Combining Past, Present and Future: The Contemporary Art Museum at Château de Montsoreau
Tags: History, Ecology, France, Visual Art, Art

Combining Past, Present and Future: The Contemporary Art Museum at Château de Montsoreau

MutualArt spoke to the maker of the art château about collecting, conceptual art, modern museums and ecology. MutualArt Follow Sep 10, 2019 · 8 min read

Courtesy of Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art

It’s hard to imagine a more suited spot for showcasing contemporary art than the cradle of France.

The Loire Valley in central France is a powerhouse of natural and cultural treasures. So much so that in 2000, UNESCO added the central part of the valley to its list of World Heritage Sites. Beside the many vineyards, orchards and other crops, the valley “bears witness to an interchange of human values and to a harmonious development of interactions between humankind and their environment over two millennia,” the organization explained its motive. Furthermore, “The landscape of the Loire Valley, and more particularly its many cultural monuments, illustrate to an exceptional degree the ideals of the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment on western European thought and design.”

But Philippe Méaille wasn’t content with the mere symbolism of the region. In 2015, Méaille signed a 25-year lease for Château de Montsoreau, one of many châteaux in the area, but the only one situated right on the bank of the Loire river. Montsoreau is known as one of the most beautiful villages in France, and the château its paragon. Now, a hundred years after laying in decay, Méaille turned Château de Montsoreau into a unique museum for contemporary art, exhibiting temporary collections next to his personal collection of Art & Language artworks, the biggest of its kind.

Courtesy of Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art

“It’s always very surprising for people to see old things still standing,” Méaille says. “it’s always very sentimental, like time hasn’t passed.”

The argument for turning such an historic building into a museum is self-evident, but Méaille’s intention goes deeper. “In France, we have been a very rich country during a very long time, and we have built some buildings that represent an excellence of architecture during all that time, but during the 20th century it stopped. We haven’t built the equivalent of the château anymore.”

As much as the château serves as a space for the artworks to be seen in the present, the artworks bring people to the château and remind them of something that once was.

“To reuse this building in a contemporary way is also to give them a future,” Méaille explains.

Courtesy of Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art

Collecting responsibly

Philippe Méaille’s connection to art is as old as he is himself. He was born into a family of Parisian collectors and he recalls how his weekend activity as a young boy consisted of going to auctions. Perhaps this early exposure to art and the art market has given him a distinctive approach to collecting. Centering less on the financial value of artworks, Méaille instead gravitates towards the importance of the art’s dissemination.

“There was a time when collectors were hiding the works during years and years, thinking that this work will acquire a lot of power and secrecy and out of that secrecy there would be a value attributed to this artwork, because it hadn’t been seen during 10, 20 or 30 years. It acquired a lot of aura.”

Yet, as a conceptualist, Méaille disagrees with this notion, as that is “something very different than the content should have delivered,” especially in the new, digital era. “My personal view is that a collector, someone collecting art works nowadays, has to share the worth with the largest audience possible.”

“I really believe in the capacity of my generation, the capacity we have to bring content and sometimes free content to the largest audience possible very easily, due to the internet.”

Courtesy of Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art

Nevertheless, the learned pharmacist lives under no illusion regarding the discipline of art collection.

“It’s a complicated matter when you are talking about art. There are two worlds coexisting in the art world. One world believes that good taste exists, the other is much more interested in the physical, social value of an artwork,” he claims. “The financial value is based on the coexistence of these two worlds.”

Neither of these worlds and the mechanism for evaluating the worth of a piece seem to convince him of an integral attitude towards the meaning of art.

“The first thing to ask yourself is, why are you doing it? Is it all about vanity? Collecting for your own vanity, make yourself more beautiful than you are? That’s maybe not the best path to follow,” Méaille maintains.

“For me it’s a complete sci-fi movie to think that people would one day think that my collection is ‘good taste.’ Could you imagine what will be considered good taste in the future? I’m not considering my taste when buying an artwork.”

Courtesy of Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art

Art & Language

It’s no coincidence that Méaille has amassed the largest collection of works sprouting from the Art & Language movement, among the most radical of conceptual art philosophies.

