«Molinier rose saumon»

>> From March 31 to September 17, 2023 <<
Anniversary exhibition - 40 years of the Frac

The Frac MÉCA has devoted an important exhibition to Pierre Molinier (1900–1976) embracing all aspects of his work, which has long been controversial but is indeed incredibly current. This exhibition explores his direct sources of inspiration and affiliations and reveals unpublished archives and testimonies. It also highlights connections with contemporary artists and artistic affinities with historical figures. 

With this event, the Frac pays tribute to a ‘local kid’ born with the 20th century, in 1900 in Agen, in the midst of the development of photographic processes, and who died in 1976 in Bordeaux, with the advent of disco music.  

It took Pierre Molinier over fifty years to definitively break from the moral and aesthetic values of academism and thus proudly move to the other side. In 1951, at the 30th Salon des Indépendants in Bordeaux, Molinier presented Le Grand Combat, an ambiguous painting neither entirely abstract nor entirely figurative, representing intertwined bodies caught in an energetic and erotic whirlwind. Considered indecent, the work was covered with a veil and became the reason for a shocking and publicised break with Bordeaux’s ‘good society’ (including with other artists as well). And with that event, Pierre Molinier shifted his area of representation definitively and reached maturity. His bedroom-boudoir-studio located at 7 rue des Faussets in Bordeaux became a place of work and mysticism where he shared friendships, love affairs, solitary pleasures, and gender performances.  

Often considered to be marginal, relegated to the aesthetic sidelines in art history, Molinier is today recognised as an emblematic figure of art, both in France and abroad. 

This exhibition celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Frac MÉCA, which, as soon as it was created in 1982, began its collection with the acquisition of some thirty pieces by Molinier.  

Exhibition intended for an adult audience and prohibited to visitors under 18 years old.