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"Japon-Japonismes: inspired objects" (1867-2018) at the Museum of Decorative Arts until March 3, 2019. RFI / Silvano Mendes

The Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris has just opened the exhibition "Japon-Japonismes: inspired objects". Far from being a simple chronological stroll in the culture of the country of the Rising Sun, the event offers a cross-look between ancient and contemporary Japanese art and western Japanese creations.

The challenge was daunting: to choose from the Japanese art collection of the Parisian museum , one of the most important in France, pieces capable of summarizing, for the duration of an exhibition, the abundant artistic relations between Japan and Japan. Europe in the field of Decorative Arts. " It was a difficult choice. But we knew we did not want to do a chronological exhibition , " says Beatrice Quette, curator of Asian collections of the institution and one of the curators of the exhibition. For her, the goal was not to tell the story of a civilization, something already done among others by her colleagues at the Guimet Museum. " We have Japanese collections that tell more about technical aspects, know-how, patterns, shapes, uses, functions. And that's what we wanted to tell, through themes that left very open the field of exploration and which also allowed to show Japan and Japanism .

Beatrice Quette, curator of Asian collections. RFI / Silvano Mendes

It should be noted that since its founding in 1864, the Museum of Decorative Arts - now preferring to be called MAD - has pioneered the initiative to preserve and present Japanese art in France. The funds have grown over the years and several events around Japan have taken place in its walls since its first exhibition of oriental art, including Japanese, organized in 1869. But to answer the five themes chosen this time ( actors of discovery, nature, time, movement and innovation), the museum also appealed to other institutions, as well as two guest curators: Noriko Kawakami, associate director of space 21_21 Design Sight, the dynamic foundation of Issey Miyake in Tokyo, and Masanori Moroyama, honorary chief curator of the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, and fashion designer Junko Koshino, as scientific advisor.

An important place for fashion

The result is a collection of around 1,400 works, distributed over the museum's three floors, covering a wide range of artistic mediums, from art objects to design and graphic arts. For example, Sato Oki's "Cabbage" armchair, built in 2008, rubs shoulders with Charlotte Perriand's swinging chaise longue, imagined in 1940, while twentieth-century posters interact with toys or porcelain. " We wanted to be able to have a total freedom in the space, but also in the time, with put in comparison with old objects and very contemporary objects so that we see that this inspiration is not something of past and finished, " argues the curator of this exhibition, which represents one of the highlights of the cultural season" Japonismes 2018: souls in resonance ".

Clothes punctuate the whole route, reminding that the MAD is also one of the Paris fashion museums. " Since the 1970s, we have been creating very important collections of Japanese actors' fashion, installed in France or not, by buying pieces by Issey Miyake and Kenzo very early, " says Beatrice Quette. " It was very important to show that the history of our institution with Japan was in design, in graphics, but also in fashion ."

Japanismes 2018 RFI / Silvano Mendes exhibition

Young creation honored

The clothes are sometimes installed in very intimate settings, " as if we were almost in the wardrobe of someone who could leave the place and would come back some time later to sit in the chair next door " says the curator. In addition, young fashion designers have also been invited, in order to show the contemporary creation goes far beyond the clichés on kimonos or the minimalist black and white of the Japanese designers who made Western fashion shake in the 1970s- 80.

This is how Tatehana impresses us with her platform shoes in the red room of the second level, while the designer Saint-Martin conducts a reflection on the body with her bodies second skin in earth color. The trio of young designers is completed by Nakazato, whose creations pose fundamental questions, such as the future of fashion, the use of heritage as a source of inspiration or even recycling. " I wanted this conclusion not to be a closed balance sheet, but something open to the future, which gives space, as much as possible, to young Japanese creators to feel as concerned by these exchanges. " Summarizes the commissioner.

Japon-Japonismes: Inspired Objects (1867-2018), Museum of Decorative Arts - MAD, until March 3, 2019