[MAC] Museum of Contemporary Art

History

The Musée d’art contemporain de Marseille is the result of an exceptional collection of modern and contemporary art, that of the Cantini Museum which, along with that of Grenoble and Saint-Etienne, is among the most important in the province. Its building was designed in the late 1970s by a collector, Dr. Rau, to house his personal collection. The collector, who has since abandoned plans to present his collection in Marseille, donates the building to the city. A few years later, in 1992, the city officially accepted the donation and decided to create the museum of contemporary art on this site. It was inaugurated on 28 May 1994. In 2003, the [MAC] obtained the label Musée de France. The catalog of the collection was published in 2007 and since 2008, the collection has been permanently and renewed. On May 28, 2024, the museum celebrated its 30th anniversary.

Renowned and networked

The [MAC] was very quickly recognized on the national and international scene by the quality of its exhibitions. This situation shows that the public in Marseille is very attached to the museum, which saw it born and developed. This condition exists in a regional and local context that has changed significantly since the opening of 1994 and in particular since Marseille-Provence 2013.

While the temporary exhibitions program has contributed significantly to the museum’s reputation by forging fruitful links with many institutions outside the regional context, the dissemination of the museum’s collection has been another factor in its reputation. The collection is modest in number but exceptional in quality. This has led to numerous loan applications that encourage collaboration at national and international level, such as with the Musée national d’art contemporain de Paris on the occasion of the Caesar retrospective.

Architecture and Collection

The museum building has a modern architecture with original features, a shed roof and marble floors. These spaces on a human scale make it a pleasant place to stroll, with a simple and clear plan, which can be accessed on one level. Another asset of the museum is the magnificent southern light coming from the glass windows. The regular layout of nine identical spans makes it easy to transform the experience of the route by adding a few temporary partitions. This flexibility of the spaces is very appreciated by the guest artists.

Starting in 2019, the [MAC] will enter into a sequence of work that aims to fully rehabilitate it in the next 2 years. The museum’s garden, made up of small hills and valleys, is home to sculptures by Alberola, Caesar, Dietman and Gygi and is an ideal place for outdoor performance.

The collection takes its historical and conceptual source in the break constituted by the contributions of the new realists. These other highlights are the Narrative Figure sets, the Arte Povera, the American conceptual and performative art, Fluxus, Surface Support among others. American artists are well represented with masterpieces such as the Basquiat painting or the relief of Rauschenberg. It represents just over 600 works to date and is developing in the fields of installation and video creation. The exhibits in the collection are designed in a spirit of openness to contemporary concerns. They incorporate works from other collections and from younger artists in order to update the themes discussed and renew the look at the museum’s works.

In addition to this collection, the [MAC] has a large catalog collection and books of contemporary artists gathered in the Ernst Goldschmidt documentation center, with more than 55000 volumes, exhibition catalog, essays and reviews of contemporary art as well as artist archives. Coming from the Institut des Hautes Études en Arts Plastiques (lheap), created by Ponthus Hulten at the request of the City of Paris in 1985, he was enriched by Ernst Goldschmidt’s donation of his personal library. With the closure of the lheap in 1995, the fund was transferred to Marseille thanks to the support of the sons of Ernst Goldschmidt, Léo and Paul. The documentation center publishes the Catalogus bibliographical bulletin which tells new publications in contemporary art at the international level. It is accessible to researchers and its catalog is available on the website of the Alcazar library. The promotion of the collection presented permanently since 2008 and the attractiveness of temporary exhibitions coupled with the prospective action of the public service, make it possible to retain a large audience. Visitation has increased from 15,000 in 2005 to 50,000 in 2017. Temporary exhibitions renew the museum’s appeal by targeting new projects. Some, such as Warhol’s Time Capsules (38,000 visitors in 2015) or Hip Hop, a golden age (50,000 visitors in 2017), have had a tremendous boosting effect on attendance.