Exhibitions
Temporary exhibition bringing together around thirty works by artists from Franche-Comté, primarily paintings by students from the Xavier Marmier secondary school in Pontarlier. The centrepiece: an 8-metre canvas hung in the museum's central light well.
“Absinthe sur toiles” is built around the paintings of 27 secondary-school students from Pontarlier. According to Julie Matthey, the museum’s coordinator, their morbid streak comes from the way la bleue was depicted in the nineteenth century. Works by Martine Letoublon and Benjamin Locatelli are also shown in the Val-de-Travers.
The graffiti artist, for his part, let himself go and offered a washing machine. Director Yann Klauser appreciates that whimsy, which suits the green fairy well.
The idea germinated at the Absinthiades in Pontarlier, where students of the Lycée Xavier Marmier had exhibited their paintings. The Maison de l’Absinthe wished to borrow the collection and install it within its own walls. The Friends of the Pontarlier museum lent further works by artists from neighbouring France — notably three canvases by Martine Letoublon. The Franco-Swiss artist Benjamin Locatelli, for his part, produced several works connected to the legendary drink; among them a canvas eight metres high that presides over the Maison’s light well.
Visitors are not left out: they are invited to give their imagination free rein on a participatory mural several metres long.
The making of the collective mural, several metres long, with Benjamin Locatelli, the Franche-Comté graffiti artist.
All the dates — exhibitions, tastings, workshops and experiences. Browse what is on and book when you are ready.
Thirteen bilingual panels, original objects, a portrait film and an animated map retrace the birth of Pernod Fils at Pontarlier in 1805 and the rise of a distillery that shaped the history of the aperitif.
Exhibition around the odyssey of a cargo of absinthe that left Couvet and Pontarlier in 1871 aboard the three-masted vessel Marie-Thérèse, whose bottles were recovered from the seabed in 1991. One surviving bottle is displayed as the centrepiece.
Immersive exhibition featuring more than twenty audiovisual testimonies from a valley long lived in clandestinity — historians, artists, distillers and residents tell the story of absinthe. The aim: to preserve the intangible cultural heritage of this regional spirit.
Interactive sensory exhibition inviting visitors to explore absinthe through sight, smell and taste, through workshops and scientific analysis modules. Developed in collaboration with specialists, it offers recognition games and an educational approach to the composition of absinthe.
