Young Friends Luxembourg Report: November 23, 2023

As we mentioned earlier, it was during a short 2-day stay in Luxembourg that our Young Friends coordinator Naïma Sagna was able to make some initial preparations for our forthcoming Congress in May 2024 and meet some of the Friends of the Museums of Luxembourg team.

After a first day where Naïma made contact with Florence Reckinger-Taddeï (President), Bärbel Aubert (Secretary) and Young Friends delegates Mélanie de Jamblinne and Joana Weitzel, the second and final day confirmed the promising beginnings of this collaboration.

The reunion with Bärbel on Thursday 23/11 along the ramparts of the Upper Town, one of Luxembourg's most iconic sites, provided an opportunity to discuss working methods, especially as Naïma was staying as part of a skills sponsorship arrangement with the Friends of the Musée de Grenoble team, who fully support her mission within the WFFM. 

It was at the Nationalmusée um Fëschmaart (Musée national d'archéologie, d'histoire et d'art) that Bärbel and Naïma enjoyed a visit to the various collection rooms: pre- to modern history, art deco, design, modern art... spread over several floors, the works offer an immense panorama of Luxembourg's history.

Next, a visit to the Friends of the Museums office: a charming house overlooking the valley that houses their association as well as the offices of other associative projects such as Lët'z Arles, which is also chaired by Florence Reckinger-Taddeï,. Catherine de Jamblinne, Vice-Chair of the Friends of the Museums of Luxembourg, offered our Young Friends coordinator an autographed copy of the catalogue "Friends of the Museums of Luxembourg. Histoires d'une passion" - an editorial project to which she made a major contribution on the association's 40th anniversary.

Mélanie de Jamblinne had introduced our Young Friends coordinator to Anastasia Chaguidouline, who is the Artistic Director of the Cercle Cité the previous day. So the afternoon was an opportunity for Naïma to discover this cultural venue which is currently presenting in the Ratskeller space an exhibition entitled Hors-d'œuvre (until 21/01/2024), including topical themes (consumption, migration, identity, meaning, etc.) and a selection of artists from the Benelux countries and neighbouring countries. But above all there is a real synergy with the exhibition currently on show at the Lëtzebuerg City Museum: "All we can eat". A meeting with contemporary art that heralded what was to come next.

For the next meeting, Young Friends delegates Mélanie and Joana, took Naïma to the Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain, the main contemporary art center in Luxembourg. Welcomed on arrival by Administrative Director Ruta Franke, they spent some time talking in the library and soaking up the energy of the venue. A veritable platform for experimentation, it is complemented by a 2nd ancillary venue, the Casino Display (artist residencies and research programmes) and hosts an average of 6 exhibitions a year. Two of these are currently on show, and our Young Friends delegates were able to discover them together:

How to map the infinite by Tessa Perutz - curated by Stilbé Schroeder. Visitors are greeted by a huge carpet of lavender flowers installed in the two rooms of the exhibition. The young American artist presents landscapes inspired by her stay in Europe (lakes, plants, sun, moon, fields, forests, seashores), real landscapes, symbolic motifs and sensory elements. On the wall is a large mural depicting a view of Marseille from the roof of Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse closes an energising journey of vivid, almost psychedelic, tropical colours.

Joyeuse Apocalypse! by Jérôme Zonder - curated by Kevin Muhlen. Here, the French artist presents one of his iconic characters, Pierre-François, whose birth he dates to 2000 (generation Z). The exhibition takes the form of a collection of images: first, 11 large-format silhouettes in cut-out wood, like three-dimensional drawings, imbued with signs of popular culture (music, cinema, etc.), as if we could approach him from every angle. Since text is as important to the artist as images, he also experiments with the comic strip format. A huge game of goose drawn on the floor brought the exhibition to a close, depicting different stages in the life of the character.

Then it's on to the event of the young Romantico Romantico Studio jewellery brand created by Fanny Bervard. It was an opportunity to discover a fine example of independent design from Luxembourg (her jewellery is on sale in the MUDAM boutique), before heading off for dinner to discuss the respective and joint projects of the Young Friends delegates.

And so ended the second day, laying the foundations for what looks to be very promising future collaborations for the WFFM Young Friends network with the Luxembourg Friends of the Museums association, not least for the forthcoming WFFM Congress in 2024.