Second research trip to Bordeaux in preparation for an exhibition at CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux
Tue, Jul 12 2016We just returned from a week in Bordeaux, where we continued with meetings and archival research in preparation for the forthcoming Latitudes-curated group show at CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux – opening at the end of June 2017 coinciding with the 7th edition of the Agora Biennial of Architecture, Planning and Design centred on landscape.
The exhibition will present existing artworks (including several from CAPC’s collection) alongside commissioned pieces, as well as documents and objects from Bordeaux’s municipal archives, seeking to problematise the time-span of museums and consider their collections as tangible material history.
Upon arrival, led by Bruno Cahuzac (Maître de conférence), we visited the incredible carothèque-lithothèque at the Université de Bordeaux in Talence which houses over 30,000 core samples from the subsoil of the Aquitaine basin.
We also went back to the Archives Bordeaux Métropole to continue looking for documents related to the trade with the former French colonies of the Antilles (known as "sugar islands"). We also visited the Archives Départamentales / Gironde where we found further evidence of CAPC musée's past as the former warehouse for colonial commodities known as Entrépot Lainé.
Delving deeper into colonial landscapes and commodities exchange we were glad to revisit the permanent presentation of the Marcel Chatillon Collection at the Musée d'Aquitaine, which includes an incredible selection of over 600 documents and iconographic representations of slave working conditions, as well as portraits, flora and landscapes from the 17th to the 20th Century.
Some of the Bordeaux's frantic maritime trade is visible in Pierre Lacour's majestic "Vue d'une partie du port et des quais de Bordeaux dits des Chartrons et de Bacalan" (1804–1806) one of the most iconic pieces in the Musée des Beaux-Arts (below).
Related content:
2016, 2017, 4543 billion, CAPC Bordeaux, deep time, making of, material history, raw materials, research
The exhibition will present existing artworks (including several from CAPC’s collection) alongside commissioned pieces, as well as documents and objects from Bordeaux’s municipal archives, seeking to problematise the time-span of museums and consider their collections as tangible material history.
Upon arrival, led by Bruno Cahuzac (Maître de conférence), we visited the incredible carothèque-lithothèque at the Université de Bordeaux in Talence which houses over 30,000 core samples from the subsoil of the Aquitaine basin.
We also went back to the Archives Bordeaux Métropole to continue looking for documents related to the trade with the former French colonies of the Antilles (known as "sugar islands"). We also visited the Archives Départamentales / Gironde where we found further evidence of CAPC musée's past as the former warehouse for colonial commodities known as Entrépot Lainé.
Delving deeper into colonial landscapes and commodities exchange we were glad to revisit the permanent presentation of the Marcel Chatillon Collection at the Musée d'Aquitaine, which includes an incredible selection of over 600 documents and iconographic representations of slave working conditions, as well as portraits, flora and landscapes from the 17th to the 20th Century.
Some of the Bordeaux's frantic maritime trade is visible in Pierre Lacour's majestic "Vue d'une partie du port et des quais de Bordeaux dits des Chartrons et de Bacalan" (1804–1806) one of the most iconic pieces in the Musée des Beaux-Arts (below).
Pierre Lacour, "Vue d'une partie du port et des quais de Bordeaux dits des Chartrons et de Bacalan" (1804–1806), Musée des Beaux-Arts.
On the left one can identify the two iconic conical towers of Hôtel Fenwick, built between 1796-99 by Jean-Baptiste Dufart, and the location of the first Embassy of the United States. Out of the picture, also on the left, a few years later in 1822, architect and engineer Claude Deschamps would build the Entrêpot Lainé, headquarters of the CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux since 1974.
Photo of the Entrêpot Lainé published in the book "Bordeaux: Il y a 100 ans en cartes postales anciennes" by Fabienne Texier and Jean-Claude Bertreau.
On the left one can identify the two iconic conical towers of Hôtel Fenwick, built between 1796-99 by Jean-Baptiste Dufart, and the location of the first Embassy of the United States. Out of the picture, also on the left, a few years later in 1822, architect and engineer Claude Deschamps would build the Entrêpot Lainé, headquarters of the CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux since 1974.
Related content:
- Cover Story, May 2016: Material histories – spilling the beans at the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (10 May 2016).
Cover Story, May 2016: Material histories – spilling the beans at the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux
Tue, May 10 2016
A cover story is published monthly on www.lttds.org
"In pondering a museum’s memories you seldom think of coffee beans. Yet at CAPC Contemporary Art Museum Bordeaux, burnished nuggets of the past in the form of the seeds of Coffea arabica occasionally materialise, as if out of nowhere. One day one might appear atop a pile of papers on an office desk; weeks later, another bean might show up in the middle of one of the exhibition galleries. A look on top of a shelf in the library might harvest several. During Latitudes’ recent residency at CAPC, François Poisay from the exhibition team showed us the stash he has been squirrelling away in his desk for years."
Continue reading on www.lttds.org (after May 2016, it will be archived here)
Related content:
- Archive of Cover Stories.
- History of the Entrepôt Lainé, CAPC's building (pdf in French).