Temporary exhibitions 2024

This exhibition pays tribute to the author Philippe Corentin, who died in 2022 at the age of 86, and immerses us in his very particular world.

Smacking heads, Papa, Miss save-who-can, The ogre, the wolf, the little girl and the cake, Splash!, Thing owl, Zigomar doesn’t like vegetables…and so many others.

In Philippe Corentin’s albums, there is a Santa Claus who decides to shrink, Swiss German beetles who ask flies for the address of a pastry shop, moorhens taken for sissies, a stupid dog from a good omen, a big baba full of rum, chocolate éclairs on the high seas, a pickle machine gun, an author-illustrator who asks his publisher for money…

Stories in which there are rabbits playing to scare each other, crushed strawberry-colored piglets… And most often a wolf !

It makes no sense !

This exhibition highlights the Baroque period through artistic commissions from the nobility and clergy in Bourbonnais in the 17th century. It presents unpublished paintings from this period of rich creation, several of which have never been exhibited.

A period often less well considered, the “Seicento” nevertheless has treasures of painting in this province as well as intense artistic activity, linked to commissions from the nobility and the clergy. Thanks to loans from both national museums and regional institutions, the Anne-de-Beaujeu museum offers the opportunity to (re)discover this period, which gave birth to numerous masterpieces, signed by artists like Laurent de la Hyre, Claude Vignon, Pierre Parrocel, Isaac Moillon, or Rémy Vuibert, student of Simon Vouet.

This exhibition, which has been in place since 2021, has been very successful, which is why it still remains accessible this new season!

You will be able to discover the local work of clog makers, carpenters, pit sawyers as well as the centuries-old wood trade and forestry initiated in the 1960s. Many old tools remind us of the gestures of our ancestors.

The exhibition takes you through the different Romanesque, Gothic and modern periods based on little-known works that are nevertheless classified as Historic Monuments. Among the works on display: the Virgin in Majesty from the 12th century, the Romanesque fence, a set of statues from the 15th century whose jewel is the restored Saint Mary Magdalene.

This exhibition aims to present exceptional works, to tell the history of the site from the 10th century to the 19th century and to address its candidacy for UNESCO World Heritage listing. An educational route will be set up for family visits and schools.

A source of inspiration for writers like Georges Simenon or Marcel Achard, the canals of France have served as the setting for some legendary films where the shadows of Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Audrey Tautou or Arletty and his famous “gueule d’atmosphère” hover.
This new exhibition explores eight decades of representation of the world of shipping on the big screen.

Summer 1944: thousands of men from the Allied armies landed on the coasts of Normandy and Provence. In the heart of the territory, the actions of the French Interior Forces are increasingly significant while repression becomes harsher. But the Liberation of French territory is underway. That of Allier and the town of Vichy as well.

It is the dramatic story of the end of the Occupation that the Corgenay Memorial association aims to tell by illustrating its message with numerous documents and period objects, from the D-Day beaches to the towns and villages of Bourbonnais.

Sport and the Great War: terms that do not seem intuitively linked. And yet! From the preparation of the citizen-soldier to the development of football in contact with British troops, even as the first great stars of athletics and cycling fall on the battlefields, sport, a phenomenon born in the industrial era, touches suddenly all of the youth mobilized. ” Faster. Upper. Stronger “. The motto is Olympic, it could be that of the soldier from whom we always ask more in a conflict that has become industrial.

Rationalized, thought out, sport is supposed to allow the soldier to be more enduring, fast, swift and slender… Propaganda praises the virtues of the sporting soldier. Can we even believe it as there are so many Bouin, Faber, Lapize, Boyau, all renowned champions, who fell on the field of honor? Being a champion doesn’t save you from bullets. For his part, the poilu prefers to make fun of situations that he compares to sporting activities… swimming in the mud of the trenches, the weights under the heavy gear of the soldier…

But if sport is useful to the soldier, it is also relaxation for the soldier. During a match between regiments or even between allied soldiers, we forget the “Grand match”, to use Henri Desgrange’s metaphor thus designating the war in his editorial of August 4, 1914 in the newspaper l’Auto. It is a time of cohesion during which even the military hierarchy gives way to the hierarchy on the ground…

An exhibition rich in objects and documents, from Allier and all of France…

Artist in exile and national hero in Vietnam. Hàm Nghi, Emperor of Annam in 1884, was a political prisoner in Algiers from 1889 during the colonization of Indochina by France. Exiled, stripped of his title of emperor, the man reinvented his own space of freedom through artistic creation.

