Bernard Belluc: “I am not a collector, I am a collector”

Every first Saturday of the month, Bernard Belluc leads guided tours of the collections. – I.J.

L'archéologie de l'enfance au rayon alimentation.

Six vitrines, 28 installations installées il y a 23 ans pour l'ouverture du Miam. – I.J.

Sa rencontre avec Hervé di Rosa est à l'origine de la création du Miam. Avec Bernard Belluc, le Musée international des arts modestes est devenu une caverne de l'éphémère. Rencontre. 

Don't say he's a collector. He doesn't look for anything in particular which allows him to find happiness everywhere. Bernard Belluc refines his presentation thus: "I am a collector. I do a little archaeology. I compulsively collect small papers, small boxes, small plastics, everything that is ephemeral and perishable."  The International Museum of modest arts, opened in November 2000, following his meeting with Hervé Di Rosa,   owes him its first floor: six panoramic windows divided into 28 paintings and which constitute the permanent collections of the museum.

Objects saved from oblivion

These caves of ephemerality have saved thousands of objects from oblivion: from plastic soldiers to Bonux gifts and old bottles of # oil, period magazines found at the Montpellier flea markets, gleaned from the streets, fallen out of trash cans, given by friends. The intimate and popular memory of the 50s and 60s.  

"It's all about deep things, he says in the darkness surrounding the Empire versus Empire window. It started with an excess of nostalgia because I lost loved ones. I started collecting bits and pieces from the years of my childhood when these people were alive."

Tame time

Visiting the Carnavalet museum in Paris dedicated to popular arts and traditions, the young Bernard Belluc came across a display case where small objects from 1789 were displayed. “It gave me such a shock to enter the& ;#39;privacy of the people of that time! This little artistic creation is the most magnificent treasure there is. Doctor Belluc had invented "object therapy" (collection and creative assembly of objects) to get rid of the vagueness in the soul and tame time.

Every first Saturday of the month, Bernard Belluc leads a guided tour of the premises. Completed on site 23 years ago, these windows are not intended to move. They are called The Hannibal Road, The Fires of Love, Food or Miam Yum, take an emotional look at vacations, work, school, genesis, girls and the boys… "I see them as contemporary archaeology."

With Hervé, the merger happened instantly

Sète could have missed them. At the time, Bernard Belluc was interested in the huge champagne cork. which was the water tower before the restaurant, had approached the mayor of Palavas. And then…"I said to myself: I have to find a headliner. And they introduce me to Hervé. The merger happened instantly. We wanted to democratize art and bring together the two audiences: the man in the street who thinks that museums are not for him and the informed public. And it works but it surprises me without surprising me. When you carry out a project with such faith, such stubbornness, it can only work." 

Guided tour this Saturday January 6 from 3 p.m.

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