Musée Imaginaire Part 1 was a group exhibition between 25th Feb - 12th April 1997 from the following artists;
Terry Smith Exhibit, 1997 Steve Dutton & Percy Peacock Apocatropes, 1997 Michael Petry The Wormhole (maquette for an unrealizable installation), 1996/1997 Rosemarie McGoldrick Baroque, 1997 Renato Niemis 2 in 1 slice, 1997 John Bartholomew Waiting, 1997 David Wilkinson Contrary to your way of looking on, 1996/1997 Nathanial Stewart Where did your love go ?, 1997
During 1996 the Museum of Installation relocated its premises to Deptford. The new site will housed the Museum's main offices, the archive and a range of project spaces. The Museum of Installation previewed its new site with a show called “Musée Imaginaire”.
The title originates with a seminal text by Andre Malraux, published in English as 'The Museum without Walls', which was instrumental in fuelling a critique of the museum as an institution. Other important contributors to the discussion have included artists, writers and curators such as Marcel Duchamp, Marcel Broodthaers, Douglas Crimp and Jan Hoet among others. The founding of the Museum of Installation in 1990 has continued and updated this essential polemic.
The first exhibition at the new premises took place within the unfinished shell of the building, prior to full refurbishment. The exhibition features a series of in situ works by invited artists using the former shop building as a container for a series of proposals, interventions, archaeologies and readings of the "Museum”.