{"id":2116763,"date":"2026-08-28T09:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T06:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2116763"},"modified":"2026-08-28T09:15:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T06:15:00","slug":"little-louvre-director-has-vision-of-the-museum-worth-fighting-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2116763","title":{"rendered":"‘Little Louvre’ director has vision of the museum ‘worth fighting for’"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/11-Vue-de-lexposition-Mythologies-Alexandra-Vaquero.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\tNicknamed the \u201cLittle Louvre,\u201d a hidden gem of European masterpieces in France\u2019s Basque Country was given a new lease on life last fall.<\/p>\n

\n\tFounded in 1891, the Mus\u00e9e Bonnat-Helleu in Bayonne is home to some 7,000 artworks spanning antiquity to the early 20th century, and it reopened after 14 years of renovations that doubled its exhibition space. About 10 months before the opening, the museum also got a new leader in Barth\u00e9l\u00e9my Etchegoyen Glama, a 33-year-old native of the Basque Country. <\/p>\n

\n\tLast month, the Mus\u00e9e Bonnat-Helleu also presented its first temporary exhibition since its reopening, complemented by rare loans from the Louvre, its partner, and the Quai Branly museum in Paris. On view through November 9, \u201cMythologies: To Tell the Story of the World,\u201d Etchegoyen Glama said, serves as \u201ca kind of manifesto for the museum we want,\u201d mythology being chosen for its broad scope and relevance to both locals and visitors from farther afield, with varying knowledge of art history.<\/p>\n

\n\tVisitors are invited to travel across time and place to notice how societies around the world tended to weave similar, parallel myths. When seen together\u2014a delightful if densely packed kaleidoscope of ancient and contemporary objects, masterpieces alongside little-known works, and even pieces by local designers and folk artists\u2014the works on view reveal \u201crecurring themes and figures that speak to our shared humanity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the exhibition\u2019s entrance is a lamina<\/em>, a part-goose, part-woman mask of Basque tradition, made by contemporary Owantshoozi studio designers. Sitting opposite it is one of the most famous busts of Homer, on loan from the Louvre. Further along is Raphael\u2019s iconic Renaissance painting, Saint George and the Dragon<\/em> (1503\u201305), hanging beside Syrian icon paintings of the same subject, made by Ne\u2019meh al\u2019Musawwir in 1666. Nearby, another beastly creature looms large: a \u201cman-bear\u201d known as the \u201cHartza\u201d; this iteration was made in 2025 by Thomas Loyatho, for use in local carnivals as a symbol of the returning spring.<\/p>\n

\n\tPut another way, \u201cMythologies\u201d has a blockbuster-like title, attracting people who might expect a cursory exhibition on Greco-Roman and Egyptian mythology, but find an unexpected web of tales sharing common threads that, despite being spun across disparate histories and continents, continue to this day.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"View<\/div>\n<\/div>
View of the exhibition \u201cMythologies: To Tell the Story of the World,\u201d at the Mus\u00e9e Bonnat-Helleu in Bayonne. <\/span>Photo Alexandra Vaquero\/courtesy Mus\u00e9e Bonnat-Helleu<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

This mixing of old and new <\/strong>from different geographical areas to think about how ideas don\u2019t necessarily originate in just one place and to create open-ended forms of narrative has become de rigueur in the art world today. But Etchegoyen Glama said this thinking is facing growing, conservative backlash to varying degrees across Western countries, riding a wave that extends into critiques of inclusive, decolonial approaches to exhibition-making that raise social and political questions. (He would not provide examples of such criticism of his museum or its current exhibition out of professional courtesy to his museum colleagues and respect for their viewpoints.)<\/p>\n

\n\tGlobally, the most extreme example of this is, of course, the Trump administration\u2019s repeated attacks on the Smithsonian Institution, which the president had said in a 2025 executive order had \u201ccome under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.\u201d But early forms of this trend have been simmering in Europe, too, albeit in less immediately obvious and public ways.<\/p>\n

