I AM NOT IN THE LOUVRE MUSEUM COLLECTION

JE NE SUIS PAS DANS LA COLLECTION DU MUSÉE / I AM NOT IN THE MUSEUM COLLECTION

Tomas Lagūnavičius

Multidisciplinary artist

The performance took place on 6 September 2026 at 11:03.

The museum, the human being, and the empty frame

At the Louvre Museum in Paris, Tomas Lagūnavičius presented the minimalist philosophical performance I AM NOT IN THE MUSEUM COLLECTION (JE NE SUIS PAS DANS LA COLLECTION DU MUSÉE / I AM NOT IN THE MUSEUM COLLECTION). During the performance, the artist looked at an empty picture frame and reflected on one of the fundamental questions of museum culture: what happens to a human being when they become an exhibit?

Here, the empty frame becomes not a decorative object, but a conceptual structure for thought. It defines a place for what is absent. A frame usually indicates that something is to be looked at, yet in this case it contains no painting. In place of the painting, the human being emerges — the performance artist, who looks at the frame while asking whether he himself could enter it.

This creates a paradoxical situation: a human being looks at a place in which he himself could theoretically be exhibited.

Yet the performance by Lagūnavičius is not an attempt to enter the museum collection. On the contrary, it is grounded in a conscious refusal. The statement “I am not in the museum collection” becomes not a statement of fact, but a philosophical position.

From object to subject

The classical museum system rests on a distinction: on one side is the person looking, and on the other, the object being looked at. The visitor walks among the works, observes, interprets, and evaluates them. Meanwhile, the work is stabilised: it is assigned a title, an author, a date, a material, a provenance, an inventory number, and a place.

Lagūnavičius reverses this system.

He asks: what if the person looking were to become the object being looked at?

In this way, the performance shifts the discussion from the ontology of the artwork to the ontology of the human being. Can a human being be an exhibit? If so, what makes them an exhibit? The body? History? Authorship? An institutional decision? The museum’s consent? The viewer’s gaze?

A fundamental problem of contemporary art emerges here: is a work of art created by the object itself, or by the institution that identifies the object as art?

The empty frame becomes a material metaphor for this problem.

The Louvre as a historical institution

The location of this performance is no coincidence. The Louvre is not a neutral “container” for art. The building itself has a complex political and cultural genealogy. Once a royal palace, the Louvre was transformed into a public art museum during the French Revolution: in 1791, a decision was made to dedicate it to an art museum, and in 1793, the Muséum Central des Arts opened.

The question asked by Lagūnavičius, “Would I want to be a museum exhibit?”, therefore acquires an additional historical layer.

The history of the Louvre’s collections is itself complex. The museum states that the beginnings of its collection in 1793 were associated with the royal collections, which were soon supplemented by revolutionary confiscations and works brought to France during General Bonaparte’s military campaigns.

The Napoleonic period is particularly revealing. The Louvre’s own research indicates that works entered the museum in several waves between 1792 and 1814: approximately 30 per cent of the paintings inventoried at the time came from the royal collections, approximately 30 per cent from revolutionary confiscations in France, and approximately 40 per cent from revolutionary and Napoleonic confiscations in Europe.

The museum collection thus becomes not only an archive of aesthetic value, but also a map of historical power.

Who has the right to be in the collection?

The performance raises another question: who decides what is worthy of preservation?

A museum collection is never an image of the entire world. It is always the result of selection. Some objects are preserved; others are lost. Some become part of art history; others remain outside it.

The empty frame can therefore be understood as a symbolic place for all those who did not enter history.

Lagūnavičius introduces himself into this place.

Yet he does not say: “I must be in the collection.”

On the contrary, his question is more radical:

“Why should I want to be in the collection?”

This is an important distinction. Museum status is usually understood as recognition, prestige, and survival. To enter a museum is to become part of cultural memory. Yet the performance asks whether survival in a museum is always a desirable form of human existence.

The human being as an exhibit

If a human being becomes a museum exhibit, they lose, in a certain sense, part of their everyday condition of subjectivity. They become observed.

