Offbeat “looks” at Victor Hugo

Anonymous, Pendant blue right eye painted in miniature Gouache, gold frame, glass on both sides, 4,3 x 2,1 cm (Paris, Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris)

Hearing, smell, touch, taste, sight: of the five senses, it is perhaps the last that has pre-eminence. And through the eye, each look is unique. The one offered by the Victor Hugo museum with the Regards exhibition is so daring and unique that it deserves to stop there.

What is offered to the visitor is not an exhibition like any other but an innovative project developed by a fictional character – a certain Lucienne Forest – who has been entrusted with the curation of this exhibition, in the Marais, in Paris.

Alexandra Sacha Pabst, Self-portrait, shadow, at the Mayflower Hotel, 1983 Photography, gelatin-bromide print, 36 x 24 cm (Paris, Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris)

Behind this name is actually a collective of around fifteen psychiatric patients who, in collaboration with the Victor Hugo museum, chose the theme of the exhibition, discussed the choice of the 80 works presented and wrote all of the texts appearing in the exhibition.

The result is an original and necessarily subjective exhibition, which is nourished by emotion and follows a journey in four parts: The eye, the self-portrait; See or look; Vision, imagination; Myths and realities.

Rembrandt (Rembrandt Harmensz Van Rijn) (1606-1669), Rembrandt with spiky hair, 1631 Etching, 6,4 x 6 cm (Paris, Petit Palais, Museum of Fine Arts of the City of Paris)

The selection seduces with its eclecticism with works from the collections of the museums of the City of Paris, the Fond d'Art Contemporain – Paris and the Historical Library of the City of Paris: here we admire a tortured self-portrait by Rembrandt (1606- 1669); there a painting by Eduardo Arroyo (1937-2018) entitled Between Hope and Despair; further on, a lithograph by Odilon Redon (1848-1916); or the Head of Medusa by Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929).

Lucien Jonas (1880-1947) Oedipus, head and left hand, study for panel II of the village hall of the Maison des Centraux, rue Jean Goujon, 1916 Charcoal enhanced with watercolor wash, laid paper, 81 x 47 cm (Paris, Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris)

There are also portraits and self-portraits of the host of the place: a certain Victor Hugo (1802-1885) who, when it came to looking at things, life and people, knew a lot about it.

Victor Hugo House
6 place des Vosges, 75004 Paris
Monday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 18 p.m.
(except Monday, January 1, May 1, December 25)
Tel: +01 42 72 10 16

Jean-Claude Vénézia (1941-2013) Antique shop, avenue du Président Wilson, 1976 Photograph, 31 x 24 cm (Paris, historical library of the City of Paris)

Text: Katia Barillot

26. 02.22