Marginalia. Inside the Comics Art Collections

Nouveau Musée National de Monaco
Scenography of the exhibition Marginalia. Inside the Comics Art Collections
Status: Completed, 2021
Curator: Marie-Claude Beaud
Guest Curator: Damien MacDonald
Associate Curator: Stéphane Vacquier
Scientific Adviser: Didier Pasamonik
Scenographer: BERGER&BERGER
Team: Théo Vachon
Surface: 650 m²

https://www.nmnm.mc/en/exhibitions/marginalia/

Originally largely glazed and offering a view of the garden and the shoreline, the former studio of the Villa Sauber in Monaco—as well as almost all the rooms—was gradually walled in and 'neutralized'. Exhibition surfaces were added to the façade, while natural light was blocked in favor of artificial lighting. False ceilings were installed to conceal air conditioning ducts and, in doing so, the interior architectural decor. These rooms were gradually transformed into neutral, artificially controlled 'white boxes'. Similarly, the openings—between the rooms—were gradually sealed off, thereby eliminating multiple possible pathways in favor of a single circulation route through a corridor.
Our intervention aims to simultaneously recover certain 'natural' qualities of this architecture (designed by Charles Garnier) while layering a new, scenographic architecture onto it. The system of display walls defines new 'rooms' and new circulation paths, partially altering the original architectural layout.

Presented at the NMNM-Villa Sauber from April 1 to September 26 2021, the exhibition Marginalia. Inside the Comics Art Collections is an exploration of comic book art, a young art born at the same time as film and psychoanalysis, and which has frequently opted for marginality over convention, humour over academicism and counter-culture over received ideas…

Built around rare loans from public and private collections, the exhibition offers a chance to rethink the relationship between comic books and their acceptance by institutions, or how a medium that has always been split between counter-culture and mass culture has entered the museum space without giving up its transgressive vocation or boosting its commoditisation.

Following Freud’s traumarbeit (dream-work) model, Marginalia. Inside the Comics Art Collections invites visitors to discover over 350 works by some of the greatest comic book artists and honours the passion of those who find their work an endless source of fascination.

Marginalia are the small drawings located in the margins of Medieval manuscripts. Often secular, sometimes droll, always fascinating, they form a dialogue with the texts that they illuminate, explain or criticise and can be seen as the origins of comic books, a combination of drawing and writing which blossomed in the 20th century.

Following the principle of these Marginalia, the graphic works that reflect the curators’ point of view mixing texts and images are found around the works of art. Rethinking the function of the “informational label”, these quirky cards play on reversing polarities – from the margins to the middle and vice versa – to propose new readings and perspectives on the artists’ works.