Design and layout: how to shape engaging exhibitions?

Jointly organised by the Musée d’Orsay, Louvre Abu Dhabi and France Muséums, the new international exhibition Post-Impressionism: Beyond Appearances will be held from 16 October 2024 to 9 February 2025 at Louvre Abu Dhabi. 

Bringing together 100 works including 74 masterpieces on loan from the Musée d’Orsay, the exhibition will explore two particularly fertile decades on the French art scene from the mid-1880s to the 1900s.  By fostering dialogue between leading painters such as Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the Nabis, the aim of the exhibition is to highlight the interactions, points of convergence and aesthetic and artistic trends that gave rise to a genuine creative ebullition.   

Curated by Jean-Rémi Touzet, Painting Curator at the Musée d’Orsay, and Jérôme Farigoule, Chief Curator at Louvre Abu Dhabi, the exhibition sets out a unique multi-disciplinary arena offering an overview of the groundbreaking artistic developments of the period. From individual trajectories to collective initiatives, this Post-Impressionist “constellation” is placed within its historical context and examined in all its rich complexities. 

Although the vast majority of the artworks come from the Musée d’Orsay, it is important to highlight contributions from the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, the Petit Palais, the Centre Pompidou, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, drawings and prints from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and loans from the Musée de Grenoble, the Musée du Signe, the Centre national du Graphisme and the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec in Albi.  

DESIGN AND LAYOUT: PUSHING THE ENVELOPE

Dealing with the Post-Impressionist era means rising to a major challenge: that of reflecting a multitude of artistic movements, which are sometimes complementary and sometimes in opposition, but which resonate with one another and whose connections or divergences must be transcribed into a coherent visitor experience.  

How can exhibition design and interpretive approaches be combined to seek out a more complete visitor experience? 

The role of France Muséums is to support curators in developing the scientific content and the project’s design and production. Our aim is to foster collaboration between different areas of expertise to craft a coherent whole whose common thread must be the idea of using the visitor experience to pass on a scientific message.  

For Post-Impressionism: Beyond Appearances, we worked in close collaboration with the Scenografía studio, which was tasked with the design and layout of the exhibition, while also working hand in hand with Artisans d’Idées on proposals for digital interpretive solutions and Graphica on the graphic identity of the exhibition.  

The exhibition design and layout does not merely involve determining the structure of the physical environment of the visit; it must also act as a mediator that helps the visitor navigate the wealth of artistic material on display. This means it has to combine two essential functions: one aesthetic, the other symbolic. The former focuses on the visitor pathway, on how to attract and hold the visitor’s attention, on visitor comfort, and on how to display artworks to their best advantage. The latter aims to make the chosen subject meaningful and to use the space to help visitors to understand the scientific message being conveyed.  

In Post-Impressionism: Beyond Appearances, this holistic approach to understanding space is reflected in an enriched visitor environment where scenography and interpretation tools and devices merge to provide a comprehensive experience.  

The exhibition is designed as an interactive visual narrative. To represent the diversity of Post-Impressionist movements, it adopts a non-hierarchical approach, with a star-shaped central space radiating outwards to different sections. This configuration facilitates an understanding of the connections between the various movements, highlighting mutual influences between the artists while underlining their distinct stylistic features. 

Valentina Dodi, exhibition designer: “The work carried out from the earliest stages by the design team is a wide-ranging creative process. The various skills required for designing an exhibition are brought together within a single team, working collaboratively on the concept that will shape the visitor journey. 

For the Post-Impressionnism project, the layout features a central pathway that reflects the many-spoked, all-encompassing and open nature of the exhibition. The central area radiates out to eight interconnected sections, each representing a movement within Post-Impressionism”.  

This way of connecting the different exhibition rooms, which are all accessible from the central area and which also communicate with one another, offers visitors the opportunity either to walk around freely and discover different movements and artists or to take a circular path if they prefer to be guided. Visitors can thus pilot their own experience, identifying aesthetic and formal connections between the different sections. 

