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- 1. Qu’est-ce que tu fabriques (What are you doing?), a question we ask ourselves about the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
One might have thought we’d hit rock bottom with the first two sections of the permanent tour of the Musée Gadagne, which no longer feels like a museum at all. But paradoxically, the higher you go, the deeper you dig, and the section (ill. 1) entitled "Qu’est-ce que tu fabriques [1]", devoted to "Industrial and working-class Lyon", has a few nuggets. In fact, the press kit describes the museography as "playful and inclusive", which ticks at least two of the worst boxes in this genre today.
Let’s be fair: there’s a bit more to see in the three parts spread over four spaces in six rooms (yes, you have to keep up). In all, and unless we’re mistaken, there are five paintings, two medals, three ceramics, a loom, an armchair, a few objects... And the usual litany of booklets and brochures, reproductions of engravings, posters, photos and postcards.
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- 2. First room on the third level
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 3. First room on the third level with
three high ceramics
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 4. Balthazar Alexis
Interior of a Canuts Workshop
Oil on card - 44 x 33 cm
Lyon, Musée Gadagne
Photo: Musée Gadagne - See the image in its page
The two medals, which date from the 16th century and one of which is long-term loaned by the Musée des Beaux-Arts, are in the first room (ill. 2), next to a 19th-century copy of Dürer: the portrait of Jean Kleberger. The three ceramics, which are of little interest, are hung high up (ill. 3), no doubt as a reminder that the Musée Gadagne has a very important collection of earthenware from Lyon and Nevers, but that we will not be seeing it.
We will pass quickly over a second painting, whose interest is purely documentary, as it could hardly be uglier (ill. 4), to focus on another very honourable nineteenth-century picture by Pierre Bonirote, a painter from Lyon who was a pupil of Pierre Revoil, among others. The work depicts the origins of silk fabric manufacture in Lyon in 1536, and more specifically "Thomas II Gadagne introduced Bartolomeo Naris and Étienne Turquet, two Piedmontese merchants, to the Lyon Consulate. Supported by François I, they obtained from the latter the establishment by letters patent of the first corporation of "cloth, gold, silver and silk" workers. They brought their workers and their families to Lyon from Genoa" (ill. 5).
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- 5. Pierre Bonirote (1811-1891)
Origin of silk fabric
silk fabrics in Lyon in 1536
Oil on canvas
Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts
long-term loaned to the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 6. Presentation of the Bonirote painting in the Musée Gadagne
(this is not a montage)
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
At last, a bit of culture, you might say, and a coherent presentation of a work of art for a History Museum... Yes but. Here’s what it says on the right-hand side of the painting, in very large capitals: "NOT DOUBT IT’S A VERY BEAUTIFUL FABRIC BUT IT COULDN’T HAVE BANANA MOTIVES?" (ill. 6). We won’t even insist on the fact that the banana was only really introduced into France at the end of the 19th century and that in 1536 in Lyon it is highly unlikely that anyone had ever heard of this fruit. That would be petty.
How can you sink so low in a museum? No doubt it took consulting "hundreds of experts and researchers" to come up with such a result...
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- 7. An armchair at the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 8. Second room on the third level of the Musée Gadagne (where the armchair is located)
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
The only piece of furniture on display - unless we are mistaken - is a Louis XV armchair (ill. 7), although furniture is one of the strong points of the Musée Gadagne’s collections. In this room (ill. 8), screens, computer graphics, reproductions and a few objects complete the presentation, the next room being a bit of the same (ill. 9), with a large photo (ill. 10) of a woman dressed in period costume (from what period, let’s admit that at this stage we’re starting to lose interest) and holding a megaphone (also period, probably).
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- 9. Third room on the third level
of the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 10. Third room on the third level
of the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
For here, even before the final section we’ll see in a later article, one begins to talk politics and class struggle. At least there are reasons to do so, as the Canut [2] revolts against their working conditions are very much a part of Lyon’s history. Between the fake posters and the leaflets, we also saw two paintings, which was unexpected, including a portrait of a merchant, Félix Bertrand (ill. 11), by a certain Jean-Marie Régnier. As the labels never give the artists’ dates of birth and death (they must be too clever, like Roman numerals, so let’s not clutter visitors’ minds with too much useless information), we won’t know exactly who it is. For there are two painters in Lyon with almost the same name, both equally little known: Jean-Marie Régnier (1796-1865) and Jean-Marie Reignier (1815-1886). The fact that his name is spelt Régnier here is not entirely conclusive, given the number of approximations in some of the labels.
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- 11. Jean-Marie Régnier (1796-1865) ?
Portrait of Félix Bertrand
Oil on canvas
Lyon, Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 12. Claude Bonnefond (1796-1860)
A Barricade during the Riots
of 1834
Oil on canvas
Lyon, Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
The second painting, unless we are mistaken, has no cartel (ill. 12). It is by Claude Bonnefond and depicts a barricade during the Lyon riots of 1834.
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- 13. Fourth room on the third level of the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
The next room is pretty much empty (ill. 13).
No, we’re exaggerating. There are a few reproductions, as usual, and some originals: in a display case are five audio cassettes of "Place du Pont" productions (ill. 14). But what are they? The label gives a detailed explanation of this important part of Lyon’s history: "In the 1980s, the production companies around Place du Pont, in the Guillotière district, produced thousands of cassettes of musician-workers singing about their exile [3]". That this phenomenon merits a study and a collection of these objects, in order to preserve a trace of it, is only natural [4]. That it should give rise to a temporary exhibition in a museum dedicated to popular arts and traditions, why not. But that it should be displayed in a showcase at the Musées Gadagne when all its collections are in storage is grotesque, as is the display, right next to this showcase, of a tin cupboard known as a "workers’ locker" (ill. 15). So we were wrong: there is indeed a second piece of furniture on display at the Musée Gadagne.
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- 14. Window displaying the five audio cassettes, along with various other objects including metal worksite bowls and a plastic ashtray...
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 15. On the left, a sheet metal cupboard
known as workers’ lockers
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
The sixth and last room in this section [5] (ill. 16) is even more hollow than the others, if that is possible, having in all only a few photos of workers at work, and a panel (ill. 17), entitled "Même au travail (even at work)", a play on words between the adjective "même" (meaning "even") and the word "meme" meaning "Concept (text, image, video) massively taken up, declined and diverted on the Internet in an often parodic way, which spreads very quickly, thus creating the buzz. Proof that we know how to laugh, at the Musée Gadagne.
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- 16. Sixth room on the third level
of the Musée Gadagne
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 17. "Even at work" panel
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 18. No comment...
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
The principle, if we’ve understood everything, is that visitors make up the captions for images suggested by the museum. It’s hilarious, and as proof we reproduce here one of them (ill. 18) which was still waiting for the commentary, the joke so funny "Jean-Michel is delighted with his farewell party, but he would have preferred a mug" being offered to you by the museum. You’d think you’d recognise the author of the banana.
So that concludes the third part of the tour, which has been running for a year (the others for two and four years respectively) and which, unless I’m mistaken, has not yet been the subject of any critical or even slightly ironic article. It was not until the last part (article to come) that the indignation was heard. Perhaps that’s the strangest thing about this whole affair.