Trained in fine arts by French painters and sculptors, Hàm Nghi is the first modern Vietnamese artist. Called the Prince of Annam, he stayed regularly in mainland France and rubbed shoulders with the intellectual and artistic circles of his time. His work was influenced by impressionism, post-impressionism, and Auguste Rodin, of whom he was a student.

Through his paintings and sculptures, the exhibition retraces the unique journey of an artist. Personal objects and correspondence bear witness to an intimate universe but always crossed by the historical context, that of colonial France in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In an interactive scenography, you will experience the universal dimension of the exhibition. To begin with, the wheel of protection offers luck, love, fertility, power… It is up to the visitor to associate these requests with amulets and talismans from various sources. The search for protection is timeless and global because humans are aware of the passage of time and the dangers that threaten them.

Thus, objects of protection, statuettes of protectors, recourse to specialists show the human desire to control one’s destiny.

Exposed civilizations, ancient and contemporary: China, India, Japan, Nepal, Indonesia, Philippines, Madagascar, Ethiopia, DR Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Niger.

This exhibition highlights the museum’s collections and new donations.

After three years of exhibitions devoted to the first period of Josette Bournet’s production, the Josette Bournet Museum continues its chronological exploration of the painter’s work with an exhibition devoted to the years 1945-1950: Pictorial Research.

At the end of the war, Josette Bournet took up her brushes and explored various geometries, techniques and materials.

Like every year, the Community of Communes opens its René Chambareau space to artists from the region and elsewhere. From May to July, meet Catherine de Mareuil, artist-painter sensitive to nature and especially water. At the same time, admire the porcelain paintings of Marie Hoarau.

Home of the Berry Canal Museum, free entry.

Exhibition retracing Albert London’s trip from October 1921 to November 1922 in five countries: China, Korea, India, Indochina, Japan.

This new exhibition is aimed at all audiences, from adolescents to more mature people. It combines on two floors, panels, videos, postcards sent by Albert Londres to his parents in Vichy, photos, articles written on site and “wired” to his editorial staff.

Visitors will discover cities, Port Said and Colombo for example, with signs along the way and postcards sent from these ports. They will discover articles and the style and discoveries of Albert, like Claudel in Japan, and other stopover cities Tokyo, Osaka. Same principle in China or Indochina, India or Korea.

The exhibition also reveals the hotels where Albert Londres went and his personal life in reporting, his feelings, through letters addressed to his loved ones.

