Discover the cultures of Judaism in a different light... This is what the Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme is offering for the Nuit des Musées 2024. During this not-to-be-missed Parisian springtime event, visitors and night owls are invited to stroll the aisles of the museum, free of charge. It's an opportunity to (re)discover the permanent collections of this establishment located in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris.
For over 20 years, this museum, housed in the magnificent Hôtel de Saint-Aignan in the Marais district, has been tracing the history of the Jewish communities of France, Europe and the Mediterranean through their artistic productions, heritage and traditions, from Antiquity to the present day. Today, the museum houses over 12,000 works of art, as well as numerous archives.
The Musée d'art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme offers an insight into over 2,000 years of shared history, and also showcases contemporary artists.
For European Museum Night 2024, the Cour d'Honneur will host Adrianna Wallis's performance "11 petites soucoupes, ..." between 7pm and 10pm.
It's also an opportunity to discover or rediscover the mahJ collection at nightfall from 6pm...
Explore the collection freely with friends or family - with one of the children's treasure hunts, or with the family kit (from 3 years) - and admire the works from a new angle: new room texts and a new audioguide illuminate this itinerary.
Finally, there's a new exhibition and three temporary displays to discover:
in the basement, in the foyer of the auditorium, the exhibition by photographer André Steiner. Le corps entre dépassement et désir", on the second floor, in the Duke's room, the exhibition-file "L'enfant Didi, itinéraire d'une œuvre spoliée de Chana Orloff, 1921-2023", on the second floor, the installation by "Raphaël Denis. Fonds Rosenberg, les années parisiennes", and on the second floor, at the end of the permanent tour, the exhibition "Nouvelles venues : Charlotte Henschel, Sonia Steinsapir et Georgette Meyer".
Visit the ticket office to find an easy-to-read and easy-to-understand (FALC) booklet on the collection, and other aids to make your visit more comfortable (e.g. folding seat, plastic magnifying glass).
Family tours are available on request.
A visit to discover the museum's works with the whole family, in sound and melody.
Around the exhibition "Raphaël Denis. Fonds Rosenberg, les années parisiennes"
Raphaël Denis' installation at the mahJ is a memorial reappropriation of the collection of art dealer Paul Rosenberg, victim of Nazi spoliations. The artist-researcher has been exploring the question of the spoliations of works of art that occurred in France during the Second World War for almost a decade, through a series of installations entitled de Loi normale des erreurs.
Shortly before the armistice of June 22, 1940, the famous art dealer Paul Rosenberg (1881-1959) rented safe no. 7 at the Banque Nationale pour le Commerce et l'Industrie in Libourne, Gironde, to store 162 paintings. Many other works had previously been hidden in Tours and Floirac. Paul Rosenberg intended to secure the last remaining works in his Paris gallery - located at 21, rue de la Boétie - before exiling himself to the United States.
Raphaël Denis's installation is a milestone in a wider project on the spoliation of works of art during the Occupation. The artist designed these volumes to coincide with the exhibition "Paul Rosenberg, marchand de tableaux spolié sous l'Occupation" at the Centre Pompidou from May to September 2019. They compile, in chronological order of shooting, all the works photographed at the gallery owner's request in the course of his business between the wars, until his departure in 1940. The existence of these images was decisive in the restitution of the works that had been stolen from him.
Fonds Rosenberg, les années parisiennes is located on the museum's 2nd floor, at the end of the permanent tour.
On January 26, 2023, the sculpture of "L'enfant Didi", Chana Orloff's son, returned to the artist's studio after an absence of almost 80 years. Stolen on March 4, 1943 - along with the entire contents of the studio apartment and one hundred and forty other sculptures - the work was then passed from hand to hand until its reappearance in New York in 2008 and its return to the family in 2022.
The exhibition-dossier revisits the place of this sculpture in Chana Orloff's artistic trajectory. Created in 1921 - eleven years after she moved to Paris - the work is representative of Chana Orloff's production between the wars, and is also an illustration of maternal love, with one of the most beautiful representations of Élie, nicknamed Didi, her only son born in Paris in 1918.
Using this specific example, the exhibition also recalls the reality of the looting of artists' studios during the Occupation, and presents the steps taken by the artist and members of his family over three generations.
This exhibition-dossier is presented in the Duke's room on the second floor of the mahJ's permanent collection.
As part of the Cultural Olympiad, the mahJ is dedicating an exhibition to Hungarian photographer André Steiner, a pioneer of the "Nouvelle Vision" movement, who expressed his talent by capturing athletic bodies in motion in Paris in the 1930s.
With the "Nouvelles venues" program, the mahJ is committed to studying and highlighting the lives and work of the women artists in the collection.
This first exhibition is devoted to Charlotte Henschel (1898-1985), Georgette Meyer (1916-2020) and Sonia Steinsapir (1912-1980), three creators of the same generation, with singular life paths and different artistic sensibilities.
Recent donations of works and archives provide a better understanding of their respective trajectories. Charlotte Henschel is a painter: she attended the Académie Ranson and the artists of the so-called New School of Paris, with whom she explored the paths of abstraction. Sonia Steinsapir loves drawing and engraving, and remains attached to figuration, which enables her to fix on paper the memory of her fellow prisoners at the Beaudésert-Mérignac camp, near Bordeaux, during the Second World War. Finally, Georgette Meyer creates appliqués, using fabric as others use paint, and arranging textile elements in colorful compositions to fix moments from her personal history.
Although these artists grew up in different countries - Germany, Poland, Russia, France - what they all have in common is that they chose Paris and survived the Occupation in hiding. This exhibition, which combines works and archives, pays tribute to them.
This exhibition is presented on the second floor, at the end of the permanent tour.
For European Museum Night, Adrianna Wallis takes over the courtyard of the mahJ with her performance, "11 petites soucoupes, ..." about the looting of everyday objects during the Second World War.
In a performance involving over forty volunteer participants, artist Adrianna Wallis looks back at the looting of everyday objects during the Second World War, when the Möbel-Aktion looted 38,000 Paris apartments occupied by Jewish families.
Using lists meticulously drawn up from memory by families on their return from hiding, exile or deportation, the artist reveals the modesty of the looted goods, but also the scale of a very large-scale plundering operation.
In the courtyard of the Hôtel de Saint-Aignan, for the duration of an evening, these vanished objects will be whispered in several voices, as if to bring them back into existence: "1 small nickel pan with lid", "2 greenish velvet chairs", "1 large white damask tablecloth with red checks", ...
A looted painting in search of its owner, a showcase of stolen objects, works removed from the collections to be returned...
This tour covers the history of part of the museum's collections and its contemporary developments, not forgetting the history of the Hôtel de Saint-Aignan, the scene of arrests and the Aryanization of some of the businesses it housed during the Occupation.
Let your curiosity run riot and come and discover this unique Parisian venue, packed with masterpieces of all kinds. The Nuit des Musées is a true cultural celebration for all art and history lovers!
Dates and Opening Time
On May 18th, 2024
Location
Museum of Jewish Art and History
71 Rue du Temple
75003 Paris 3
Access
Metro line 11 "Rambuteau" station
Prices
Free
Official website
www.mahj.org
More information
Free admission for Museums' Night from 6 to 10 p.m.
