The Louvre-Lens Reopens its Flagship Galerie du Temps with a Brand-New Rehang 

Have you ever heard of, or even been to Lens before? This small coal town in northern France was active from 1849 to 1986, when its last mine was shut down. Then, in 2012, after the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Mining Basin became a UNESCO World Heritage site, the French Ministry of Culture moved to revive the region with a satellite Louvre museum, drawing inspiration from the economic transformation of the industrial city of Bilbao, Spain, which has been home to a Guggenheim satellite since 1997. And so, the Louvre-Lens was born, with temporary exhibition galleries and its emblematic Galerie du Temps (Gallery of Time), a 32,000 square-foot open space reserved for some 200 loans from its Parisian big brother.

After over a decade of success, museum officials decided to rethink the Louvre-Lens’ flagship gallery and to welcome new works from the Louvre.

“The idea was to keep innovating, as well as the initial promise to let the public move around freely and to not prioritize any medium or civilization in the display,” Louvre-Lens director Annabelle Ténèze told ARTnews. Because the works stand separately—like sculptures that can be approached from various angles—some have compared the Galerie du Temps to the São Paulo Museum of Art’s historic display of glass easel. Ténèze squeezed in an allusion to the Guggenheim in New York, which also values the free flow of people.

One of the new additions appears before one even enters the SANAA-designed building, a Niki de Saint Phalle obelisk. The new work is a nod to the rehang inside. “This floral sculpture connects our park—courtesy of landscape designer Catherine Mosbach—to Arcimboldo’s Four Seasons (1563-73), which has recently been restored,” said Ténèze.

The overpaints in the Arcimboldo series appeared to be more recent, not to say less significant than suspected, which gave restorers the opportunity to remove them. Now, there is not one flower missing in Spring’s hair, and all of Meissen’s coats of arms feature in Winter.

The Galerie du Temps’s display is, by definition, chronological, but the rehang focuses on various themes, including self-expression and living things. In his time, Arcimboldo turned vegetables and fruits into figurative portraits. The animal and human meets meanwhile in the 4th century BCE work Allée des sphinx (Sphinx Alley).

“Also, some of the materials presented here, such as wood, are made from living things. I hope visitors realize that while walking around,”said Ténèze, who added that she wanted Théodore Rousseau’s Edge of the Forest at Fontainebleau to conclude the public’s stroll. “He is the first eco-friendly painter, who dreamed of making an artistic reserve out of a forest.”

The Rousseau painting hangs next to a timeless, almost futuristic landscape by Eva Nielsen (b. 1983). The juxtaposition points to the growing presence of contemporary art throughout the Galerie du Temps.

“The Galerie does not need contemporary artists to be contemporary; it has written itself into our present. However, those contemporary artists invite us to look at the past through their own eyes,” said Ténèze, who finds amusement in the fact that some recent works could easily pass for older pieces. Jean Claracq’s Monument 1 (2024) is a case in point. Until you notice the football player on top, the fountain-sculpture appears like it could be from the 15th century, like the griffin-shaped aquamanile that lies next to it.

A few differences can be noted between the initial display in the Galerie du Temps, originally designed with the help of Studio Adrien Gardère, and the rehang imagined in collaboration with the AtoY agency, whose project, titled “Fleuve du Temps” (River of Time), aptly meanders from the 4th millennium B.C to the 19th century. The former presentation included clusters of works sharing a common podium. Now, every work stands or hangs individually for each visitor to appreciate fully. “It seems like the gallery had more of a Greek and Roman touch, and that there is presently something more Oriental or Egyptian about it,” Ténèze said.

With test-groups called out to assess exhibitions in the making, the Louvre-Lens has worked to establish itself as one of the most inclusive museums in France. “We have our temporary displays evaluated by the public ahead of their inaugurations, why not apply the same method to our permanent collections?” Ténèze said of her thinking while working on the new Galerie du Temps. The size, inclination, and height of wall texts have been reviewed based on what a happy few had to say about it. A broad cross-section of people —200 adults, children, persons with disabilities, regulars, and new-comers — were assigned to co-write captions.

“At the Louvre-Lens, anything is possible. You never really know what you are going to do there, but you know it’s going to be extraordinary,” said Micheline, a local resident who lives near the museum and shows up whenever she is needed. This time, it was to help compose texts using the Easy Read method, a way of presenting text in an accessible, easy-to-understand format. Working on Ferdinand Bol’s 1658 Portrait of a Mathematician was probably, to her, the most challenging. A lot of research went into decrypting the character’s equation on the black board.

Unlike her, Karl, another local, had never set foot in the Louvre-Lens before a friend introduced him to the Fleuve du Temps project. “Now, I see art with brand-new eyes,” he told ARTnews. “I can even relate to Auguste Dumont’s Genius of Liberty, which tells part of my life story.” The 19th century statue features an angel holding broken chains, a symbol of freedom, in one hand. Choreographer Sylvain Groud invited the new initiate and his group to dance around a few works. The steps and moves that they all came up with have been transcribed into illustrated captions, so that the public can try them freely in the gallery.

Dance on!