Nouveau Musée National de Monaco - The 2022 Apprentice Collectors

The 2022 Apprentice Collectors, posing with the jury. ©NMNM

The "Apprentice Collectors," initiated in 2017 by the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco (NMNM), is an educational programme supported by SOGEDA (Society for the Management of Authors' Rights) which aims to familiarise teenagers with contemporary art, as well with as the main role of a museum – collecting.

For this sixth edition, the project once again involved Year 13 students from the Art option at the François d'Assise-Nicolas Barré and Albert I high schools. Accompanied by their teachers, Laurent Papillon and Jean-Guy Cuomo, and Benjamin Laugier, Head of Public Relations at the NMNM, the students took part in a series of meetings, discussions, visits and workshops throughout the year.

The "apprentice collectors” also undertook research and selected one or more works by the same artist on the website of the Art Paris fair. For the second year running, their acquisition budget was set at EUR 20,000.

On Friday 29 April, the students presented and defended their choices before a jury comprised of Thierry Leviez, director of the Pavillon Bosio - Higher School of Art of the City of Monaco; Lia Riva, collector and patron of the NMNM; Hélène Vassal, Heritage Curator, Deputy Director of research at the Curators’ Department responsible for on-going training (National Institute of Heritage) and member of the NMNM scientific committee; Björn Dahlström, Director of the NMNM, and Célia Bernasconi, Chief Curator of the NMNM.

This year, the work Compelling Backstory, 2020, by Anton Kannemeyer, acquired from Huberty & Breyne Gallery, and presented by Constantin Ampazis, a student at the Lycée Albert I, was added to the NMNM's collection.

Previous events have enabled works by Andreas Angelidakis, Mark Dion, Rita Ferreira, Carsten Höller, Pierre Joseph, Mika Rottenberg and Xavier Theunis to be acquired.