• Home
  • Exhibitions
  • Collections
  • Publics
  • The NMNM
  • Partners
  • press
    In order to receive the press kits and available images, please write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
  • e-Shop
    Prochainement...

Variations - Eugène Frey's Light Set Projections presented by João Maria Gusmão
  • 07.02-30.08.2020

Vues d'exposition Variations - Les Décors lumineux d'Eugène Frey présentés par João Maria Gusmão - João Maria Gusmão, Light House, 2020 et Dessins d'Eugène Frey Vues d'exposition Variations - Les Décors lumineux d'Eugène Frey présentés par João Maria Gusmão - João Maria Gusmão, Light House, 2020 et Dessins d'Eugène Frey photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020

Variations 
Eugène Frey's Light Set Projections presented by João Maria Gusmão

February 7 - August 30, 2020

NMNM Villa Paloma 
56, boulevard du Jardin Exotique

Variations is an exhibition devoted to the lesser-known art of Light Set projections, a stage design technique established in 1900 in the tradition of shadow theatres and magic lantern shows and developed on the Opéra de Monte-Carlo stage up until the 1930s.





Eugène Frey (Brussels 1864 – Courbevoie 1942) was a painter and an artist whose work has been forgotten by the history of art and stage. In 1900 he invented the technique for “Décors Lumineux à transformations”, a complex system of light projections mixing pictorial, photographic and cinematographic techniques to bring diverse variations of colours, lights and forms to stage scenery, while also integrating moving pictures. He developed this unique process for on the stage of the Opéra de Monte-Carlo from 1904 to 1938.

With the aim of rediscovering Frey’s prolific work, the NMNM has invited the artist João Maria Gusmão (Lisbon 1979) to reinterpret his Light Set projection technique. Likening his research to a metaphysical inquiry in the field of analogue experimental media, with references to early film pioneers (such as Eadweard Muybridge), as well as science philosophers and physicists (James Clerk Maxwell, Ernst Mach), João Maria Gusmão has developed a scenographic installation composed of multiple modified slide projectors. Synchronised in the Villa Paloma’s different spaces, they reactivate Frey's different animation techniques in the form of a “continuous light micro-cinema”.

A journey into pre-cinema, the exhibition confronts some of Eugène Frey’s decorative projects with the experimental creations of other inventors from the early 20th century up to the present day: the shadow pieces of Caran d’Ache; the mechanical theatre of master-watchmaker Emmanuel Cottier; the artist Hans-Peter Feldmann’s shadow theatre and Lourdes Castro's performances; the silhouette films created by Lotte Reiniger or Michel Ocelot; the phantasmagorical experiences of Georges MélièsAlexandre Alexeïeff and Claire Parker as well as those of Jean Hugo; the light choreographies of Loïe Fuller and the installations of Gusmão + Paiva.

The catalogue of the exhibition will be published by Paraguay Press (Paris).
First publication dedicated to Eugène Frey’s work, it will include texts by Stéphane Tralongo, Professor of cinema at Université de Lausanne and Laurent Mannoni, Director of the scientific collections at Cinémathèque française, as well as a fiction piece by João Maria Gusmão


Curator : Célia Bernasconi 


 
Nouveau Musée
National de Monaco
Administration
Monte-Carlo View
8 avenue Hector Otto
98000 Monaco
Tel +377 98 98 19 62
Fax +377 93 50 94 38
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
-
Villa Paloma
56, boulevard du Jardin Exotique
Tel +377 98 98 48 60
-
Villa Sauber
17, avenue Princesse Grace
Tel +377 98 98 91 26
You are here: Accueil Villa Paloma Variations - Eugène Frey's Light Set Projections presented by João Maria Gusmão