée de l’Elysée Acquisitions and ...€¦ · Romande (OSR) in 1991...