A spring of reinvention in Le Locle: Inside Le Printemps 2026 at MBAL

Tucked into the watchmaking town of Le Locle, in the Swiss Jura mountains, the Musée des Beaux-Arts Le Locle (MBAL) has long been a place where time feels layered rather than linear. Housed in a beautifully renovated Art Nouveau building dating back to 1862, the museum carries both history and experimentation within its walls. In 2026, it fully embraces that dual identity with its ambitious spring exhibition, “Pour tout faire, il faut une fleur” (“To do everything, you need a flower”), running until September 6, 2026. This is not simply another group show, but a thoughtful and immersive reflection on how art is made, remade, and shared.

Les chuchotements, 2025, courtesy Jeanne Jacob.

The MBAL has built a reputation for bridging worlds: past and present, local and international, fine art and contemporary practices. With a collection of around 5,000 works spanning from the 17th century to today, it does not merely preserve history; it actively places it in dialogue with the present. That spirit is fully alive in this exhibition. Rather than presenting finished works as isolated masterpieces, the show opens up the creative process itself. Visitors are invited behind the scenes, into the messy and fertile territory where ideas evolve, materials transform, and disciplines collide.

Jeanne Jacob, Mickey Fluid, 2021 (détail)

At the heart of the exhibition is Swiss artist and curator Nicolas Polli. Born in 1989, Polli moves fluidly between roles: photographer, graphic designer, editor, and educator. His practice is defined by crossing boundaries: between image and object, publication and exhibition, personal work and commissioned projects. The exhibition feels almost autobiographical in spirit. His interest in hybrid practices and creative overlaps shapes the entire project, bringing together artists who resist strict categorization and instead embrace multiplicity. Underlying his curatorial vision is a productive tension between specialization and versatility in today’s art world, one that he transforms into a driving creative force.

Nicolas Polli

“Pour tout faire, il faut une fleur” unfolds like a living ecosystem. The exhibition prioritizes process over product: tools, drafts, repetitions, and even mistakes take center stage. Materials are not static; they circulate, are reused, and continuously reimagined. This emphasis on upcycling and circularity suggests that artworks are not endpoints, but part of an ongoing cycle of transformation. The scenography reflects this philosophy, creating an immersive and dynamic environment that feels less like a traditional exhibition and more like a space in motion, where forms and ideas constantly shift. Even the catalogue follows this logic; instead of a fixed book, it exists as a series of large printed sheets that visitors can take, fold, and assemble themselves, extending the exhibition beyond the museum walls.

Olga Prader

The artists gathered for the exhibition form a rich constellation of approaches to process and transformation. A key historical presence is Enzo Mari, whose conceptual and political approach to design brings depth to the project. Known for advocating accessible and honest design, Mari rejected unnecessary decoration and focused on structure, process, and reproducibility. His work, often inviting individuals to construct objects themselves using simple instructions, resonates strongly here, reinforcing themes of self-production, circulation, and the democratization of making.

Alongside this historical anchor, contemporary practices expand and diversify the exhibition’s dialogue. Ayed Arafah explores spatial structures and collaborative processes, with preparatory drawings that reveal the architectural thinking behind artistic creation. In contrast, Jeanne Jacob offers a vivid, almost dreamlike painting style that blends abstraction and figuration, bringing an emotional and intuitive dimension while still embracing layering and experimentation. The work of Ruth van Beek further develops the theme of transformation through collage, reworking found imagery into poetic and sometimes surreal compositions that embody reuse and reinvention.

Ruth van Beek

The exhibition also highlights collaborative and cross-disciplinary practices, notably through the duo Linus Bill and Adrien Horni, whose work operates at the intersection of graphic design and fine art. Their explorations of repetition, variation, and printed visual language echo the exhibition’s broader interest in circulation and process. Polli himself appears within the exhibition as an artist, with photographic works that encapsulate its essence, such as the delicate image of a small flower balanced on the tip of a pencil, a gesture that speaks to fragility, precision, and the quiet origins of creative ideas.

This dialogue extends further through contributions by Alina Frieske, Sabine Hess, Aldo Mozzini, Olga Prader, and Erin O’Keefe, as well as the iconic duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss. Together, their works create a dynamic network of perspectives, each contributing to an expanded understanding of how art can be produced, transformed, and shared. In a world that often celebrates finished results, the MBAL’s Spring 2026 exhibition shifts the focus back to the journey. It invites us to consider what happens before, between, and beyond the final artwork. Set within a museum that bridges history and innovation, and guided by a curator deeply engaged in crossing disciplines, the exhibition feels both timely and timeless.

Nicolas Polli & Sabine Hess

One of its most refreshing aspects is its openness. It is not only for art specialists, but equally welcoming to curious visitors, families, and young creatives. A participatory installation designed for children encourages direct engagement with ideas of making, experimenting, and sharing, reminding us that creativity is not reserved for experts, but is something we all practice in different ways. Ultimately, the exhibition is not just about art; it is about how ideas grow, how materials evolve, and how creativity circulates. And perhaps most importantly, it suggests that sometimes, to do everything…all you need is a flower.

More information HERE.