The collections of the Musée de l'Elysée Conservation, donations, acquisitions and valorisation
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The collections of the Musée de l’Elysée
Conservation, donations, acquisitions and valorisation
Elysée Lausanne Press kit
Collections Elysée Lausanne Press kit 2/12
2/14
The collections of the Musée de l’Elysée
Table of content
Work on the collections
• The de Jongh Project, a pilot scheme 3
• Conversion of the museum’s upper level, as the work
on the collections begins towards the move to PLATEFORME 10 4
Donations 2018
• Photographs by Yang Fudong 5
• Photographs by Laurent Elie Badessi 7
• Donation of books by Kaspar Fleischmann 8
• Other donations 8
Acquisitions 2018
• Monumental work by Pascal Convert 9
• Eight Polaroid 55 by Payram 9
• Other acquisitions 9
Educational Project with the Chaplin Archives
“Chaplin in History” Exhibition Kit 10
Partners 11
Practical Information 12
Cover : Storage space for the collections of the Musée de l’Elysée, 2018 © Reto Duriet
Collections Elysée Lausanne Press kit 3/12
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The de Jongh Project, a Pilot Scheme
Founded in 1868 by Edouard de Jongh (1823-1886), the de Jongh
Studio is the most significant photography studio of the Lausanne
area in the Vaud canton. Specialising in portrait photography at
first, it diversified under the management of Gaston de Jongh
(1888-1973) in the 1920s, branching out into advertising and
industrial photography.
Housed in the Musée de l’Elysée, the de Jongh archives include
more than 10,000 prints, almost 300,000 negatives on glass and
flexible supports and a considerable assortment of paper-based
archives (order books, business cards, patents, correspondence,
etc.). This legacy is exceptional for the wealth and diversity of its
contents as well as for its unique account of three generations
of Vaud photographers practising their art since the early days
of the medium.
In 2018, thanks to the support of the OFC (Federal Office of Culture)
and Memoriav, the Musée de l’Elysée launched an urgent mission
to treat almost 150,000 negatives on flexible supports from the de
Jongh archives. This “assembly-line” treatment, undertaken for the
first time at the Musée de l’Elysée, will be used as a pilot scheme
for the imminent major work on its collections.
In the summer of 2018, a restoration studio was set up in
accordance with appropriate labour standards, mobilising a
team of four restorers and one documentalist. The negatives are
divided into batches and shared out between the restorers who
dust them and record information – the negative’s order number
(established by Gaston de Jongh), the type of support and the stage
of deterioration (1, 2, 3, 4) – onto the new protective sleeves before
packaging them in conservation boxes. These are then inventoried
by the documentalist who establishes the links between the
negative and the order books. This crucial stage makes it possible
not only to date and identify the subject of the negative, but also to
understand the context of its production. In time, this inventory will
be an invaluable source of information available to researchers. A
selection will also be made so that a representative sample of the
collection can be digitised.
The future Musée de l’Elysée storerooms at PLATEFORME 10 will
guarantee the ideal conditions to conserve negatives on supple
supports, which require a lower storage temperature than other
photographic supports: a cool storeroom at 6°C has been specially
designed to house them in complete safety.
Dusting of a flexible cellulose acetate negative, de Jongh archives, 2018 © Elisa Murcia Artengo
Archives of Jongh’s workshop partly refurbished, de Jongh archives, 2018 © Elisa Murcia Artengo
Negative in advanced detoriation, de Jongh archives, 2018 © Elisa Murcia Artengo
Collections Elysée Lausanne Press kit 4/12
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From May 29, 2019
Conversion of the museum’s upper level, as the
work on the collections begins towards the move to
PLATEFORME 10
The move to PLATEFORME 10 gives the Musée de l’Elysée the
opportunity to launch a major work on its collections. One of the
main stages of a project such as this is stocktaking, in other words,
verifying the physical presence of the works in accordance with the
inventories. Stocktaking also provides an opportunity to establish
the inventory of a collection at a given moment and to conceive
a detailed programme of actions to be taken over several years
to guarantee the correct conservation and documentation of this
collection.
In order to showcase this considerable mission, the museum’s
upper level will be converted to welcome visitors from May 29 2019
onwards, enabling them to follow the work progress in real time.
From that date, admission to the Musée de l’Elysée will be free of
charge. The Studio area, redesigned for the occasion, will base its
programming on the collections and this project in collaboration
with the LabElysée.
