MARSEILLE.- A groundbreaking new exhibition at the Mucem in Marseille invites visitors to step inside a world where the borders between stage and gallery, performer and audience, object and artwork melt away. Curated by renowned director Macha Makeïeff, this immersive installation transforms the museum’s halls into a vast, colorful circus ring teeming with clowns, jesters, and intangible traces of bygone performances.
From the moment visitors enter the imposing vestibule, they encounter a medley of fairground charms and theatrical whispers. Beyond this threshold lies a grand nave filled with a vivid array of art and artifacts, suspended above and parading before one’s eyes. Paintings, costumes, sculptures, and stage props intermingle to create a “scene” that echoes both fragility and fantasy. Makeïeff’s vision transforms the conventional exhibition format into an itinerant spectacle, inviting you to stroll, dream, and confront the realities hidden behind the masks of laughter.
Among the show’s treasures are masterpieces linked to world-famous artists—Marc Chagall, Charlie Chaplin, Pablo Picasso, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Agnès Varda, among others—woven seamlessly into a narrative celebrating the artist as a nomadic performer. Here, the works of Miquel Barceló mingle with the legacy of the Ballets Russes; Niki de Saint Phalle’s acrobats rise alongside whimsical puppet heads from the 19th and 20th centuries. Even the smallest accessory, like a clown’s makeup box or a battered travel trunk, reveals stories of performance, resilience, and the ephemeral nature of showmanship.
The Mucem’s dedicated collection of fairground and circus-related artifacts is showcased in all its depth. Visitors will find more than 100 pieces including intricately embroidered clown coats, timeworn stage costumes, wooden puppets, and delicate artist’s luggage. These pieces, often humble and overlooked, stand proudly alongside world-renowned works, illustrating the close relationship between the extraordinary and the everyday.
Beyond aesthetic delight, the exhibition prompts visitors to recognize themselves in the spectacle. The contortionists, jesters, and lost performers—once traversing Europe’s roads—now inhabit these galleries, offering a mirror to our own dreams, struggles, and desires. The humblest whistle, once gripped by an unknown clown’s hand, resonates as powerfully as Picasso’s iconic Harlequin.
In this amalgam of fantasy and documentation, the Mucem’s new exhibition dares to blur the line between art and life. It becomes a living tableau where viewers engage with a narrative that is as much their own as it is the artist’s, forging connections through whimsy, nostalgia, and a shared human destiny.
