Organized by the Ministry of Culture and Communication and included in the European cultural events of spring, the 12th European Night of Museums, invites visitors to more than 3000 museums across the European continent during the night of Saturday 21 May 2016.

This year again, the museums, open for free for most of them, compete with imagination and creativity to offer, to a wide audience of curious and amateurs, a unique opportunity to discover their collections in a festive and often unusual way until around midnight. In France, as in Spain, Russia, Belgium, Denmark, Italy and Bosnia, the entire network of European museums will be mobilized to host night owls.

Guided tours, Street Art and Light Painting, fun tours, new screenings, workshops, concerts or dance shows, digital art, treasure hunts and games, unusual guided tours, meetings and thematic tours, conferences, etc. So many exceptional animations that will reveal to all audiences a different or unprecedented facet of today’s museum.
Widely relayed on social networks, the event reflects the enthusiasm of a faithful, demanding and renewed public.

4th year of "Class, Work!"

For the fourth consecutive year, the Ministry of Culture and Communication and the Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research are proposing “Class, Work!” , a device to bring students closer to museums.

Throughout the year, the students of the partner institutions study a work of art from a nearby museum, then come to present the results of their work to the public on the evening of the European Night of Museums, becoming, in turn, cultural smugglers. Last year, 242 museums and 540 classes participated in this arts and cultural education program. In 2016, 301 museums and 424 classes were mobilized.

 A night of growing interaction with social networks

In 2016, the Night is being lived and shared more and more on social networks: favourites, tips, selfies and photos to share: visitors become actors of the event by offering a special resonance. In 2015, the @NuitdesMusees Twitter account recorded over 14,000 tweets.

This year, a new digital project is being created: "LA NUIT(IMAGINATION)". The museums have chosen from their collections works evoking the night according to different themes: mystery, magic, dream, fantasy, sleep, bestiary, supernatural, darkness, illusions. All works are published on the social networks of the Night. Users are invited to put an original legend on their favorite work. The most original proposals will be gathered on Facebook and on the official website of the Night with a link on the programming of each of the museums concerned.

On Twitter, the «Tweetwall», a virtual wall of tweets, launched in 2015 and projected by all European museums that wanted it, got a nice echo and extends in 2016.

SOME EXAMPLES OF PROGRAMS FOR SATURDAY, MAY 21, 2016

In Paris and Île-de-France

• Exceptional opening of 18’s dungeonsth century of the Castle-museum of Nemours with guided tours by candlelight and a lighting of the castle.
• Street Art at the Gustave Moreau Museum: Crossed bestiaries. The artist Codex Urbanus, offers an intimate dialogue with the work of Gustave Moreau, and draws with ink and pen in the painter’s studio.
• For its 1era participation in the event the Museum of Man offers «Storytelling workshops»; these stories echo the themes and objects of the Human Gallery.
Thank you Raymond by Bertrand Lavier, the Monnaie de Paris celebrates Raymond Hains, founding artist of Nouveau Réalisme under the watchful eye of his friend, Bertrand Lavier.
• Exhibition-workshop offered to families by artist JR, guest of the Children’s Gallery of the Centre Pompidou.
• From the Musée de la Vie romantique to the Maison de Balzac to the Petit Palais, the public is guided through the collections of these Parisian museums by a non-conformist character whose singular look at the world of art will spice up the visit.
• Reopened after two years of restoration, the Jean-Jacques Henner Museum in Paris renews its approach to the work of this major painter of the 19thth century with a hanging signed by Hubert Le Gall. Music and dance in the winter garden by the ensemble «Paris de vents», accompanied by the dancers of the Paris Opera, Laure-Adélaïde Boucaud and Florent Melac, and by the cellist Armance Quero.
• A Modern Ball based on choreographic and musical repertoires of immigration cultures at the National Museum of Immigration History at the Palais de la Porte Dorée.
• Merce Cunningham at the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris with the screening of the film Craneway Event of Tacita Dean showing the rehearsals of his company in Los Angeles, and the performance of Thomas Caley performing two danced solos of the choreographer.
• Exposure Empires from Huang Yong Ping de Monumenta (until June 18) to the Grand Palace will be exceptionally free.
• Exposure The Ones and the Others reveals the diversity and multiplicity of the Sainte-Anne Collection at the Sainte-Anne Hospital Museum of Art and History, which has just been named the Musée de France.
• The first exceptional opening of the Grand Stables of the King of the Palace of Versailles, with the recently restored Carriage Gallery and the National Equestrian Academy of the Domaine de Versailles led by Bartabas.

