At the end of the exhibition "Graziano Arici - Now is the Winter of our Discontent" June 12 - October 3, 2021, the artist donated all the works exhibited to the museum. The temporary exhibition is considered at the museum as a place of experimentation for future acquisitions – whether free or against payment – in which the place of a work in the collections is most often confirmed. The work of Graziano Arici, of great aesthetic, intellectual and technical richness, naturally found its place in the municipal collections as soon as it was exhibited at the museum. The collection, rigorously selected, is both representative of his work and sufficiently diversified to consider the long-term life of the works in the context of future hangings. It joins the rich photographic collection of the museum and in particular an important corpus of Italian photographers.
Le 25 mars, Aubes noires series, 2013-2015, video, 12’25", no sound, 2/5 edition, 3 AP; Dimanche 9 août, Aubes noires series, 2010, video, 8’35”, no sound, 1/5 edition.
The research of visual artist Caroline Duchatelet essentially focuses on light and landscape. Originally a sculptor, she turned to video during her boarding school at the Villa Medici in 2008-2009. The videos purchased, produced in Rome and Florence, take a contemporary look at Renaissance and Baroque paintings and architecture. They are thus connected to the history of the museum and to the heritage of Jacques Réattu, Grand Prix de Rome and resident of the Academy from 1790 to 1793, who had found in his Italian stay a new meaning to his art.These works also contribute to the enrichment of the museum's video art collection, which is still modest compared to the importance that this medium has taken on in the landscape of contemporary art. To make up for this delay, the museum therefore wishes to develop this axis of acquisition, according to a precise prism: to explore the different ways in which video fits into the work of visual artists and photographers, and the porosity it creates between their mediums.
Trained as a painter, Jacques Clauzel also devoted himself to photography from 1968, notably producing several series on Africa, where he lived and worked. Particularly attached to the Réattu museum, he already donated three paintings in the early 1990s, then part of his engraved work in 2009 (175 engravings, covering the period 1983-2009). Today, he wishes to donate a set of 88 photographs, rigorously selected by the museum from its main series, as well as two paintings reflecting the current state of his research. It is rare for a museum to be able to report, in such a precise and consistent way, on the evolution of an artist's work, especially when it is as multidisciplinary as that of Jacques Clauzel. Beyond the enrichment of the photographic department of the museum, it is the synergy that is created in Clauzel's work between photography, painting and engraving, which makes this donation precious. It illustrates the long-term relationship that the museum maintains with artists and fits perfectly into its acquisition policy, based on the porosity between artistic mediums.