HOW DESIGN AND LAYOUT CAN FOSTER VISITOR ENGAGEMENT

The role of France Muséums is to transform a curatorial vision into an engaging visitor experience. We strive to create exhibitions that are educational and attention-grabbing and offer both intellectual enrichment and aesthetic enjoyment. 

Design and layout can themselves act as interpretive tools. Each section of the exhibition is designed to reflect the palettes and themes favoured by the artists on display, transforming the space into an immersive experience.  

To achieve this, it is vital, from the earliest stages of the project, to incorporate interpretive solutions at strategic points, highlighting key aspects and enhancing the visitor’s understanding.  

A monumental projection at the entrance to the exhibition places it in its geographical and historical context by immersing the visitor in Post-Impressionist Paris. At the centre of the visitor pathway, an interactive display acts as an orientation table, pointing the visitor towards the different sections while providing additional scientific content by focusing on the lives of the artists, their sources of inspiration or their techniques. Throughout the exhibition, three interactive narratives focus on the lives of Van Gogh, Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec. On each screen, visitors are provided with insights into a key period in each artist’s life, shows further examples of their output and illustrates their artistic careers beyond the works on display in the exhibition. 

Lastly a fun activity is available to bring together the various facets of Post-Impressionism and its techniques. Visitors are invited to create their own painting by combining the themes, colour palettes and styles discovered during the exhibition, before signing it and collecting it (in digital form).  

These scientific, educational and playful elements are incorporated smoothly into the exhibition design, creating an experience where art and interpretation enrich one another. This approach fosters learning by doing, adding a personal narrative dimension and deepening the overall visitor experience. 

Valentina Dodi, exhibition designer: “although the structure itself is meaningful, the depth of the exhibition lies in what audio-visual aspects and graphic design bring to the experience. An additional interpretation of the artworks is provided by strips of enlargements that mark the entrances to the different sections, highlighting details in the art that the visitor may have missed.  

Audio-visual interpretive tools support this approach thanks to their content, but more importantly the way they are positioned provides the visit with its overall structure. Situated at the entrance to the exhibition, at the centre of the room and scattered around the different sections, they enhance the visitor experience and form an integral part of the design and layout.”

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO THE VISITOR EXPERIENCE

 Over recent years, museums have incorporated various digital installations and interpretive tools that enrich the visitor experience in their galleries and temporary exhibitions. These interactive devices foster a hands-on approach and build emotional connections with the works on display. But technology should never be an end in itself: each tool must be tailored to the curatorial vision, the message of the exhibition and the profile of its visitors. 

Valentina Dodi, exhibition designer: “Bringing together experts in exhibition design, audio-visual interpretation and graphic design from the earliest stages allows us to design a fluid, coherent visitor experience. In the Post-Impressionism exhibition, the central room is the best example of this. With its audio-visual tools and compelling graphics, it offers visitors an overarching view of the different sections, allowing them to navigate freely without a predefined itinerary. This leads to a more nuanced and personal understanding of the artwork. Each element falls into place naturally because it is designed in relation to the others—from the signage to the interpretive tools—thus avoiding inconsistencies and visual clashes. This approach provides a seamless immersive experience that fosters understanding and engagement with the content of the exhibition.” 

At France Muséums we adopt a holistic approach to project management. This involves coordinating specialists working in a range of different fields from the outset so as to craft a fully coherent proposal and to avoid the pitfall of design features that are disconnected from the main layout of the exhibition and of interpretive tools conceived in separate silos instead of being developed as a cohesive whole, all too often losing sight of visitors’ needs and the quality of the visitor experience.  

By bringing together creative teams, architects, designers, project managers, consultants and technical contributors from the very start, we make the development of each exhibition more fluid, ensuring that the scientific message, the storytelling, the exhibited works of art, the interpretation tools and the design and layout feed into one another instead of merely coexisting. 

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