In the regions

• Invitation to discover the new rooms and lighting created by designer Matali Crasset at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pont-Aven, just re-opened after 3 years of renovation (Brittany).
• Workshop of Light painting and visit of the collections at the Museum of Modern Art of Troyes (Grand-Est).
• Flash tours of the Charles Le Brun exhibition at the Louvre-Lens Museum (Hauts-de-France).
• Visit of the exhibition L'art de Morris at the Cité Internationale de la Bande Dessinée et de l'Image d'Angoulême, with costume creation workshop for the young audience and creation of a gouache fresco live by the artist Miroslav Sekulic-Stuja (Aquitaine Limousin Poitou-Charentes).
• Free tour of the exhibition Les hommes, la nature et les paysages de la Baie du Mont-Saint-Michel at the Baie du Mont-Saint-Michel Ecomuseum (Normandy).
• The exhibition The World of Corsica Comix and a show of Corsican comedians at the Corsican Museum in Corte.
• Discover the famous clown «Chocolat», the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in Albi becomes a scene of encounters and shows and offers a spotlight on the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Chocolat dansant (Languedoc-Roussillon/ Midi-Pyrénées).
• Intimate tour of the recently renovated Thomas Henry Museum in Cherbourg (Normandy).
• Free tour of the Deck collections and the Tomi Ungerer exhibition at the Théodore Deck Museum and the Florival Countries in Guebwiller (Grand-Est).
• Sounds and lights with a preview of the Charles Crozatier Museum in Puy-en-Velay currently being renovated and especially the medieval sculpture room (Auvergne / Rhônes-Alpes).
• Tours of the Scènes de la vie impressionniste exhibition at the Rouen Museum of Fine Arts as part of the Normandy Impressionist Festival (Normandy).
• “The guardians have the floor” for original visits to the Petit Palais du Palais des Archevêques in Avignon (Provence – Alpes – Côte d’Azur).
• The Tours Museum of Fine Arts also offers guided tours of the collections and the repertoire of French songs from the 1950s to the present day (Centre / Val-de-Loire).
• Guided tour of rock art with torches in the Archaeological Park of Rocks in Trois-Rivières, Guadeloupe.
• Visit of the Victor Hugo Museum in Villequier by candlelight and musical show “Intimate portraits” on texts by the illustrious writer (Normandy).
• Music concerts from Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador at the New World Museum in La Rochelle (Aquitaine Limousin/Poitou-Charentes).
• Visit of the exhibition Barockissimo! Les Arts Florissants on stage for the 10th anniversary of the Centre national du costume de scène de Moulins (Auvergne/ Rhônes- Alpes).
• Torch-blowing demonstration by the Best Workers of France in the workshop of the Musée du Verre et de ses métiers in Dordives (Centre-Val de Loire).
• Exceptional opening of the permanent collection (Sonia Delaunay, Herman de Vries, Gottfried Honegger, François Morellet, Aurelie Nemours, Bernard Venet...) from the Albers-Honegger Donation to the Espace de l'art concrète – centre d'art contemporain, Château de Mouans-Sartoux. (Provence – Alpes – Côte d’Azur).

In Europe

• Free access to the Pori Art Museum (Finland): Flora: Eggert Pétursson, East Asian video frames: Shades of urbanization…
• Historical figures come to life and invite visitors to a journey through 2,000 years of history at the National Museum al unirii Alba iulia (Romania).
• Concert of classical music: Handel, Bach, Albinoni, Vivaldi, Saint-Saëns, Dvorak at the Roman Villa La Olmeida in Palencia (Spain).

Find the European Night of Museums on nuitdesmusees.fr
and on social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) and participate with the hashtag #NDM16.

The European Night of Museums is organized by the Ministry of Culture and Communication.
It is sponsored by the Council of Europe, UNESCO and ICOM (International Council of Museums).
It is supported by the Fédération française des sociétés d'amis de musées, RATP, Paris Musées, France Télévisions, Radio France and TV5 Monde.