Closed museums? No worries, art comes to your house.

It may seem like a joke but it is not: it is happening in France. The museums across the Alps will reopen on May 19th and, to kill time, it has been decided to bring art to the home of art lovers.

Courtesy Elle Decor

The principle is a bit that if Mohammed will not go to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed and we have to admit that, being art the protagonist, it’s a very suggestive idea.

Art moves home. And that’s not all, apparently everything is also Covid-proof: there are no guests except the houses’ owners and of course the artists who are in charge of the installation.

The project – which has expanded nationally – is named “UNE ŒUVRE À LA MAISON” (An artwork at home) and it was conceived by Olivier Masmonteil, a French artist born in 1973 who, thanks to an Instagram page, (https://www.instagram.com/uneoeuvrealamaison/), has involved a huge number of people.

Joining is simple: it’s free and there are no special requirements other than a declared love for an artwork. The latter can come from a gallery, a collector, an art center or a museum.

It will be these institutions together with the artists ensuring that art “moves” for a maximum of two months. The only rule is the distance since, by law, the artworks cannot move outside a radius of 10 km.

In any case, this was certainly not what stopped the project, which, on the opposite, was so successful that it also involved well-known French galleries, one above all Perrotin.

Table, calendrier curation- E.Perrotin , Courtesy Perrotin

Therefore such activity has shown that the art world knows how to adapt with great imagination to the dark circumstances in which it has been living for months.

“An artwork at home” gives back art to people and, after all, there is nothing more beautiful but we all hope for a permanent reopening of museums, which can’t wait to return to receive both artworks and people, in the style of perfect hosts they are.