Skip to navigation Skip to main content
Collection Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Mudam Luxembourg
Eppur Si Muove

Art and Technology, A Shaped Sphere

The product of an ambitious partnership with the Musée des Arts et Métiers, the exhibition Eppur si muove (And yet it turns) focuses on the many links that exist between the fields of the visual arts and technology, as well as the decisive influence that the history of the sciences and technology has exercised on contemporary artists.

Filling all the Mudam Luxembourg’s exhibitions spaces, and in a spirit of dialogue, it brings together some seventy pieces dating from between the eighteenth century to the present day from the collections of the prestigious museum in Paris and more than 130 works by artists who, through the questions that they engage with, the experiences they offer, and the manner of production and collaboration they employ, embrace the themes that have run through the domains of technology and science for several centuries.

Opening with a representation of the emblematic pendulum built by Léon Foucault – “he first to physically demonstrate the spinning movement of the Earth”, in the words of artist Piotr Kowalski – the exhibition is structured in three sections: “Measuring the World”, “Matter Revealed”, and “Inventions Applied”, each occupying a floor of the museum in several theme-based rooms. Questions tackled vary from celestial mechanics, descriptive geometry, the measurement of time and space, observation of the infinitely large and infinitely small, light, sound and electromagnetic waves, tools, energy, and cybernetics: each a facet of a world that man has always attempted to understand and mould.

By means of the dialogue that it stimulates, the exhibition Eppur si muove - Art et technique, un espace partagé also reassesses the dynamics common to both domains, which are often artificially distanced from one another. Freed of the conception of art being autonomous, the works bear out the importance to the creative process of technical and scientific research, collaboration, experimentation, and instrumentation. In parallel and aside from their undeniable physical beauty, the technical objects from the Musée des Arts et Métiers embody the dimension of intuition and creativity that goes hand-in-hand with all scientific research. This unique exhibition thus draws the contours of a “shared space” between artists and engineers, artists and scientists – a place where unique yet complementary gazes on the contemporary world intersect.

Catalogue
A Mudam Luxembourg publication brings together hitherto unpublished essays by, among others, Marie-Sophie Corcy, Patricia Falguières, Arnaud Dejeammes, Vincent Crapon and Christophe Gallois, as well as a major section devoted to the exhibition with background descriptions and visuals of the works on view.

Symposium
FABRIQUE DES SCIENCES - FABRIQUE DES ARTS
La question de la recherche dans les domaines scientifiques, techniques et artistiques
15 – 17 octobre 2015
The exhibition will be the subject of an international symposium to be held from 15 to17 October 2015 at the Mudam. Titled “Fabrique des sciences – Fabrique des arts”, it will be chaired by Patricia Falguières, professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and is being organised in collaboration with the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers – Lorraine, the École supérieure d’Art de Lorraine, the Université de Luxembourg and the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), with the support of the Fonds National de la Recherche, Luxembourg.

CoRobots
The SNT research department (Interdisciplinary Centre for ICT Security, Reliability and Trust) of the Université de Luxembourg is currently working on an ambitious mediation project for a 21st century museum, initiated by the researcher Patrice Caire, which consists in “robotically” supporting the Mudam’s Publics Department. Developed over three years, this programme will& in due course consist in enabling robots to welcome and interact with museum visitors. The project’s first phase will be unveiled at the exhibition.

© CoRobots Photo: Patrice Caire

Credits

Curators:
  • Marie-Noëlle Farcy, Christophe Gallois, Enrico Lunghi, Clément Minighetti (Mudam)
    Marie-Sophie Corcy (Musée des arts et métiers)

Associate curators:
  • Vincent Crapon (Mudam)
    Lionel Dufaux, Cyrille Foasso (Musée des arts et métiers)

Artists:
  • Dove Allouche
    Darren Almond
    Renaud Auguste-Dormeuil
    Julien Berthier
    Michael Beutler
    Mel Bochner
    Katinka Bock
    Stanley Brouwn
    Chris Burden
    Nina Canell
    Daniel Gustav Cramer
    Attila Csörgő
    Björn Dahlem
    Edith Dekyndt
    Wim Delvoye
    Ólafur Elíasson
    Christoph Fink
    Gego
    Jochen Gerner
    Marco Godinho
    Paul Granjon
    Grönlund-Nisunen
    João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva
    Wade Guyton
    Paul Harrison & John Wood
    Rebecca Horn
    Éric van Hove
    Ann Veronica Janssens
    Véronique Joumard
    Jugnet + Clairet
    Rolf Julius
    On Kawara
    Paul Kirps
    Piotr Kowalski
    Sophie Krier
    Alicja Kwade
    Bertrand Lamarche
    David Lamelas
    Vincent Lamouroux
    Katie Lewis
    Jorge Macchi
    Daria Martin
    Kris Martin
    Tatsuo Miyajima
    Kazuko Miyamoto
    Laurent Montaron
    Gianni Motti
    Carsten Nicolai
    Navid Nuur
    Lisa Oppenheim
    Damián Ortega
    Adrian Paci
    Trevor Paglen
    Nam June Paik
    Miguel Palma
    Panamarenko
    Michel Paysant
    Amalia Pica
    Julien Prévieux
    Evariste Richer
    Georges Rousse
    Thomas Ruff
    Stéphane Sautour
    Lasse Schmidt Hansen
    Conrad Shawcross
    Simon Starling
    Stelarc
    Thomas Struth
    Takis
    Jean Tinguely
    Francisco Tropa
    Guido van der Werve
    George Widener
    John Wood & Paul Harrison
    Raphaël Zarka