The fourth part of the permanent tour of the Musée Gadagne has just opened, and for us and many others it was an opportunity to discover the entire new layout. And right from the first room, a sign sets the tone: this is a political demonstration, which is in no way neutral, and resonates perfectly with the orientation of the town hall and its mayor, the ecologist Grégory Doucet. Is it the role of a history museum to glorify a party? To ask the question is to answer it. This section is therefore the most detestable in a museum that was already so.
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- 1. First room of the fourth section of the permanent tour of the Musée Gadagne
"Lyonnaises, Lyonnais ! Powers and commitments in the city".
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 2. Panel: "Feminist struggles".
Gadagne Museum
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
This is what the sign says, obviously with a fine example of so-called "inclusive" writing (which doesn’t even use the median point, but the usual full stop, further proof of the inconsistency of the promoters of this writing who don’t even respect the instructions they want to impose): "As inhabitants [1] of Lyon or elsewhere, discover through the city’s political history how the governance of the city was achieved through cooperation or power struggles between political structures and collective organisations, between people in power and committed Lyonnais mobilised in social and civic struggles.".
This frighteningly banal text is written with one’s feet (repeating the word "city" seven words apart, for example), and contrasts the "people in power" (i.e. the bad guys, who don’t even deserve to be called Lyonnais because they’re so mean) and the "Lyonnais.es engagé.e.s, mobilisé.e.s [2]" ("Lyonnais committed, mobilised"), i.e. the good guys. It has no business being in a museum.
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- 3. Feminist struggles in Lyon
as seen by the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 4. Ecology in Lyon as seen by
the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
So first we talk about "feminism", once again with reproductions of leaflets and posters that could be found just about anywhere in France. If they were originals, they wouldn’t be of much interest; as reproductions, they have none. As for the text that accompanies this presentation, not only is it intellectually impoverished, it could also apply to any town, and the same is true of the text on the environment. And, of course, in Gadagne the fight for the environment is above all the fight against nuclear energy. Once again, is it the role of a history museum to enter into such a debate? Especially when the greatest threat to the climate, CO2 emissions, are lowest in France thanks to its nuclear power stations, and highest in Germany, which has given up nuclear power and is forced to develop coal to compensate for the inefficiency of wind turbines. Whatever one’s opinion on the subject, it has no place here.
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- 5. "What is commitment?"
according to the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 6. A room in the fourth section of the permanent exhibition at the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 7. "Claim one’s rights"
according to the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
As for the "C’est quoi l’engagement? [3]" ("What is commitment?") sign, we don’t know what to make of it: little circles, with words, like "violence", "insubmission", "disobedience"... You’d think you were at a Jean-Luc Mélenchon congress, and the following rooms don’t belie that impression. We’ll confine ourselves to photos, as this is beyond the scope of a site devoted to art and museums.
The one that stands out, however, is the one devoted to "Confluctualities: Lyon between wars and crises". The section entitled "Decades of Protest 1960-1980" (anti-colonial struggles and challenges to the social order in particular...) is put on the same level as the fight against the Nazi occupiers, which is only mentioned on one panel, without Jean Moulin’s name being mentioned once on the panels and labels (although it may be in the booklets...). We’re surprised that the battle for inclusive writing in Lyon hasn’t given rise to any development, it’s all very flimsy, really.
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- 8. A reproduction of a photo
at the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 9. The "anti-establishment decades"
as seen by the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
The last room features a lot of paintings of Lyon personalities. Paintings, but which paintings? We won’t know, because the interactive terminal that gave the name of the painter and the character represented by each of these works wasn’t working on the day of our visit. And, to tell the truth, we don’t really care, as most of the paintings are so mediocre, not to mention the fake paintings, one where you can put your head in to be photographed (it’s aimed at children because it’s very low), the other with a curtain where this time an adult can can enjoy it too: it’s fun, as we told you from the start.
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- 10. Lyon’s "people of power"
according to the Musée Gadagne
(very few works to be saved here)
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 11. On this wall you can see an empty frame with curtains to take a photo of yourself (it’s fun) and a painting with a hole instead of a head so you can put your own.
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
No doubt it was necessary to hang ugly pictures, because these "people in power" are nasty, as we’ve already said, and what’s more they’re almost all men (and therefore even nastier). A very useful panel tells us that, yes, historically, women had less power than men, which is a shocking revelation and one that is totally unknown... You really do learn things at the Musée Gadagne.
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- 12. Certainly one of the most interesting rooms in the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
To forget this depressing visit, we console ourselves in the following rooms, which are the most interesting in the museum because they are entirely empty, but ultimately less empty than the tour we have just completed. In a final article to follow, we’ll take stock of this cultural disaster that is the Musée Gadagne.