“This is not a bottle!” at Mudac, Lausanne casts new light on wine containers.
Mudac Museum and Valais Museum of the Vine and Wine are bringing together their collections to cast new light on wine
containers.
There are, and always have been, many possible variations upon the shape of a wine bottle. What stories could be told by
age-old containers and glass objets d’art? Through “This is not a bottle!” and accompanying publication, the Mudac museum project sets up an unexpected encounter between two worlds: those of ethnology, oenology, and contemporary creativity.
“This is not a bottle!” project was born out of a desire shared by the two institutions. The Museum of Contemporary design and Applied Arts (Mudac) and the Musée Valaisan de la Vigne et du Vin (Valais Museum of the Vine and Wine MVVV) have brought together both their collections, enriched by loans from around Europe and the United States, and their perspectives on the wine bottle. They spotlight around sixty pieces, all of great cultural and artistic value. This dialogue between objects relating to the histories of wine and design also raises questions around forms, usages and symbols.
The exhibition curators have created interesting links between these varied wine containers. You can see, for example,
ancient kegs once used by thirsty peasants in the fields rubbing shoulders with portable vessels by the Czech designer Tadeáš
Podracký. Similarly, a wooden birthing cup is presented alongside the famous Strange Carafe by the sculptor Etienne Meneau…
This carafe evokes a network of veins, a reminder of wine’s fortifying role. In paraphrasing the painter Magritte’s famous
Ceci n’est pas une pipe, the museums are challenging their visitors to consider the way these objects, which relate to the
ways we see, drink and serve wine, are represented.
This Is Not a Bottle! runs until 5 June 2016 at MUDAC Lausanne (Place de la Cathédrale 6, Lausanne).
