Le Cas Du Sac, Musèe des Arts Dècoratifs, Paris
October 7, 2004 - February 20, 2005
“Le Cas du Sac” is an exhibition designed and produced by the Fashion and Textile Museum and the Maison Hermès. Maison Hermès initially brought together a scientific committee made up of curators and historians who compared their views on the bag, its use, its functions across different cultures and ages. Seduced by what was still only a project, the Museum of Fashion and Textile wanted to build the first major exhibition on bags through eras and civilizations.
A true anthology that brings together more than 300 pieces of the most varied geographical origins, the exhibition reveals the vocabulary of bag shapes in its greatest diversity. The Dogon hunter's bag is next to that of the Papuan witch, the Cameroonian healer's bag, the country doctor's bag, the Mongolian trader's bag, sailor's bag or shaman's bag are next to the fashion bag. A calling card for sedentary populations keen on mobility, the bag is also considered in all its aspects, from the noblest to the most modest.
The exhibition observes a theme that renounces chronological progression in favor of a hierarchy of genres and functions, according to a progression that takes into account the proximity and then the distance from the body that carries them. The scenography was entrusted to Christian Rizzo, choreographer and visual artist. Thanks to a lighting design by Cathy Olive, which individualizes each shape - satchel, aumônière, satchel, game bag, pocket of all kinds ... - its staging plays in turn on the animation or on the fixity of the objects presented.
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The first part of the exhibition focuses on the domestic, professional or traveler functions of the bag. The second part of the exhibition is reserved for the religious, symbolic or aesthetic function, in the second floor of the museum, entirely devoted to the ceremonial bag.
The exhibition thus opens on "the urgency of the bag", that is to say caught in its daily utility, with the bag or the net, which many civilizations have in common; then come the plastic bags, the "Barbès" bags, the baskets, the Papuan bilums, the Oceania bags, but also some vestiges of the Middle Ages, emerging from archaeological excavations. The route continues with professional bags, among which we can cite the bag of a hunter from Mali, a Tuareg blacksmith-jeweler, a country doctor, or the plumber's bag, cleverly hijacked by Robert Dumas, son-in-law and successor of 'Émile Hermès, in a bag to collect pebbles. Then come the travel bags represented by Steamerbags (laundry bags) from Goyard or Louis Vuitton, fish skin bags, made by the Inuit to store clothes, leather bags from Mauritania or raw canvas from Louis Vuitton, whom Dora Maar appreciated so much.
A selection of Hermès bags refers to the text that the architect Le Corbusier wrote in 1924 for the review L'Esprit Nouveau, a text illustrated by the bags of the Parisian saddler. Dispatch bag, "car" handbag, duffel bag, briefcase bag, top bag with straps and clutch bag testify to a requirement of purity and sobriety of lines.
In contrast, the second part of the exhibition is devoted to purely decorative research and more frivolous aspects of the bag, which does not prevent it from exploring its architecture and its envelope, from flat forms to more elaborate constructions. Japanese foukousas, pieces of silk that are tied to transport objects or offerings, guide the visitor to this part of the exhibition where the decor spills over into the form. Several Chinese pockets, richly decorated, follow them. Other bags, mostly European, show how much the Middle Ages already loved variations on shapes, scenes and patterns; the clasps, for example, take on the appearance of true Gothic architecture.
These distant ancestors of the fashion bag herald other variants that occupy several windows, and we thus discover the first traces of a bag in the form of a pocket, hidden under petticoats, in the 18th century.
Closer to the body, the Directory's wardrobe will favor the wearing of the bag in the hand, which appears under the name of “reticule”. We then follow its countless variations, from the simplest to the most embroidered, from the extreme end of the 18th century to the 21st century. The pageantry and ornamentation, usually reserved for feminine bags through its beaded variants, naturally guide the eye to exceptional African Yoruba bags reserved for ritual and masculine use. Other Bamun bags from Cameroon or Papuan illustrate the extreme variety of decorations and techniques specific to the container.
The religious use of the bag is evoked by the presentation of rare documents, such as purses intended to keep relics of saints, African divination bags or Papuan witch bags.
Mythical bags, like the Kelly of Hermès or the Lady Di, now Lady Dior, which take their name from their illustrious owners, sit alongside others, selected for their symbolic character, such as the bag, masked in white, by Martin. Margiela. The exhibition concludes with the most radical, but also the most incredible forms. From the pouch of the 1920s, a sort of sketch of a bag to slip under the arm, to the minaudière box of the 1930s, the bag becomes protean, kinetic, mobile, and even becomes the subject of orders, in the 1980s, with big names in design like Ron Arad, Martine Bedin, Shiro Kuramata or Jean Nouvel.
"Phone bag" by Christian Astuguevieille for Nina Ricci, "disc" bag by Chanel, surrealist bags by Moschino or "monster" bags by Christian Lacroix constitute a new family of improbable bags, on which the exhibition ends.
Inspired by the role of the bag in Samuel Beckett's play Oh! on sunny days, the exhibition thus highlights the bag as much as its content, in order to better understand the intimate portrait of its owner. A true Pandora's box, each container is surrounded by everyday, funeral or sacred objects (knife, mirror, purse, makeup kit, professional object, rosary, amulet, bones, etc.).
Co-edited by Hermès, Les Arts Décoratifs and Le Passage editions, a 288-page catalog-book, under the editorial direction of Farid Chenoune, brings together texts from the curators of the exhibition, ethnologists, historians, 'writers and critics, as well as stories, testimonies and is accompanied by a very rich lexicon. This set gives the book a founding character.