Saint-Étienne Modern Art Museum Marks 20th Anniversary with Collection Show

The Musée d'Art Moderne de Saint-Étienne celebrates the 20th anniversary of its building, designed by Didier Guichard in 1987, by bringing works out of storage. The museum's collection was shaped by Bernard Ceysson, director from 1967 to 1998, who made strategic acquisitions and secured donations. Current director Lorand Hegyi, appointed in 2003, has intensified temporary exhibitions and expanded focus on Eastern Europe. The anniversary display features American art by Frank Stella, Morris Louis, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Morris, and Donald Judd; German painters Jörg Immendorff, Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer, and A.R. Penck; Arte Povera and Supports/Surfaces; and design with works by Alain Jacquet. Recent acquisitions include a large installation by Jan Fabre made of gilded armor fragments, a repainted garage door by Bertrand Lavier, and works by Clay Ketter. Concurrently, an exhibition of Günter Brus's drawings from 1974 to 1986 is held upstairs, featuring watercolors and colored pencils depicting hallucinatory visions reminiscent of Klimt's Vienna and Kirchner's bucolic expressionism, exploring themes of religion, death, crime, melancholy, and the absurd.