Exhibition

Books and music

The reciprocal agreement
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Cirque-Leger.jpg
Exhibition

Books and music

The reciprocal agreement

From 8 November 2025
to 3 January 2026

From 8 November 2025 to 3 January 2026, the Dominique Bozo Library at LaM will be presenting an exhibition co-created with the Bibliothèque Municipale Classée de Douai, which will be hosting it in its third city-centre venue: Coeur de Bellain.

The exhibition will invite visitors to explore music through an original medium: the book, and will provide an opportunity for a unique dialogue between the two heritage collections. It will showcase works that reflect the author's love of music, sound poetry and musical experiments.

Representations of instruments, musical works, scores and musicians will be revealed through manuscripts, incunabula and rare books from the 15th to the 21st century. The tour will explore the ways in which artists, writers, poets, publishers and printers illustrate, describe and experiment with new creative processes to make music more visible, readable and listenable.

This exhibition will be a special occasion: an opportunity to discover little-known documents, rarely or never before exhibited, which will bear witness to the exceptional wealth of the collections. It will also be an opportunity to explore the cross-fertilisation of artistic disciplines over an important chronological period.

Finally, a library dedicated to art and music, accessible to all, and a cultural and artistic programme will round off the event.

With works by Christian Boltanski, Théophile Bra, Georges Braque, Hubert Cailleau, Marc Chagall, Joëlle de La Casinière, Marceline Desbordes- Valmore, Raoul Dufy, Max Ernst, Ruth Francken, Juan Gris, Bernard Heidsieck, Henri Laurens, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Man Ray.


Curated by

Stéphanie Verdavaine,
Head of the Dominique Bozo Library at LaM
Jean Vilbas,
Curator in charge of heritage collections at the Douai library
 
Fernand LÉGER, Cirque, 1950. Publication, printed book Fernand Léger, Cirque, lithographs by Fernand Léger, Paris, Tériade, 1950 lithographs on arched vellum. Bequest from M. Maurice Jardot in 2003. Adagp, Paris
 
 
 

Dates 

08.11.25 - 04.01.26

Opening hours 

Wednesday - Saturday
10 am - 18 pm

Rate 

Free

Location

Coeur de Bellain Library, Douai