Wednesday December 4 was a day of celebration at the Louvre-Lens. On the occasion of the celebrations of Saint Barbara, patron saint of miners, the northern museum inaugurated a new version of the Time Gallery, this vast single space of 3,000 square meters covering five millennia of history. Everything has been reworked, starting with the scenography entrusted to the Atoy agency which imagined a “river of time” winding through space to connect 250 works, all new, apart from ten survivors from the previous hanging. “We change the works, the scenography, but not the principle, the freedom, the decompartmentalization”summarizes the museum director, Annabelle Ténèze.
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When it opened in 2012, the Galerie du Temps had broken down the habits of the Parisian parent company, where paintings and sculptures are stored in sealed departments, and the geographical areas are hermetically partitioned. In Lens, suddenly, five thousand years of art history were embraced in a single glance: the French Middle Ages rub shoulders with Byzantium, Mesopotamia rubs shoulders with the Greek world. This revolutionary museography very quickly found its audience. According to a survey conducted by the establishment in 2019, more than 94% of respondents said they were satisfied with the choice of works presented and nearly 95% of them appreciated the scenography.
So why change what works? Especially since the scientific project remains fundamentally the same. “We could perfectly have waited fifteen years, twenty years, but we did not want to wait until the Galerie du Temps needed to be redone, until there was weariness on the part of the public to renew it”assumes Xavier Bertrand, president (Les Républicains) of the Hauts-de-France regional council. It was also necessary, in his eyes, to reset the bases of the partnership with the Louvre. “For years, I had the feeling that we had to beg the Louvre for beautiful works. We had Liberty leading the peopleby Delacroix, but afterwards we had to repeat, relaunch, solicit again and again”remembers the chosen one. “When I said, during the anniversary in 2022, that the Louvre was at home here and that the most beautiful works were also at home, Laurence des Cars understood the message perfectly. »
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The patroness of the Louvre has since sent some of her treasures to Lens: The Lacemaker (1669-1670), by Vermeer, in 2023, and The Wild Strawberry Basket (1761), de Chardin, in the spring. For Act II of the Galerie du Temps, the parent company lent “The Four Seasons” by Giuseppe Arcimboldo as well as half a dozen imposing Egyptian sphinxes. The new hanging is now stabilized for ten years. Rotations will be less frequent than in the past, every two to four years, but they will be “significant”promises Annabelle Ténèze. “The idea is not to change for the sake of change, but to make these changes visible, to explain them, to share them. » In short, to transform them into an event.
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