Given the magnitude of the task – the Musée de l’Elysée’s
collections include over a million phototypes – preparing the works
to move them will mobilise all the museum’s teams. The work
will be organised by project, following a meticulously prepared
protocol. First, this involves establishing the operating procedure
for the work on the collections and defining how it links up with
the move. Actions to be carried out rapidly to ensure the artworks’
safety before moving – to guarantee their full protection (material
damage and loss) and to avoid any contamination of the new
storage areas (mould, dust, etc.) – and more long-term actions will
then be established. While the move and the collection project
are very closely connected, in reality, they both obey a different
chronological reality: the former is subject to a fixed deadline, which
is not the case for the latter.
At PLATEFORME 10, the Musée de l’Elysée’s new storerooms are
designed to ensure optimal conditions to conserve the artworks,
respecting the various types of photographic materials. The
museum will dispose of three storerooms at different temperatures:
one storeroom at 6°C for negatives on supple media, one
storeroom at 12°C for colour prints and one at 18°C for monochrome
prints. This improvement will require considerable work sorting
the collections beforehand, since until now the different media
have all been stored together. For several years the museum has
been confronted with the problem of lack of space and currently
has three external storerooms. At PLATEFORME 10, the storage
area will be tripled and the works can thus be housed together at a
single site.
Plan for the layout of the upper level of the Musée de l’Elysée for the construction of the collections
One of the storage areas for the collections of the Musée de l’Elysée © Reto Duriet
In the collections of the Musée de l’Elysée © Reto Duriet
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Donations 2018
Yang Fudong
by the Yuz Foundation
The Musée de l’Elysée is delighted to announce the exceptional
donation of eleven photographs that make up the complete series
‘International Hotel’ taken by the Chinese artist Yang Fudong
in Shanghai in 2010. Having already provided the museum
with financial support for its move to PLATEFORME 10, the Yuz
Foundation, set up by the Chinese-Indonesian art collector Budi Tek,
is behind this donation worth 500,000 Swiss Francs.
Born in Beijing in 1971 and living in Shanghai, Yang Fudong trained
as a painter before devoting himself to photography, video and
cinema in the late 1990s. A major figure of the Asian arts scene,
Yang Fudong addresses the complexities of contemporary Chinese
society in a way that is symbolic and distanced.
Borrowing his formal vocabulary from New Wave cinema, 1930s
Shanghai and post-war films noirs, Yang Fudong engages in his
work – photographs, video installations and films – a subtle play of
abstract, dream and real. Infused with existential and psychological
questions, his photographic fictions submerge the visitor in a
dreamlike and nostalgic atmosphere that expresses the roaming
and soul-searching of a generation divided between modernity and
tradition. What interests the artist is the beauty that emanates by
chance from the cameras’ adjustments and the subtle reactions
of the actors in front of the lens. The viewer’s full attention focuses
on the characters’ expressions, their simplest actions seeming
monumental. Consequently, his work makes one think about the
reality, perception and sensation of time. Also revealed at the heart
of his work is the disorientation of his country’s young people, torn
between tradition and Western lifestyles, and the construction of
a fluctuating identity shaped by mythology, the collective memory
and personal experience.
For the International Hotel series of eleven black and white
photographs, Yang Fudong was inspired by the moments when
the athletes were out of the water during swimming competitions.
He staged these instants of waiting, joy or rest with models around
the Art Deco pool of Shanghai’s International Hotel. For the artist,
the series is like a film, each photograph representing a sequence
and printed in large format (180 x 120cm). The surroundings, the
stylishness and the glamour of the girls bring to mind Chinese
“modern girls” before the Second World War posing for adverts,
calendars and film posters, whose stylised portraits contributed
to women’s liberation. Echoing the models of the time, the young
women smile straight into the camera or pretend to react to
something happening just out of frame. Yang Fudong seeks,
then, to give an account of the complex issues facing the new
generations in today’s China.
From the series International Hotel © Yang Fudong / Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
From the series International Hotel © Yang Fudong / Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
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“I am delighted that the Yuz Foundation wanted to intensify its
support for the Musée de l’Elysée in making this donation,” said
Tatyana Franck. “It has enabled us to complete our collection
with exceptional works by an internationally renowned Chinese
artist at the crossroads between photography and cinema. The
relationship the Musée de l’Elysée enjoys with the collector Budi
Tek and the Yuz Museum bears witness to the ties that we hope to
strengthen with Asia, at the same time as an ambitious exhibition
of the Charlie Chaplin photographic archive has just been held in
Shanghai.”
