Installation during the exhibition, in the hall of the UniMail building. Photo: Marc Ratcliff

Celebrating the man and the work, the exhibition Bonjour Monsieur Piaget offered the public a new image of Piaget presented from various perspectives. Conception and coordination: Marc J. Ratcliff. Coordination and production: Fabien Piccand.

Exhibition Bonjour Monsieur Piaget

During the preparation of the exhibition, Laurent Piaget provided essential help firstly by various personal testimonies about his father, his mother and his family, and secondly by bringing objects and documents unknown for the public to the Jean Piaget Archives. Here, in March 2009, with Marc Ratcliff, discovering Jean and Valentine Piaget’s observation notebooks.

These photos give a small idea of the different stages of the preparation and assembly of the exhibition: refunctionalization of the access to the Archives to gain space for the exhibition, transfer of the bust of Jean Piaget to the space of the Uni Mail library (the original in plaster of the one located at the Parc des Bastions, in the center of Geneva), and various stages of the assembly. The designers of the exhibition, Marc Ratcliff and Fabien Piccand, can be seen debating. The final arrangements, the final cut and the assembling team in action.

The opening of the exhibition, which took place on September 14, 2009, was one of the great moments of synergy between the Archives Jean Piaget and the University of Geneva. For the first time, an exhibition illustrated Jean Piaget’s professional career, family life and sociability through classical material, new documents and unknown iconography. In the photos of that ceremony, it is possible to recognize a member of the Piaget family, the former Federal Councillor Ruth Dreifuss, as well as the Rector and Vice-Rector of the University of Geneva, Jean-Dominique Vassalli and Anik de Ribaupierre. Various elements of Piagetian work were presented in the showcases, including experimental materials from the Center of Genetic Epistemology and the Rousseau Institute. In addition, some sections were dedicated to Jean’s wife, Valentine Piaget, as well as his main collaborators, Bärbel Inhelder and Alina Szemińska.

The catalogue of the exhibition Bonjour Monsieur Piaget was published the following year, in 2010, by the Archives Jean Piaget and Somogy Éditions D’art, Paris. Editor: Marc J. Ratcliff. Graphic design: Loïc Levêque.

Photos Katalin Haymoz, Matteo Borri and Jacques Erard.