The collection of sculptures at the Museum of Fine Arts in Tournai is a valuable object of study. Yet most museums exhibit only a part of their collections, constrained by choices related to space, conservation, scientific coherence or museographic storytelling.
However, their fundamental mission of conservation rests on an opposite logic: that of considering each piece, whether it is exhibited or not, with the same care, in an egalitarian approach which aims to preserve the integrity and diversity of the heritage entrusted to the institution.
Having a space specifically dedicated to sculpture, the museum has chosen to present its entire collection of sculpted effigies, without making any distinction between them. This gesture makes sense at a time when the museum’s teams are carrying out an imperative task of collecting, documenting, and revaluing these works, which often remain in the shadows. Showing everything here becomes a way of making visible what elsewhere remains preserved but invisible.
These figures thus form, in the heart of the sculpture atrium, a disparate group of anonymous individuals, heroes or celebrities, intentionally mixed to merge into a kind of "non-exhibition" where the curators have chosen to suspend the value judgments made by art history.
Neither the color of stones or metals, nor their origin, nor the time period, nor the artists, have presided over this arrangement without a base or pedestal in a space designed to accommodate three-dimensional works.