As part of the project to promote its collections abroad, the Musée
de l’Elysée co-produced an exhibition with the Yuz Museum of
the Charlie Chaplin photographic archive. This exhibition, shown
at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai from June 8th to October 7th
2018, revealed the scope of Charlie Chaplin’s modernity and the
profoundly human nature of the Tramp’s character. It explored
the reasons for his success and measured the role that the
photographic image has played in the prosperity of his legend.
From the series International Hotel © Yang Fudong / Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
View of the installation Marian Goodman Gallery
Collections Elysée Lausanne Press kit 7/12
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Donations 2018
Laurent Elie Badessi
by the Trepper Takayama Fine Arts Gallery
Following the exhibition The Beauty of Lines. Masterpieces from
the Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Collection held at the beginning of
2018, Martha Takayama, Director of the Tepper Takayama Fine Arts
gallery in Boston, decided to offer the museum two prints from the
series Skin by the French photographer Laurent Elie Badessi (1964).
Female and Male on Wrinkles and Man’s Back, Horse’s Back,
both taken in 1996, have thus joined the contemporary section
of the Musée de l’Elysée’s collections, and more specifically, the
collection devoted to the representation of the body, a theme of
which Laurent Elie Badessi is one of the major representatives.
Laurent Elie Badessi was born in Avignon, France, and moved
to Paris at the age of 18. He has been living in New York since
the early 1990s, and comes from a family of three generations
of photographers. His grandmother Raymonde Feugère – who
worked at the Harcourt Studios in the mid 1930s – passed on her
taste for photography, her worship of beauty and the principles
of composition. But it was with his grandfather Miguel Angelo
Badessi, a highly acclaimed printer who worked between the
wars for the capital’s most prestigious studios such as Piaz, Saad,
Lorelle and Manuel Frères, that he learned all the mysteries and
secrets of the darkroom.
Badessi then honed his skills at the University of Paris VIII where
he benefitted from the knowledge of many prominent lecturers
including Jean-Luc Monterosso, Agnès de Gouvion Saint-Cyr and
Philippe Salaün. Living in the United States, he met the celebrated
photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and began working in fashion,
in particular for the House of Charles Jourdan. Since the publication
of his book Skin in 2000, which brings together his work on the
nude, he has devoted most of his time to personal research. His
work is now regularly shown in New York, Los Angeles, Boston,
Miami, London, Milan, Rome, Paris, Nice, Monaco, Beijing, Kuwait
City and Dubai, and is part of major collections such as The Buhl
Collection, The Elton John Collection, The Danforth Museum of Art
and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.
Laurent Elie Badessi, Man’s Back, Horse’s Back, Camargue, France, 1994 © Laurent Elie Badessi
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Donations 2018
Kaspar Fleischmann
Kaspar M. Fleischmann, born in 1945, is a Swiss collector and
gallery owner, specialised in early photography. After his studies
Economics at Saint-Gallen University and an education in IT
at Stanford University, California, Kaspar Fleischmann studied
Ethnology at Zurich University and took part to an expedition in
Turkey to complete his Diploma’s thesis on the “Ethnological Field
Work with the Help of Photography”.
In Zurich in 1979, Kaspar Fleischmann founded the “Galerie
Zur Stockeregg”, the leading Swiss gallery devoted to classical
photography. or forty years, all the grand masters of photography
from the first half of the 20th century were exhibited there. Kaspar
Fleischmann has always worked tirelessly for the recognition of
photography as an art as well as for the promotion of its history. ; in
addition to opening his gallery, he also founded the “Photography”
sector at “Art Basel” in 1991 and is one of the co-founders of the
AIPAD (Association of International Photography Art Dealers), which
presents, among other things, the “Photography Show” in New
York. Similarily, his support to the creation of “Paris Photo” was
major.
An acclaimed expert in this domain, he establishes in 2005 the
“Theory and History of Photography” course at Zurich University;
a way for the photography aficionado to offer substantial support
for training and research in this field. Thanks to his generosity,
students can now obtain Bachelor, Master and Doctorate degrees
in this discipline.
In 2018, Kaspar Fleischmann gave the Musée de l’Elysée the
great honour of entrusting it with the entire working library that
accompanied his practice as a gallery owner. This major donation
includes more than a thousand monographic and theoretical works,
each of which enriches the specialized library of the Musée de
l’Elysée in a beautiful way.
