The exhibition explores a fundamental aspect of 20th-century art history: the practice of collecting among artists and its integration into their creative process, drawing on the wealth of three collections: those of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, the macLYON and the Musée National d'Art Moderne - Centre Pompidou.

The presentation of objects from the most diverse fields—through assemblage, accumulation, proliferation, and display in showcases, boxes, or even small bags—gives them a new dimension that evokes memory and emotion. The aim is to reveal to visitors the sentimental attachment that these objects can inspire, even the most common and seemingly insignificant ones.

This exhibition, presented at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, brings together in an exceptional way modern and contemporary works from the three partner public institutions and offers a journey through various—sometimes highly unique—approaches to the practice of collecting by some sixty artists and collectives from the 20th and 21st centuries.

It focuses on two key moments in art history. First, the advent of the Musée des Monuments Français at the end of the 18th century, conceived by curator and medievalist Alexandre Lenoir. A museum based on sentiment, intended not as a museum of study but as a museum of emotion. Then there is the ‘Musée sentimental’ project by Swiss artist Daniel Spoerri, presented for the first time at the Centre Pompidou in 1977, devoted to the ‘fetishistic aberrations of works of art’ (Pontus Hulten) and intended to be a bucolic museum of everyday objects by artists, sold in an aberrant shop.

Joseph Cornell,
Hotel Andromeda, 1954.
© The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation / Adagp, Paris 2026. Image © Lyon MBA - Photo Alain Basset

Curators :

Sylvie Ramond, Chief Curator of Heritage, Managing Director of the Lyon MBA/MAC art museums, Director of the Lyon Museum of Fine Arts; Isabelle Bertolotti, Director of macLYON; Sophie Duplaix, Chief Curator of Contemporary Collections at the Centre Pompidou - National Museum of Modern Art.

Organized in partnership with the Centre Pompidou, the exhibition is part of the Centre Pompidou-Constellation 2025-2030 program.

The exhibition is supported by the Club du musée Saint-Pierre, main sponsor of the exhibition.