Museum of Modern Art – MAMAC

Museum of Modern Art – MAMAC

Museum of Modern Art – MAMAC, exhibits European New Realism and American Pop Art and with a collection of nearly 1,400 works by more than 350 artists (with an average of 200 exhibited), the museum features both permanent exhibitions such as Yves Klein and Niki de Saint Phalle, as well as ongoing temporary exhibitions.

The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice was inaugurated on June 21, 1990 and designed by two architects, Yves Bayard and Henri Vidal. The building is shaped like a monumental tetrapod arch that towers over the Paillon River. With its square plan, the architecture of the MAMAC building is inspired by the rules of neoclassicism and harmonizes with the nearby Place Garibaldi.

The square connecting the MAMAC museum with the National Theater is called Promenade des Arts.

From the museum it is only a few hundred meters down to the famous Place Masséna .

Built with Roman marble

The facades of the Museum of Modern Art – MAMAC, are clad in smooth white Carrara marble. Carrara marble, or Luna marble as the Romans called it, is a type of white or blue-gray marble popular for use in sculpture and building decoration. It has been quarried since Roman times in the mountains just outside the town of Carrara located in Tuscany, Italy.

The exhibitions

The showrooms cover 6 levels/floors.

• Level 0 is the entrance and lobby
• Level 1 and 2 are for the temporary exhibitions
• Level 3+4 is for the permanent exhibitions
• Level 5 is the roof terrace

The genesis of MAMAC

Following the 1985 Autour de Nice (Around Nice) exhibition at the Acropolis (congress building), it became clear to the city that a dedicated museum of modern art was needed.

In the same year, an agreement was signed with the state to purchase works of art, and two years later an agreement was signed to finance the future building, which was completed in the summer of 1990.

By Tommy Sverre / 2021

Image gallery from the MAMAC exhibition: