Pierre Andrès Museum
This is the museum for having fun
Since 2019, the association ‘Friends of Pierre Andrès’, founded in 2012, has been running the PIERRE ANDRÈS MUSEUM, which brings together some thirty wooden machines with various mechanisms, ranging in height from 50 cm to more than 3 m tall, allowing as many visitors as possible to discover, touch and handle them.
Pierre Andrès is the creator of the ‘Machines singulières’ (singular machines), wooden sculptures that come to life thanks to the visitors (children or adults) who operate them. Ranging from small objects to large machines that can be several metres high or long, they use numerous mechanisms (see-saws, inclined planes, turnstiles, gears, pedals, levers, racks, pivots, pulleys, etc.). Most often, the spectator, becoming an actor, moves the boxwood balls within the structures, to animate them.
These machines, which are made only of wood, some of which bear witness to an influence from the works of Leonardo da Vinci, are called ‘singular’ because they are unclassifiable and belong to no artistic movement. They are original in more ways than one. They are as much about toys, art and technology; they belong as much to the world of leisure as to that of active pedagogy. Pierre Andrès refers to the world of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, because his work is so full of imagination. He is concerned with aesthetic research in order to open up a space for dreams and invite poetry. He does not disdain surprise effects either. He likes to surprise, to make people smile or to question.
Pierre Andrès wanted all visitors, children and adults alike, to get involved in the game; to no longer be passive spectators, but actors whose gestures provoke the movement of the ball, so that it dashes off and follows its own random destiny according to its dexterity, the hazards and setbacks. A link is then established between the person who sets the machine in motion and the machine itself. He wanted to offer games to take action, to build, to meet, to laugh and to dream.
Every summer, around 1st of August, we organise an event featuring an exhibition by an artist from the Lot, an open-air buffet and a show (see the ‘News’ section).
Musée Pierre Andrès
1295 Chemin de Péjuscla
46090 VILLESÈQUE
From Cahors, follow the direction Montcuq
(signposted from the RD 653)
