The Collection Lambert opened its doors in June 2000 during the celebrations for 'Avignon - European Cultural Capital'. With a view to making a future donation, gallerist and collector Yvon Lambert decided to place on loan 350 artworks. Housed in an 18th century mansion, these works are borrowed from his personal collection that at this stage comprises more than 1200 artworks dating from the 1960s to the present day. A site for creativity, exchange and diffusion, with museum attendance levels doubling since the first two years of opening, Collection Lambert proposes five zones within the 2000 m² of the museum : exhibitions, preventive conservation, activities targeting young viewers, the museum bookshop and artists' editions and the restaurant situated in the hôtel particulier's courtyard.
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Three exhibitions are organised each year, often in connection with current artistic events, the Avignon Theatre Festival or in co-production with international institutions. For the past seven years these exhibitions have enabled the museum to shine, as much from a regional as from an international standpoint. In autumn and winter a monographic exhibition allows for the discovery of an already established or emerging artist's work : Francis Alÿs or Sol LeWitt, Salla Tykkä or Christian Marclay, Andres Serrano and soon Candice Breitz. Each of these exhibitions becomes a veritable mise-en-scène with each artist freely taking over the spaces in which they have chosen to present video or painting, photography or installations.
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In the spring part of the collection is presented or a large thematic exhibition is organised in the museum. This was the case, for example, with A Fripon, Fripon & demi with more than 350 artworks about childhood, Eijanaika, Yes, Future !, an exhibition of the young contemporary art scene in Japan which was commissioned for Lille 2005 then shown in Avignon, or Il Faut rendre à Cézanne... presented firstly in Aix-en-Provence during the celebrations of the centenary of Paul Cézanne's death, then at the Collection Lambert in the spring of 2007.
Finally in summer, large scale events touching the general public and enlightened art lovers alike bring new perspectives on contemporary art, associated with classic, older artworks : |
Artists' Collections in 2001 proposed the discovery of prestigious collections of artists from Jasper Johns to Arman, Nan Goldin to Miquel Barceló, in 2006 Figures of the Player, the Paradox of the Actor was a confrontation of portraits of contemporary actors with those loaned by the Comédie-Française...
The Collection Lambert also organises exhibitions in Provence (Arles, Marseilles, Aix-en-Provence, Tarascon...) and overseas, exhibiting the collection of works on paper in Yokohama in 1998, works by Nan Goldin in Montreal in 2003 and Moscow in 2006 or conceptual photography for Photoespana in Madrid in 2004.
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