S A F E H O U S E Musée privé (à emporter)
Artist Monique Camps is building a museum in her own home as a safe haven for her Musée privé (à emporter).
Where is art safe? How do you protect art physically and philosophically in radical times?
Monique Camps, with current events on her heels, looks at the recurring fate of works of art and their creators under pressure from dictatorial politics.
She bases her work on the French painter Théodore Géricault and his oeuvre. His life and work were dominated by Napoléon's rule and wars on the European continent. Géricault painted the consequences of the Napoleonic wars for the population in an engaged manner. Meanwhile, the Musée Napoléon, the current Louvre, was filled with works of art looted by Napoléon.
About 100 years later, Hitler had an identical goal in mind for his brutally acquired art works and caused an exodus of European artists and works of art to the United States. In the present day, art no longer appears to be safe there either due to populist political propaganda.
Camps zooms in and out on art historical facts and lies and leaps through time and space with one central question in mind:
Is there a safe place for artists and their works of art and can a portable museum protect her works now and in the future?
At the same time, Musée privé (à emporter) is an ode to artists such as Marcel Broodthaers, Marcel Duchamp and Kurt Schwitters, who each depicted an authentic interpretation of a museum, and to all artists who defend the autonomy of art.
Monique Camps invites you to experience in S A F E H O U S E how near and far, large and small, guilt and innocence can change in one movement.
