Ever keen to ensure that Mr B’s cultural capital continues to expand, Mrs B was particularly excited to discover that the little town of Sérignan is home to a regional Museum of modern/contemporary art – the Musée Régional d’Art Contemporain (MRAC). And it’s taken our third, more extended stay to realise this! (It’s been there since 1991 and in its current beautifully designed building since 2006) The museum has its own permanent collection, plus a rolling programme of temporary exhibitions; three of these when we visited.
Cunningly preceded by a lovely lunch in the central tree-lined boulevard, we opted for seiches grillées. We were going to wait for sepia a la plancha in Spain, but just in case we didn’t get over the border (you never can tell with the way we travel) we couldn’t say no! We both feel the same that it’s a much under rated dish back in Blighty, given that cuttlefish are a common sight around the coast. And they were cooked to perfection!
On our way to the MRAC we passed the Town Hall, with its proud display of the 1st Article of the French Constitution, reminding us not only of the absence of one in Blighty, but how our oft mentioned admiration of French civic pride also extends to public displays like this!
It’s surprising that we’ve never noticed the museum before, as it’s literally a stone’s throw from the parts of town we have circumnavigated on loads of occasions! It’s a very striking building from outside…
and the integrated use of coloured glass is even more striking from inside…
Featuring French and international artists, we enjoyed a couple of the short films on display – the first by Brice Dellsperger, a humorous take on Dynasty from the 1980s featuring two trans actors…
… and the other, Morgestraich, by Clémont Cogitore which features players from an annual plague-mask type carnival in Basel…
Here are some of the displays we liked best…
...with Mr B particularly enjoying the ones he felt were more interactive, although Mrs B did point out they were perhaps meant to be more of an immersive experience…
...particularly this one room that was given over to a pair of high-end decks running at a very slow speed, sometimes in reverse…
It was only when she later found Mr B stood in front of a couple of pretty obvious ventilation grilles rather than the art to one side, that she realised that perhaps letting his enthusiasm have some free reign might help with his cultural voyage in the longer term…
We passed a very pleasant and informative couple of hours at MRAC (€5 each and no additional charge for being non-EU citizens) and as we left, we were given a leaflet of other sites in the region that we may well be visiting, so perhaps it is as well we had those seiches after all…
S&J 03.06.26
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