Exhibitions to discover in May

Our selection in Lyon and in the region

The bridges of the month of May are the occasion of a getaway at Royal monastery of Brou in Bourg-en-Bresse which presents, for the first time in France, an exceptional Flemish work from the beginning of the 16th^e century with the exhibition Dymphne crazy, amazing stories of a Flemish painting. Restored by the Phoebus Foundation (Antwerp-Belgium), this masterpiece was made around 1505 by Goossen Van der Weyden, grandson of the famous Flemish master Rogier Van der Weyden.

Consisting of eight painted panels, the altarpiece tells the fascinating story of Dymphne, a young Irish Saint Irish who fights for his freedom and whose history is similar to that of donkey skin, even if it unfortunately ends up in a more dramatic way, found beheaded after having fled an incestuous father crossing the North Sea. Immersive, the exhibition is accompanied by video installations and audioguides which reveal, in a lively way, the hectic journey of this painting as the process of an incredible restoration which took place from 2017 to 2020 (until June 22).

The May Adele Returns with its fifth edition, organized by the Adele network which brings together more than thirty structures in Lyon and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region with the objective of discovering contemporary art to the public by meeting artists in a spirit of conviviality through exhibitions and other events. Galleries, associations, municipal spaces, art centers, private galleries, foundations, museums and artists’ residences will be opened for four days, the public thus has the choice to visit each place as they please or follow an exhibition route, free or accompanied, on foot or by coach for visits outside Lyon (from May 15 to 18).

The Gallery Ceysson & Bange Character invite Claude Vihalles With an exhibition of objects he made with his own hands without the help of tools by means of precarious components, which evoke those manufactured by primitive societies (objects of survival, hunting, attack, defense, etc.) withdrawn in a voluntarily self -sufficient economy to protect themselves from the invasive modernity of civilization. These objects, which play on knotting, braiding and assembly, are thus a reverie, a kind of universalist imaginary anthropology (Idemuntil May 24).

The Gallery the size of my soul offer a solo show to Mariette Coustysculptor and potter who produces useful sculptures inspired by traditional pottery in the center of France: boxes, verses, ridge ears, jar, jars … found in Corrèze, place of installation of her workshop and family territory. Her work is based on the assembly which allows her to decompose the simple traditional pottery forms which she recomposes with a vocabulary which is clean, filled with molded elements (toys, utensils), taken from a customary domestic environment (the room where we play, kitchen). By this set of constructions where tradition, memory and fiction mix, the artist recreates a genealogy posed between dreams and reality. It gives life to colorful and strange sculptural forms, staged in a theatrical, sound and moving installation. Note, a performance by the artist on May 10 at 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. (from May 10 to June 28).