\n\tBy way of example, Italy\u2019s right-wing government has attempted to reshape cultural institutions with new leadership, following Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni\u2019s complaints that the sector has been dominated by the political left. Others have also pointed to the controversial cancellation of what would have been the first major exhibition about French Caribbean artists planned for the Centre Pompidou-Metz, originally set to open in October; the museum has attributed the cancelation to financial reasons and the alleged fault of shifting, unrealistic demands from the project\u2019s lead curator, Claire Tancons. (The nixed exhibition will open instead at Harvard University\u2019s Alain Locke Gallery next month.)<\/p>\n

ARTnews <\/em>spoke to four French museum insiders, who would only speak on background for fear of professional reprisals. They went so far as to point to the recent leadership change at the Louvre. Former president Laurence des Cars, whose curatorial approach has been described in the French press as \u201cpromoting social issues through art,\u201d resigned from her post in February following last year\u2019s theft of $102 million in jewels from the museum. Her replacement, Christophe Leribault, critics say, is a somewhat safer pick who will likely shift the museum away from the robust contemporary art program under Des Cars, and toward a more French and Western-centric vision. They cite his career being spent primarily at Paris-region museums as evidence, and Leribault told Le Monde<\/em> in May he plans to reduce the Louvre\u2019s contemporary art program.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>
Astrological Altar of Gabies: The Gods of Olympus and the Zodiac<\/em>, Imperial Rome (Gabies), 2nd century CE.<\/span>Courtesy the Mus\u00e9e Bonnat-Helleu<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThe Bayonne museum\u2019s \u201cMythologies\u201d exhibit has enjoyed early critical acclaim in France, but its broad sweep across mediums and time runs counter to a more classical, academic method of preserving and exhibiting art for the main purpose of advancing the discipline of art history. Nevertheless, the Mus\u00e9e Bonnat-Helleu\u2019s example, Etchegoyen Glama, who formerly worked as an advisor to Des Cars, said, \u201cis a vision of the museum that is worth fighting for, because here, the public is at the center.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn fact, he notices a growing divide between two different modes of operating that are forming in the museum world over these questions. \u201cWhat\u2019s going on in the museum field is a reflection of what is going on in society at large,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s true that there\u2019s a form of reaction that is visible in all Western societies, in the US as well as in France.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAbout a decade ago, things were different in France, when institutions were \u201cembracing new ideas, new visions about a new role for the museum, and a sort of acknowledgement of the museum\u2019s social responsibility\u201d that championed the museum as a \u201csocial place open to a plurality of voices, whose responsibility was not just to preserve and exhibit artworks, but also to be a kind of forum,\u201d Etchegoyen Glama said. While some in France and abroad \u201care still very much defending this idea, we see\u2014and it\u2019s only the beginning\u2014some others going back to a previous period.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a form of regression\u201d across museums, agreed art historian Anne Lafont, who serves as a member of the Louvre\u2019s scientific council and is the author of the 2019 book Art and Race: The African, (Wholly) Against the Enlightenment Eye<\/em>, which examines visual representations of Black figures during the Enlightenment. While Lafont is confident that the relatively new inclusion of more women artists will continue in museums, \u201cthat is not necessarily the case for questions about the history of colonialism, imperial, and racial history within art history studies,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe pointed to French President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s influential 2017 speech in favor of returning African heritage to the continent and to \u201cMod\u00e8le Noir,\u201d a 2019 exhibition at the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Orsay, then led by des Cars, that was the first to seriously explore sensitive questions around French imperialism, slavery, race, and how these issues are reflected in art objects through history. Conceived and co-curated by Denise Murrell, now curator at large at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, it was a watershed for France.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe had the feeling that a window was opening in France,\u201d she said. \u201cPerhaps it will be difficult to open it wider, or even to leave it open at all,\u201d Lafont said.<\/p>\n