Since its appearance in 17th century Italy, opera has become an undeniable object of seduction and one of the most popular artistic genres in the world. Although it would be necessary to qualify the quote from the famous Italian tenor in many respects, it is undeniable that Italy remains in the collective imagination, the country of bel canto where the voice is queen, that French opera has produced among the most beautiful lyrical melodies, while the Germans are recognized as the masters of the orchestra and the symphony.
Italian hegemony and influence on opera was without competition in Europe until the end of the 18th century. The example is particularly striking in England, which favors foreign composers and has not produced any significant national work since the Baroque era of Purcell until Benjamin Britten in the post-Second World War period.
In a 19th century shaken by revolutions and conflicts, the struggle and the search for emancipation of peoples will inevitably lead to the recognition of national identities, which music, and particularly opera, will transcend. The latter will prove to be a perfect instrument of national demand, even a weapon against oppression and then goes beyond its simple status of entertainment originally reserved for the elites of the European courts. To do this, composers will draw their subjects from history or national folklore, address themes of revolt, equality and freedom, and seek a prosody specific to their language. It is enough to cite Verdi’s Nabucco, Wagner’s The Walkyrie, Moussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Smetana’s The Sold Bride or Falla’s La Vie Brief, to recognize in these works, which have now become universal, monuments of Italian lyrical art. , German, Russian, Czech and Spanish, but much more symbols of pride of these nations.This quest for identity is marked at the same time by the emergence of romanticism. Opposing the rationality of the Enlightenment, this movement advocates a return to the expression of emotions and the exaltation of feelings. Abandoning the mythology and heroism favored by the neoclassics, the composers explored the themes of love, exoticism or the fantastic, drawing their inspiration in particular from literary canons (those for example of Byron, Dumas, Goethe, Hoffmann , Hugo, Pushkin, Schiller and even Scott) who are invading Europe.
At the turn of the 20th century, opera would once again shake up established traditions. Enjoying greater creative freedom, authors reveal stories with innovative narration and more complex characters. They also seek to free themselves from conventional tones, a boldness which allows them to explore new aesthetics.
Completing the retrospective on French opera presented last year, the exhibition focuses on other nations which have produced opera, and attempts, thanks to the museum’s collections, a more global approach to this art which has dominated the Musical Europe of the 19th century.

This exhibition explores everyday life from 1945 to 1975, an emblematic period of the Trente Glorieuses. Through a collection of authentic objects, it highlights objects that are now obsolete in our modern era, such as typewriters or rotary telephones. A first room reveals elements of daily life, including kitchen utensils, bathroom items and period household products. In the second room, the emphasis is on leisure, with a varied exhibition ranging from sports equipment to vinyl records and the advent of television. A captivating dive into the material and cultural history of this pivotal period.

Get ready to discover the incredible life of SIMONE DE BORDE DES FOREST, one of the first female racing drivers in France in the 1930s!

She participated in several international rallies and is the holder of numerous records, before opening a driving school in Gannat.

Discovery of railway infrastructure and the history of trains in Combraille.

Head to the 1st floor of the Prisoner Tower to discover an exhibition of photographs between land and sea. A heritage “captured” by the lens of Dimitri de Larocque Latour offering a poetic and legendary journey almost personified…

This new exhibition invites you to a most surprising dreamlike escapade.

Come and discover the extraordinary diversity of hurdy-gurdy practices in a Europe at the heart of debate.
The hurdy-gurdy has been known in Europe since the Middle Ages. For a thousand years, the enigmatic instrument has adopted varied forms in each country. The uses are not the same and the musicians belong to disparate worlds. However, a link exists between the hurdy-gurdy played in Hungary by Béla Bartók, by Polish beggars and the blind people of Spain.

One hundred years ago, on March 29, 1924, Josette Bournet gave birth to a little girl named Josette, like her mother. On the occasion of this anniversary, the Josette Bournet museum is presenting around forty works – pastels, drawings, sculptures – created by Josette Bournet as a daughter.

An evocation of his life as well as the reading of some of his texts will be offered for the inauguration of the exhibition on Sunday June 9 at 4 p.m.

Since the summer of 2023, the rural museum has taken its visitors on a journey to the Mesozoic era thanks to a most surprising collection of fossils. Imagine yourself, a few million years ago, at the time of the Diaceratherium lemanense (rhinoceros), Palaelodus ambiguus (Flemish), Diplocynodon rateli (crocodile) in Montaigu-Le-Blin…

It is thanks to Rhinopolis and the Natural History Museum of Paris that this exhibition was possible. They allowed the museum to develop an atypical and attractive display, offering a wide range of fossils found at Montaigu-Le-Blin.

70 Artists pay tribute to Philippe Corentin. Discover this exhibition full of surprises.

Emile Romero, watercolorist, will exhibit his paintings on the theme of the Berry Canal. They will be accompanied by sculptures by Danièle Dekeyser.

Home of the Berry Canal Museum, free entry.