SIX QUESTIONS FOR CHRISTINE MACEL
A flagship exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs this holiday season, "Intimacy: From the Bedroom to Social Media" takes us on a wild journey that, like a magnifying mirror, highlights the evolution of our relationship with intimacy, once hidden, now brought into the open. The exhibition was conceived and curated by Christine Macel, whom Acumen had the pleasure of interviewing.

CAN YOU GO BACK TO THE IDEA, THE BIRTH OF THIS EXHIBITION?

The word "intimate," as we understand it today, appeared in the 18th century, when a segment of the aristocracy desired greater privacy, having previously been tied to the life of the king and the court. It was primarily in the 19th century that this word became more prevalent, linked to the rise of the bourgeois class, which began to separate the professional and private spheres. What interested me was showing
The concept of intimacy has evolved considerably since the 18th century, reflecting cultural and social changes. The objects preserved in a museum of decorative arts and design reveal these changes.

Among the 470 pieces on display, there are objects, but also works of art…

I wanted to show that decorative arts and design can engage in a dialogue with fine arts and objects from more popular culture to construct a narrative around a theme. There's this desire to develop stories that allow us to understand objects beyond their material, style, or even their use, to place them within a longer history. The very theme of intimacy imposed itself on me because, having lived through the 1980s and 1990s to the present day, I've observed that we've experienced significant changes with the internet, email, the Minitel rose (a French online service for adults), Big Brother and Loft Story (a French reality TV show), social media, and so on. Consequently, there has been a great deal of sociological analysis on these issues. This theme also resonated with me because a museum of decorative arts is a museum of interiors, of everyday objects, luxury items, and ceremonial pieces, but these are just as revealing as more humble objects.

FROM THE VERY FIRST SEQUENCE, THE RELATIONSHIP WITH FEMININITY IS EMPHASIZED. CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT IT?

I wanted to reveal that behind the idea that femininity is linked to intimacy, there was, in the 19th century, in the bourgeois era, a woman in the domestic sphere, and a man in the sphere of business and the professional world. This very clear distinction persisted in the 20th century. In representations
In the paintings, it's very clear that women are confined to the interior space, sometimes almost like decorative elements, as in the painting by Édouard Vuillard that opens the exhibition. The aim was precisely to deconstruct the idea that women and intimacy are linked, because intimacy is also a masculine domain, and to show that in representations, until the late 1960s, there was this long period when women were associated with intimacy because they were mistresses of the domestic space. The feminist revolution had to do its work. This is why visitors will find, along the way, Betty Friedan's book *The Feminine Mystique*, published in 1963, which was a bestseller, translated into 14 languages, and which urges women to break free from their constraints, to work, to educate themselves, and so on.

One of the last rooms highlights the links between poverty and intimacy. What was your intention?

I wanted to explore not just the private lives of the privileged classes and what constitutes luxury, but also consider intimacy in times of hardship. How do you create intimacy when you have nothing, or almost nothing? This can happen to any of us. If you go to the hospital one day, like in Jacqueline Salmon's photos, it can certainly be an experience where you feel stripped of your privacy because you have no curtains or partitions. There's also this idea that having a few possessions allows you to construct your identity. Without possessions, you cease to exist. And you no longer have
of intimacy. By showing the survival blanket, Kosuke Tsumura's survival clothing, I wanted to emphasize that intimacy is created when there is an envelope and objects with oneself that allow one to create a space of protection and existence.

WHAT IS THE MOST SURPRISING PIECE IN THE EXHIBITION?

It's really up to you to tell me, because for me, nothing is surprising. But I think what surprises many visitors most is the bourdalou. It's this small, richly decorated 18th-century porcelain vessel that looks almost like a small tureen or something for the dining room. In fact, it's a urinal for 18th-century women who carried it with them because there were no public toilets. They used it during Mass, when Father Bourdaloue preached for so long that they had to relieve themselves urgently. It's an object found in many collections at Versailles and the Mobilier National (National Furniture Collection), rarely shown, and quite surprising. It reveals a great deal about the modesty of the time, which was much less pronounced than our own.

WOULD YOU SAY THAT THIS TYPE OF EXHIBITION IS RADICALLY DIFFERENT?

It is indeed a different kind of essay, from the perspective of this multidisciplinary approach to objects, from the work of art to popular imagery. On the one hand, the exhibition is part of a tradition of cultural studies in the United States, and on the other hand, it attempts to encompass a sociological evolution that...
not only with works of art, but also with several media spanning two centuries. It is an attempt that has certainly found a very favorable response with the public.

"INTIMATE LIFE, FROM THE BEDROOM TO SOCIAL MEDIA"
Museum of Decorative Arts, 107 Rue de Rivoli, Paris 1st
UNTIL MARCH 30, 2025
MADPARIS.FR