Mucem's popular art objects are the result of collections by investigators in the field: ethnologists, observers of changes in society and defenders of people's knowledge. These collections are precious witnesses, documents on our lifestyles and the evolution of morals, but they also present an aesthetic value which is particularly evident in astonishing analogies with works of art.
The exhibition begins by evoking Yvon Lambert's career, linked to Provençal and Mediterranean cultures, to then focus on a few themes around which his collections and those of the Mucem will interact: the popular and the everyday, man and nature, poetry and literature, the intimate and existence.
Thus, the meeting between the Lambert Collection and that of the Mucem presented during the exhibition “Shared Passions – From Basquiat to Edith Piaf, the Lambert Collection at the Mucem” is much more than a juxtaposition of exogenous collections. Sensitive threads spontaneously weave their web through formal and poetic resonances between works of art and those from popular cultures. By reciprocal affinity of stories and forms, the dialogue between these two exceptional heritage collections is an attempt to travel to the center of a singular gaze, that of a major personality of contemporary art, and invites visitors to the Mucem to play coincidences, free interpretation and poetic associations imbued with the charm and tenacious passions which were the ferment of these two great museums.