The Château de Montsoreau Museum of Contemporary Art’s website describes Conceptual Art as desecrating the role of the artist and questioning the conditions under which the work of art is created, putting language back at the heart of the creative process.

Ironically, Méaille’s first impression of Art & Language was that “it was the most risky and most stupid thing ever made,” but he was soon drawn by it.

“I think no artists ever questioned the art objects as deeply as them. They went into fabrication, signification, every value of an artwork. In fact, it’s very funny and ironic. For all these reasons, I felt very impressed by this work.”

Courtesy of Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art

He doesn’t see Art & Language as a movement.

“It’s one of the biggest projects the art world has ever seen. To bring together so much brains for one thing, because Art & Language is not like the other art movements, it must be considered in some ways as an artist. It’s a name under which maybe 50 artists have been involved and collaborate to produce one creation.”

“Its contemporary art,” the collector says. “I strongly believe that contemporary art is first conceptual. At the end of 50’s, beginning of the 60’s, the art world had to face a global collapse of modernism, because it ended. Could you imagine art students in the 60’s looking at the Monochrome, strongly thinking how to go on, what to do out of that, how to grow out of it. It brought an end. When you have erased everything, you arrive at a Monochrome. Frank Stella gave a solution; Andy Warhol also gave solution.”

Designed for life

After his collection was on a long-term loan at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, Méaille returned his more than 1000 works to France, now rotating them at the château. Two out of the three exhibition floors at Château de Montsoreau are dedicated to his Art & Language works, while one is offered to temporary exhibitions, currently housing an exhibition by Swiss artist Roman Signer. The château also hosts cultural events, concerts, readings, and performance art throughout the year.

Courtesy of Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art

But Méaille is looking for more than the regular museum visit for his guests.

“I fondly believe that museums are places to live in, not just places to just pass by. The château has been designed for life. For people to have their everyday life inside. Since the 60’s museums went bigger and bigger and bigger. Visitors are expected to pass by. Not to bring life in, nor to live a life inside. This is maybe one of the strongest reasons why I chose this place to build the museum, instead of a factory or a more modern building,” he says.

“We have people working inside the château that are there to help or explain or talk with visitors, but they are not delivering a message, they are building a conversation. For contemporary art to be understood, the best way is for people to make their own path inside this huge constellation that is now called contemporary art. The artist of Art & Language produced paintings, text, videos, music, installations. In fact, for us, this diversity of materials, the diversity of production is also a richness to let people reflect about what an object is, what modernity is,” Méaille explains.

Courtesy of Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art

Ecological architecture

Finally, Méaille aims to transmit a message that reaches beyond the art market.

“It’s very difficult to stand for postmodern values. They can’t be less ecological,” he contends. “We are a contemporary art museum, it’s very important for us to bring values, to signify, to let people see that reality. How architecture needs to be conscious of these ecological values.”

By “recycling” the château, Méaille wants to raise awareness about the change of architectural thinking over the last century.

“These places are the most ecological places ever built. People until the 19th century were building according to climate and nature and were not trying to signify that they can build something against that reality.”

Instead of using our knowledge and resources to portray our progress in withstanding environmental challenges, efforts should now be focused on investing back into ecological construction.

Courtesy of Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art

“I’m not an architect, but there are in physics in mathematics, chemistry very direct solutions to face that problem. We can’t build anymore without thinking about nature and the environment. We are now clever enough to think and to change, we need the world to change. You can’t change everything in 5 minutes, but we have to change radically the way we are thinking and the problems we have to face. “

“I’m not saying we have to rebuild châteaux like in the 13th century. It is a message; it could signify that one has to think about what is being built and where. It’s very important. “

Méaille speaks fondly and proudly of what he created with Château de Montsoreau.

“The château is very interesting because it’s the beginning of something. It was one of the very first châteaux in Renaissance France. It wasn’t a castle, a military place. It was more residential. The first solution to a problem. It’s the beginning of something, of architecture bringing a solution to this residency problem. It for itself is very interesting to visit. The building is beyond imagination.”

Merging all these intentions by which Château de Montsoreau-Museum of contemporary art came about, Philippe Méaille’s message is clear.

“My goal is that people are going out of the museum a tiny bit different than when they entered.”