The main feature of the Jean Cocteau Museum in Menton lies in its ability to infinitely modulate its layout. The picture rails barely have time to gather dust, as they are arranged differently for each new exhibition.
Thus, every year the exhibition is renewed, regenerated both by the works on display and by their arrangement. No one can claim to know this museum, as it changes from year to year. The 2014-2015 display was themed around the symbolism of the Star, which was the artist’s signature. A presentation arranged in a star: a large number of this man’s engravings, drawings, sketches, studies, and texts, whom some would call a demigod.
Throughout his life, Jean Cocteau was pursued, haunted, and obsessed by a genius, his genius, his double, his angel whom he called: Heurtebise. It is in seven worlds, a spiritual number representing the creation of the world, seven steps to discover Cocteau, to discover a man known yet unknown, seven scenes to better delve into his universe and his intimacy:
Perception is both listening and watching
The inside and the outside reflecting the complexity of this somewhat Janus-like artist.
An intermediary between heaven and earth, between matter and spirit.
Spirituality – Life is the first part of death, there is a before and an after.
Loves – The White Paper where Cocteau admits his sexuality, which was courageous for his time.
Space-time – Cocteau will compose the Age of Aquarius and define de-gravitation.
Monsters and myths – Beauty and the Beast, centaurs and sphinxes, a fantastic universe.
Through these seven chapters, where the artist draws us into his world, his intimacy, the visitor will remember the guiding line of this exhibition. Jean Cocteau is above all a being imbued with spirituality. Life, death, the after, the before, and this de-gravitation where lead symbolizing man rises, despite its heaviness, towards the sky. Cocteau is like the pendulum of a clock with a rhythm that surpasses that of the seconds, as this artist had ideas, genius, and talent. What have you done with your talent? Surely, Cocteau exploited it beyond possible limits.
Jean Cocteau was an eternal adolescent, which explains his genius and the eclecticism of his art. This exhibition is more intimate than previous ones; we enter his universe, read his letters, and Cocteau becomes familiar to us.
This quatrain excerpt from Oracle is a beautiful conclusion and a key to understanding this exhibition.
“Your cries, even under torture,
Are written cries, aided by pride.
The sea turns into writing
As soon as one casts the anchor inside.”
Oracle, Poetic Works 1925-1926
by Thierry Jan
