Literature at the service of the RMN - Grand Palais: The “Cartels” editorial collection

Abstract

Published between 2017 and 2018 by Réunion des Musées Nationaux - Grand Palais, the “Cartels” series consists of five fictional stories, each devoted to a major artist. Commissioned by Alina Gurdiel, director of the Parisian media agency Alina Gurdiel et Associés, and the RMN - Grand Palais, each of these volumes has been produced to accompany one of the temporary exhibitions on offer at the RMN - Grand Palais between 2017 and 2019. The collection is always presented as a hybrid cultural object at the crossroads between two publishing formats – the museum catalogue and the literary work – but also between two social fields – the museum and the literary field. Through a reading that considers the publisher’s series as a literary work and, at the same time, as a product of cultural marketing and museum branding, this article aims to study this cultural object as a literary device conceived from the outset to be placed at the service of heritage and of the museum institution that commissioned it. The analysis will be based in particular on Philippe Forest's book Rien que Rubens (2017), published to accompany the exhibition “Rubens. Portraits princiers” at the Musée du Luxembourg.