MONACO.- The Nouveau Mus閑 National de Monaco welcomes you again at Villa Paloma.
All the measures will be taken to ensure the best sanitary conditions: all visitors and staff should wear masks, hydroalcoholic gel will be available, the number of visitors inside the museum will be limited, the entrance and exit flows will be separated. Cloakroom will not be available.
The exhibition Variations. Eug鑞e Frey’s Light Set Projections presented by Jo鉶 Maria Gusm鉶 has been extended until August 30th, 2020.
Eug鑞e Frey (Brussels 1864 – Courbevoie 1942) was a painter and an artist whose work has been forgotten by the history of art and stage. In 1900 he invented the technique for “D閏ors Lumineux transformations”, a complex system of light projections mixing pictorial, photographic and cinematographic techniques to bring diverse variations of colours, lights and forms to stage scenery, while also integrating moving pictures. He developed this unique process for on the stage of the Op閞a de Monte-Carlo from 1904 to 1938.
With the aim of rediscovering Frey’s prolific work, the NMNM has invited the artist Jo鉶 Maria Gusm鉶 (Lisbon 1979) to reinterpret his Light Set projection technique.
Likening his research to a metaphysical inquiry in the field of analogue experimental media, with references to early film pioneers (such as Eadweard Muybridge), as well as science philosophers and physicists (James Clerk Maxwell, Ernst Mach), Jo鉶 Maria Gusm鉶 has developed a scenographic installation composed of multiple modified slide projectors. Synchronised in the Villa Paloma’s different spaces, they reactivate Frey's different animation techniques in the form of a “continuous light micro-cinema”.
A journey into pre-cinema, the exhibition confronts some of Eug鑞e Frey’s decorative projects with the experimental creations of other inventors from the early 20th century up to the present day: the shadow pieces of Caran d’Ache; the mechanical theatre of master-watchmaker Emmanuel Cottier; the artist Hans-Peter Feldmann’s shadow theatre and Lourdes Castro's performances; the silhouette films created by Lotte Reiniger or Michel Ocelot; the phantasmagorical experiences of Georges M閘i鑣, Alexandre Alexe飁ff and Claire Parker as well as those of Jean Hugo; the light choreographies of Lo飁 Fuller and the installations of Gusm鉶 + Paiva.
The catalogue of the exhibition, published by Paraguay Press (Paris), will be available in July. First publication dedicated to Eug鑞e Frey’s work, it will include texts by St閜hane Tralongo, Professor of cinema at Universit de Lausanne and Laurent Mannoni, Director of the scientific collections at Cin閙ath鑡ue fran鏰ise, as well as a fiction piece by Jo鉶 Maria Gusm鉶 illustrated by Gon鏰lo Pena