\n\tAgainst this backdrop, the International Council of Museums (ICOM), one of the world\u2019s largest global organizations for museum professionals, adopted a new code of ethics this past June that elaborates \u201chow museums serve society\u201d by \u201cembracing different perspectives on heritage\u201d and operating \u201cas spaces for open dialogue, upholding human rights, practicing social justice and promoting peace.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe French art press took issue with that guideline: In an editorial in Le Journal des Arts<\/em>, Jean-Christophe Castelain wrote that ICOM \u201cis not content to update professional regulations applicable to museums; it politicizes them. Social justice, the battle against discrimination, reparational practices, participation of communities, sustainability \u2026 the museum is called upon to respond to the contemporary world\u2019s divisions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnne Dressen, a curator at the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Art Moderne de Paris, has been researching these questions by surveying hundreds of museum labels and wall texts across Europe and the US. While her views differ on some points, she is on the same page as Lafont when it comes to documenting what appears to be sustained and continued inclusion of more women artists in exhibitions over the last decade.\u00a0
However, instead of a conservative regression, Dressen has noticed institutions striving to adopt more innovative practices on a number of levels. \u201cI see museums asking questions of themselves, and trying to rethink their existing terminologies, in an effort to open up to larger audiences.\u201d One example is museums\u2019 wall labels now mentioning tainted or dubious provenance. \u201cIf you just look back 10 to 15 years, there\u2019s just no comparison,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tDressen does, however, notice that museum workers are faced with pressure to avoid controversy. A 2024 report by the Network of European Museum Organizations (NEMO) found that European museums face political influence around budget allocations and the resulting challenge of self-censorship in compliance with governing powers, which has had a chilling effect as more right-leaning politicians have been voted in.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>
View of the \u201cGallery of the Bodies,\u201d at the Mus\u00e9e Bonnat-Helleu. <\/span>Photo Alexandra Vaquero\/Courtesy Mus\u00e9e Bonnat-Helleu<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The Mus\u00e9e Bonnat-Helleu\u2019s new permanent collection hang<\/strong> echoes the curatorial methods of the \u201cMythologies\u201d exhibition, where broad themes connect a variety of national schools. Etchegoyen Glama sees this as a means of reaching out to a \u201cless exclusive\u201d public unaccustomed to museums. The \u201cGallery of the Bodies,\u201d which opens the hang, features artistic representations of bodies throughout time and geographies, from ancient Egypt to Greco-Roman antiquity to 17th-century Italy to 19th-century France, as well as works by L\u00e9on Bonnat, the museum\u2019s eponymous benefactor.
\u00a0
Organized by themes like \u201cThe Moving Body,\u201d \u201cThe Body after Death,\u201d or \u201cThe Ideal Body,\u201d \u00a0the intention here is to show different perspectives across eras. Etchegoyen Glama pointed to Bonnat whose art was influenced by centuries of art history. \u201cIf you understand the relationship between an artist who was also a collector, \u2026 inspired by art that was much older than what he practiced himself, [then] you understand that the whole history of art is about connection through time and space,\u201d he said. By placing all these works together, rather than separate galleries\u2014divided by nation, school, and period\u2014visitors, he said, can \u201center the collection and the history of art first through their feelings and senses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"People<\/div>\n<\/div>
View of the \u201cGallery of the Bodies\u201d permanent collection display, at the Mus\u00e9e Bonnat-Helleu.<\/span>Photo Mathieu Prat\/Courtesy Mus\u00e9e Bonnat-Helleu<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/mythologies-exhibition-musee-bonnat-helleu-france-1234796156\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/11-Vue-de-lexposition-Mythologies-Alexandra-Vaquero.jpg?w=1024″] Nicknamed the \u201cLittle Louvre,\u201d a hidden gem of European masterpieces in France\u2019s Basque Country was given a new lease on life last fall. Founded in 1891, the Mus\u00e9e Bonnat-Helleu in Bayonne is home to some 7,000 artworks spanning antiquity to the early 20th century, and it reopened after 14 years of renovations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2116763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2116763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2116763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2116763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2116763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}