Other donations
• Jacques Berthet (1949, Switzerland), archives from the series
Vestiges industriels, in addition to prints already present in the
collections of the Musée de l’Elysée. Donation by the photographer
• Steeve Iuncker (1969, Switzerland), print from the series Betty,
1998. Donation by Antoine Bellwald – LE BOCAL, Geneva
• Viktor Marutchenko, 2 prints taken after the Tchernobyl
catastrophy, 1986. Donation by Jacques Moser, Lausanne
• Steven Paul Whitsitt, 3 prints from the series Michael Jackson as
Chaplin. Donation by the photographer
The Musée de l’Elysée’s library © Reto Duriet
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Acquisitions 2018
Pascal Convert
In March 2016, the artist and documentary filmmaker Pascal
Convert took 3D photographs of the Bâmiyân cliff that housed three
giant Buddhas, over a thousand years old, which were destroyed
by the Taliban in 2001. He obtained an image of the monument
on a scale of 1:1, and chose to print it using a platinum-palladium
technique, a procedure dating back to the end of the 19th century.
The result is a monumental artwork of 1.66 by 16.50 meters,
named Panoramic of the Bâmiyân cliff, Afghanistan, a veritable
“photographic object whose visual and tactile qualities are that of a
direct imprint”.
Payram
Following his forced exile to France from Iran, his country of origin,
Payram (1959, Iran) abandoned writing for photography and the art
of printing. Twenty years later, during a trip to Syria, he immersed
himself in the world of Syrian craftsmen, evoking for him the Iran of
his grandparents. The stone quarries in Latakia, the steel market in
Damascus and the soap factories of Aleppo are some of the places
he captures on Polaroid 55 and that make up the series Syria 55.
Eight Polaroids from this series, shot between 2002 and 2006, join
this year the museum’s collections.
Other acquisitions
• Michael Ackerman (1967, Israël), Men, 2017, portfolio, Immanences
éditions Anne-Laure Buzot, Florent Fajole & Nicolas Peyre,
publishing partners
• Anonym, a daguerreotype representing Christophe Moehrlen
(1800-1871) and his family, 1847
• Israel Ariño (1974, Spain), print Untitled, from the series
Atlas, 2012 ; 3 prints Untitled, from the serise The gravity of the
place, 2016 ; 2 ambrotypes The Centenary Children, 2013 and
The Necromancer Sisters, 2013
• Viktoria Binschtok (1972, Russia), Golden Horn & Golden Case,
2017, 2 prints on floating frame
• Ben Cauchi (1974, New Zealand), Untitled, 2017, ambrotype
• Paul Cottin Archives, batch of photo books for children
• Mat Collishaw (1966, UK), Vetri Rosa, artist’s book published by
the editions Take5, Geneva, in fifty exemplaries
• Feng Li (1971, China), White night in Paris, artist’s book, self-
published, 2017
• Bertrand Gadenne (1951, France), The Virgin Vine, 1983, projection
photographic installation (diapositive)
• Agnès Geoffray (1973, France), The impassive 3, 2018, print
• Ali Kazma (1971, Turkey), Recto Verso, artist’s book published by
the editions Take5, Geneva, in 30 exemplaries
• Manon Lanjouère (1993, France), Ask the dust. The Footprint of
Heaven, book-object made by the artist
Revoir Bâmiyân, Carte Blanche to Pascal Convert at the Musée Guimet © Courtesy Galerie Eric Dupont, Paris
Payram, 4 of the 8 Polaroid 55 from the series Syrie 55 © Payram, Courtesy Galerie Maubert, Paris
Collections Elysée Lausanne Press kit 10/12
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Educational Project with the Chaplin Archives
“Chaplin in History” Exhibition Kit
Driven by the desire to introduce a teenage public to the Chaplin
Photographic Archives, the Musée de l’Elysée is proposing an
original approach to initiate students into museum practices using
a selection of photographs from two of the famous filmmaker’s key
films, Modern Times (1936) and The Dictator (1940). The proposed
activity involves the creation of a temporary exhibition by the
students in their school.
