Consortium Museum

What you will see

Expect changing exhibitions, often of international artists, with the permanent collection on the first floor. Young mediators are in the rooms to talk about the works. Free guided tours run at weekends for individual visitors, with no need to book, and a French and English booklet is available at the desk. There is also a bookshop and a screening room designed by matali crasset.

History

The Consortium began in 1977 on the first floor of an alternative bookshop, then moved to an old shop at the back of a courtyard on the market square. Its founders, Xavier Douroux and Franck Gautherot, showed avant-garde artists early: Christian Boltanski in 1978, Annette Messager in 1980, Cindy Sherman and Daniel Buren in 1982. In 2000 it held a major retrospective of Yayoi Kusama.

The Consortium also founded a publishing house, Les presses du réel, and a film production company, Anna Sanders Films, which produced exhibition films by artists such as Pierre Huyghe and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. It has also organised exhibitions abroad. Its collection, built largely from gifts by artists who exhibited here, forms a memory of its shows, with works by On Kawara, Dan Graham, Bertrand Lavier and Steven Parrino.