A legend rooted in the Horn of Africa introduces the first traces of coffee consumption in Ethiopia and in “Arabia Felix” by illustrating the Zar cult and revealing the divinatory and horticultural virtues of this drink. Although initially persecuted, it was later sublimated by the great men of history from Bach to Bonaparte.

“I am the king of coffee (…). Coffee for waiting, coffee for getting outside oneself. I prepare it like an alchemist. I use the spices that the palate fails to notice, but the body recognises.”

Laurent Gaudé, La Porte des Enfers (The Gates of Hell), Actes Sud, 2008

This sequence welcomes visitors with a black and white macro photograph of a coffee bush placed facing numerous historical references: texts, engravings, objects… Contemporary artists, like Isabelle Vicherat and her video installation Numen, are featured. For the occasion, in addition to the field documents of Marcel Griaule and Michel Leiris, the designer Emmanuelle Sainte Fare Garnot illustrates the Zar cult with eight panels. For this sequence, the Mucem also obtained the exceptional loan of Victor Hugo’s drawings and the Traité des Excitants Modernes by Balzac and illustrated by Pierre Alechinsky.

This circular sequence envelopes the exhibition by illustrating the anthropological view of the café. From Aden to New York, by way of Mecca, Cairo, Constantinople, Venice, Marseille, Vienna, Paris, London, and then back to Sao Paulo and Cuba, visitors will be swept along by the atmosphere of the café terraces, interiors, and signs, but also by the installation of objects nearby or embedded within the scene.

These twelve city portraits are constructed from texts, photographs, paintings, engravings and objects. They indicate, on the one hand, the worldwide diffusion of this beverage and, on the other hand, the vital relationship that each of these cities has maintained and continues to maintain with café culture. Each portrait is associated with a writer who, as a coffee lover, offers a literary work: Bernardo Carvalho, Douglas Kennedy, Claudio Magris, Yves Simon, Zoé Valdès, and Abdourahman Waberi. But equally present are photographers who have captured the moments of delectation: William Klein, Green Lionel, Ara Güler, Sarah Quill, Willy Ronis, Brassaï, Fernandino Scianna, Nick Price…

In this sequence visitors come to understand the epic history of coffee by exploring documents left by numerous great figures: like the work of Prospero Alpini, De plantis Aegypti liber, who brought back from Cairo the first account of the coffee plant, or the compendium of Jean de La Roque, Voyage de l’Arabie heureuse par l’Océan oriental et le détroit de la mer Rouge (…), which chronicles the arrival of coffee to France in Marseille.

Through the generous loans of historical documents from the holdings of the Alcazar library, the BNF, and the British Library, visitors will discover through coffee’s earliest uses, the customs and controversies that it has provoked from the 15^th century to the present.

— Where do the multiples varieties of coffee come from?
— How are they processed, selected, harvested, and distributed?
— Who are the players in this globalised chain where the growers, agronomists, roasters, manufacturers and artisans coexist?

This sequence will take us on a journey, with a backdrop of photographs by artists Reza, Sebastiao Salgado and Erick Bonnier, into the world of botany, genetics, and agronomy, as well as the manual and industrial transformation of coffee through texts written by illustrious scientists like Antoine de Jussieu, botanist for Louis XIV, or André Charrier, emeritus researcher at INRA. Agricultural imagery, a monumental herbarium made from the leaves of robusta or arabica plants of various origins, and aromatic terminals designed for the exhibition by a perfumer reproduce the sensory universe of coffee from the flower to the roaster and percolator: nothing is omitted in this production chain that begins with the fruit of the coffee plant and ends in the cup.

Interviews with Michelin-starred chef Pierre Gagnaire and experienced baristas plunge us into the contemporary world of coffee where the virtues of the seed are sublimated.

This final sequence closes the exhibition by focusing on the consumption of coffee as a social practice that led to the invention of an architectural typology, the café, in constant evolution over time. Fragments of furnishings from the famous café L’Ami Butte in Paris (1910-1930), now classified as heritage objects conserved by the Mucem, will be reconstructed here for the first time.

Finally, because the café is a source of inspiration, a symbol of “living together”, this sequence reproduces around the associated themes (meeting, playing, loving, withdrawing, orating, conversing, etc.) masterpieces and objects that characterise this romanticised reality.

The café is a source of inspiration for numerous artists. Thus pieces will be presented by Raoul Dufy, who amused himself with scenes of games, by Albert André who painted the emancipation of women, by Sophie Calle who speaks of amorous encounters over a coffee, and by Richard Baquié. For this occasion Daumier, Sempé and Geluck have been reunited with three series of drawings sketching scenes that may have taken place in this theatre of society. But the café is also the birthplace of political ideas, demonstrated by photographs of conferences and political meetings of major parties. Lastly, the exhibition pays tribute to the figure of the café waiter, the “garçon de café”.

Jean-Michel Djian is a journalist and producer at France Culture. Former editor in chief at Monde de l’Éducation, he is also the founder of France Culture Papiers. Author of some dozen documentaries and as many essays on culture and politics, this doctor of political science served for twenty-five years as director of the master’s degree programme, Coopération artistique international, at Université Paris 8. Author of a book published by JC Lattès on the Timbuktu manuscripts, he curated an exhibition on the subject for the International Organisation of La Francophonie. Fascinated by Ethiopia where he studied Rimbaud, coffee merchant in Harar, he naturally discovered the origin of the coffee plant there.

Jacques Sbriglio is an architect and urban planner. He directs the Sbriglio agency, architects established in the heart of the Aix-Marseille metropolis. Among its different sectors of activity, like urban planning and architecture, this agency has numerous clients in France and abroad in the field of exhibition design. These include: Arteplage de Neuchâtel in Switzerland (2002), as well as a series of exhibitions on the work of Le Corbusier, whether in Austria (1998), Taiwan (2002), India (2007), Brazil (2009) and most recently in Marseille (2013) as part of the Capital of Culture year.

Jacques Sbriglio recently created the scenography for the exhibition “Picasso and Popular Arts and Traditions” at the Mucem (from 27 April to 29 August 2016). A professor in architectural schools, he is the author of numerous books, articles, and lectures on modern and contemporary architecture.

www.sbriglio-architecte.fr

“This scenography is intended to organise a historical, scientific and amusing itinerary focused on coffee, which has become over time, and as defined by the commissioners of this exhibition, a legend of humanity.
The aim is thus to provide a suitable atmosphere to recreate the world of coffee from its production to its consumption, and an itinerary demonstrating the historical, political, social, cultural and economic stakes related to this beverage. Three longitudinal walls run the length of the gallery evoking the rows of the coffee fields. Ceiling lighting playing on the nuances of the colour green, is a reminder that coffee belongs to the vegetal realm. Likewise the beautiful red colour of its fruit, “the cherry”, is found in the designs that serve as a passport for this exhibition entitled: Café in.
As a counterpoint to the length of this composition, revealing the scale of this large gallery, and traversing all three walls, an ellipse symbolises the coffee bean, as it is classically perceived in the collective imagination. From the plant to the seed, from the seed to the cup, from the cup to the café… this scenography ultimately seeks to pay homage to coffee as a mythic beverage, as well as to the chain of actors who bring this production to life. It is thus normal that it ends with humour on the last link in this chain with the figure of the waiter, the “garçon de café”, opening the spaces of this exhibition beyond the walls of the Mucem… into the city centre.”

Jacques Sbriglio, architect scenographer