“The Exhibition Kit concentrates on the study of a series of
photographs in connection with two of Chaplin’s seminal films,”
explains Afshan Heuer, head of public education programmes at
the Musée de l’Elysée. “Learning about and understanding these
two key works will help students grasp their historic and cultural
significance. This innovative project also encourages students to
increase their knowledge of the Chaplin Photographic Archives
and acquire the keys to interpret and analyse photographs. And
the organisation of an exhibition by the students in their school
invites young people to discover the work that goes on behind the
scenes in a museum.”
The “Chaplin in History” Exhibition Kit uses two main types of
source, films and photographs. These primary sources provide
a unique opportunity for students to better understand and
contextualise this period of history as they grasp the significance
of the social conscience that emerges from this cinematographic
work. The experience begins with screening the films in class. The
students then study, classify and interpret the photographs so
that they can discuss their origin, uses and meaning. The activity
focuses on analysing the photographs and organising a narrative
for an exhibition. The relationship between photographs and
filmmaking is also discussed, as is the history of cinema in the late
1930s, i.e. the transition period between silent movies and “talkies”.
Ultimately, this exhibition project kit helps develop a critical regard
for part of Charles Chaplin’s prolific body of work.
The “Chaplin in History” Exhibition Kit was conceived for teachers
of history, visual arts and art history at upper secondary level, but
can also be adapted for lower secondary classes. The activity is, in
fact, primarily aimed at sixth form students but can also be used by
students in higher education interested in the themes covered in
the Kit. As it is a multidisciplinary approach, it seemed necessary
to focus on older students. The Kit is very rich, addressing both
two crucial periods in 20th century history and a range of issues
involving cinema, photography and how to organise an exhibition.
The “Chaplin in History” Exhibition Kit © Courtesy Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne
Double page from the teachers’ manual
Hynkel, dictator of Tomainia, The Dictator, 1939-1940 © Roy Export Company Establishment, scan Cineteca di Bologna, courtesy Musée de l’Elysée, LausannePartenaires Partners
Collections Elysée Lausanne
Partner
Press kit 11/12
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Le Musée de l’Elysée remercie ses précieux partenaires pour 2018
The Musée de l’Elysée thanks its valued partners for 2018
Partners
Das Musée de l’Elysée dankt seinen geschätzten Partnern für 2018
The Musée de l’Elysée thanks its valued partners for their support in 2018-2019
Partenaire global Global Partner Global Partner
Partenaires privilégiés Preferred Partners Premiumpartner
Partenaires principaux Main Partners Hauptpartner
ab
Soutiens privés, mécènes et institutionnels Private Partners, Patrons and Institutional Partners Private Förderer, Mäzene
und Institutionen
Fournisseurs officiels Official suppliers Offizielle Lieferanten
Château
la Bâtie
VINZEL
Château
la Bâtie
VINZEL
Partenaires médias Media Partners MedienpartnerCollections Elysée Lausanne Press kit 12/12
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The Musée de l’Elysée
The Musée de l’Elysée is one of the world’s leading museums
entirely dedicated to photography. Since its establishment in 1985,
it has improved public understanding of photography through
innovative exhibitions, key publications and engaging events.
Recognised as a centre of expertise in the field of conservation and
enhancement of visual heritage, it holds a unique collection of over
one million phototypes and more than a dozen Collections and full
Archives including those of Charles Chaplin, René Burri, Nicolas
Bouvier, Ella Maillart or Sabine Weiss.
By 2021, the City of Lausanne and the Canton of Vaud will see three
of their flagship cultural institutions brought together on a single
site. The Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Design
and Contemporary Applied Arts (mudac) and the Musée de l’Elysée
will be housed just a few yards from the station in the former CFF
locomotive hangars.
www.plateforme10.ch
Practical information
Press contact
Julie Maillard
+41 (0)21 316 99 27
julie.maillard@vd.ch
Address
18, avenue de l’Elysée
CH - 1014 Lausanne
T + 41 21 316 99 11
www.elysee.ch
Twitter @ElyseeMusee
Facebook facebook.com/elysee.lausanne
Instagram @ElyseeMusee
Hours
Tu - Su, 11am - 6pm
Closed on Mondays, except bank holidays
Open until 8pm the last Thursday of the month
Free admission from May 29, 2019 onwards
Until the museum opens on the PLATEFORME 10 site, admission
to the Musée de l’Elysée will be free of charge.
The Musée de l’Elysée
is an institution
of the Canton de Vaud
Musée de l’Elysée © Reto Duriet
A museum two museums, the building of the Elysée and Mudac Museum in PLATEFORME 10 © Aires MateusYou can also read
