REMIX, Les Aliénés du Mobilier national

As part of its eco-responsible approach to promoting contemporary creation, for the last three years the Mobilier national has been inviting designers and artists to work on decommissioned pieces from its collections, so that they can take them and transform them according to their own sensibilities.
On the occasion of the Design Parade interior architecture festival, these artistic collaborations are being continued at the Hôtel des Arts in Toulon. Starting with a wide selection of contemporary tapestries and soap rugs from the collections of the Mobilier national and works from the Centre National des Arts Plastiques, in collaboration with the Toulon Provence Méditerranée metropolitan area, the villa Noailles, the Centre Pompidou and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the exhibition brings together nearly 60 designers and interior architects in 68 works.
Heir to the Garde-Meuble royal, the Mobilier national conserves a rich collection of furniture from the seventeenth century to the present day, designed to furnish public buildings. While many of these pieces have a place in the collection, some have lost their heritage value due to disuse, damage or obsolescence. On the advice of a scientific committee, these previously inalienable items are removed from the inventories and become “alienated”.
Re-interpreted and reinvented by artists and designers, a dozen of whom are former winners of the Design Parade Festival and the Hyères fashion festival, these transfigured objects open up new ways of thinking about techniques, know-how and materials, in a constant return between past and present. Now unique pieces of furniture, remixed in form or function, they have regained their status as works of art and are being reintegrated into national collections.
The Hôtel des Arts couldn’t offer a better setting for alienated furniture. Built at the beginning of the tewentieth century, the former headquarters of the sub-prefecture, then of the Var departmental council, now an art centre, boasts a colourful painted façade by artist Alexandre Benjamin Navet.
Designed for the occasion by Paul Bonlarron, winner of the Mobilier national Prize at the Design Parade Toulon Festival 2022, the Hôtel des Arts has become the stage for this remix, bringing together different aspects of the decorative arts. Furniture, carpets and tapestries are displayed in a series of tableaux that are by turns surreal and narrative, whimsical and imaginary.
This lively mix weaves, combines and interweaves all kinds of aesthetic and historical connections. And it ties together, in an adventurous diversity, a variety of quotations borrowed from the history and practices of the arts.

Invited Artists and Designers
Wendy Andreu
Atelier Craft
Mathieu Bassée
Vincent Beaurin
Camillo Bernal
Mathilde Bretillot
Studio BrichetZiegler (Pierre Brichet et Caroline Ziegler)
Marie et Alexandre (Marie Cornil et Alexandre Willaume)
Studio Haddou / Dufourcq (Florent Dufourcq et Kim Haddou)
Emilieu Studio (Paul Emilieu Marchesseau)
Jean-Baptiste Fastrez
Cécile Feilchenfeldt et Adrien Rovero
Ombre (Victor Fleury Ponsin)
Léo Fourdrinier
Laureline Galliot
Constance Guisset
Arthur Hoffner
Aletier Sumbiosis (Tony Jouanneau)
Katia Kameli
Beau Bow (Alexis Mabille)
Marion Mailaender
Pierre Marie
Myriam Mechita
Bernard Moïse
Alexandre Benjamin Navet
Voto XO (Madeleine Oltra et Angelo de Taisne)
Rodolphe Parente
Maximilien Pellet
Géraud Pellottiero et Céline Thibault
Atelier d’Offard (François-Xavier Richard)
Clément Rouvier
Nathalie Talec
Agnès Thurnauer