A set of major modern and contemporary works of art from the largest collections in the Rhône-Alpes region (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, Institut d’art contemporain, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes, Musée de Grenoble and the Musée d’art moderne de Saint-Etienne Métropole) is to be shown from 10 July to 16 September 2012 at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg (South Africa).
The order of the works forms a pathway based on the theme of the body and addressing the history of the main artistic movements from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day.
A subject of study or scandal, matter for a masterpiece, a pretext for the most audacious formal research, a figure, a machine or an image, the meaning of the human body changed in the twentieth century. From being an object, it became the central feature of creation by artists, sometimes replacing consciousness, exhibiting itself, disappearing, defining new artistic genres and practices. The human body is still a major preoccupation that sets up resonance between this uninterrupted tradition in western art and that of other civilisations with today's globalised art. The event is organised at the request of the Institut français within the framework of the 2012-2013 France-South Africa seasons.
