Journal de Provence vol. 3
Contente de te voir.
Although I’ve been having trouble getting to sleep, I still managed to make it to breakfast before 9 AM (partially thanks to my roommate Tate looking out for me). Once we finished eating our eggs and croissants, we loaded into the vans on an hour-long drive for our first all-day excursion to a sizeable city, Avignon, to see one of France’s preeminent contemporary art museums, Collection Lambert, and wander inside the city’s perimeter walls erected in the 14th century (although many structures housed within date back to well before it’s construction).
Our walk through the museum began with Thomas Hirschhorn’s Sas de Contamination which was originally created for the museum’s inauguration 22 years ago. A narrow passageway covered in brown packing tape, chains and appropriated works from a huge variety of media obscured by the previously mentioned materials greeted us and provided great context for what was to come, asking us to consider our relationship to art, the way that we consume imagery, and how we differentiate between art and craft. After exiting the installation, we were greeted with the statement for “our museum”, a curatorial exercise again meant to provoke a conversation surrounding what art and artifact mean to us, as well as to explore how contextualization of objects within a museum space evolves meaning.
Master works by the likes of Nan Goldin, Andres Serrano, Cy Twombly, Anselm Kiefer and even Basquiat were vignetted by historical objects-practical, kitschy, devotional and everything in-between. I was particularly enthralled by several ornate reliquaries for the bone fragments of saints surrounded by beautifully formed swirls of paper, accompanied by portraits made by Andres Serrano and Nan Goldin which referenced Madonna and Child. My classmates and I continued through the exhibition space before stopping at the book store, where I purchased a poster of Bern Porter’s The Last Acts of St. Fuckyou and a beautiful photobook by one of the artists featured in ¡Viva Villa!, a biannual reconvening of artists in French residencies abroad.
Walking out of the contemplative silence of Collection Lambert into our first bustling French city was a treat, passing by countless vendors selling everything from moroccan rugs to fine china on our way into the center of the city for a quick lunch-I snagged a chicken kebab baguette that checked all the right boxes and relaxed for a moment before we split off into small groups to explore snaking alleyways and side streets. I soon found myself wandering alone toward the general direction of the Palais de Papes, the seat of the Catholic Papacy in the 14th century prior to it’s move to Rome.
I zigzagged between crowded streets full of boutiques and specialty shops and quaint alleyways and became heavily intrigued in the juxtaposition between modern and ancient; stone walls that have seen centuries of life punctuated by lovely handcarved doors, often covered by the work of highly skilled graffiti artists that further accentuate the schizm of new and old. Wheatpasted posters and stickers on unoccupied wallspace kept me up to date with the current political climate of Avignon while lonely figures wandering with me cast long shadows down the cobblestone paths in the late afternoon sun.
I broke out of the shaded alleyways to see the Palais de Papes bathed in gorgeous golden light, astounded by the looming castle which at the time was hosting an exhibition of Sebastião Salgado’s work. I headed up the stairway to admire a powerful statue depicting the crucifixion staged in front of a chapel adorned by the Virgin Mary encased in gold leaf, where I happened to reconvene with a few of my classmates. Continuing up a path lead us to a serene garden with a beautiful grotto that also offered excellent views of the city and the Pont d’Avignon, a medieval bridge used to traverse the Rhône in the 13th century. The air was filled with laughter as groups of students traversed the treetops on guided rope courses while the light filtered through blazing yellow foliage onto us below.
After spending a bit more time in the garden, we started the journey back to the vans, passing through a few more busy streets to admire the fresh pastries before packing in for the hour drive back to Lacoste. As is tradition at this point, we gathered at Cafe le Sade for a few too many glasses of wine after dinner and parted ways to prepare for the next day.
Merci encore d'avoir lu, à bientôt.
Jacob