An exhibit cannot answer the viewer.

An exhibit cannot leave the display case.

An exhibit must be preserved.

An exhibit must have a description.

An exhibit must have a place.

An exhibit must be classified.

Precisely for this reason, the question asked by Lagūnavičius, “Can a human being be a museum exhibit?”, is not merely artistic. It is an anthropological and ontological question.

What happens to a human being when their life becomes an “object”?

Does a human being who enters a collection retain their freedom, or become a unit classified by the cultural system?

In the performance, this problem is expressed with extreme simplicity: the artist simply looks at an empty frame.

Yet it is precisely this silence that creates philosophical tension.

“I do not want to be an exhibit”

The title of the performance is not merely “I am not in the museum collection”. It can be read as a conscious refusal to become an object of the museum system.

Here, “I am not” becomes an ontological formula.

Not “I am not yet”.

Not “I want to be”.

Not “I must be”.

But:

“I am not.”

In this way, the artist rejects museum status as the ultimate affirmation of existence.

This can also be interpreted as a critique of the institutional logic of art: an artist’s value does not necessarily have to be confirmed by inclusion in a collection.

The empty frame as a space for thought

The empty frame in the performance becomes a kind of mechanism for producing meaning.

It shows nothing, yet compels thought.

It contains no image, yet creates the possibility of an image.

It invites entry, yet does not permit it.

It promises museum status, yet simultaneously takes it away.

At this point, the performance connects with a tradition of contemporary art in which what matters is not the object itself, but its absence, the institutional context, the viewer’s consciousness, and the question of what can be considered a work of art at all.

Lagūnavičius does not create a new painting. He creates a situation in which viewers must themselves fill the emptiness with meaning.

It can therefore be argued that the true “object” of the performance is neither the frame nor the artist.

The true object is the viewer’s thinking.

The museum as a mechanism of power

In this context, the museum can be understood as an institution that not only preserves culture, but also participates in establishing its hierarchies.

The history of the Louvre demonstrates this particularly clearly. The museum’s collections were formed during different political periods, through revolutionary confiscations, imperial campaigns, purchases, gifts, and subsequent transfers of collections.

The history of the Musée Napoléon further reveals the relationship between art and political power. The Louvre itself states that the Napoleonic inventory recorded the provenance of works, including entries such as “Conquête 1806” and “Conquête 1809”. After Napoleon’s fall, some confiscated works were returned to their former countries; of the 1,140 Italian paintings included in the Napoleonic inventory, 515 were restituted.

The question “Why do I not want to be a museum exhibit?” can therefore also be understood as a question about the history into which a person wants to be inscribed.

Does being in a collection mean being preserved?

Does it mean being appropriated?

Does it mean being classified?

Does it mean becoming part of an institution’s narrative?

The performance as a gesture of refusal

The significance of the performance by Lagūnavičius lies in the fact that he does not seek to occupy a place within the frame. He stands before the frame and refuses to appear within it.

This is a subtle, yet conceptually radical gesture.

The traditional aspiration of an artist can be described by the formula:

artist → work → museum → collection → art history.

Lagūnavičius proposes another sequence:

artist → question → emptiness → viewer → thought.

In this way, the work of art becomes not a thing to be preserved, but an event of thought that takes place at a particular time, in a particular place, and in the consciousness of a particular viewer.

“I am not in the collection” as a declaration of freedom

The title of the performance can therefore be read both politically and ontologically, though not as a political statement in the sense of a specific political programme. It is a statement about the human relationship with the institution.

I AM NOT IN THE MUSEUM COLLECTION.

This sentence refuses to be an inventory number.

Refuses to be a catalogue entry.

Refuses to be the text of a museum label.

Refuses to be an object of history.

And, at the same time, it paradoxically becomes a work of art.

Here lies the central tension of the performance: by refusing to be an exhibit, the artist creates a work about the possibility of exhibition.

The empty frame becomes a mirror. In it, viewers may see not the artist, but themselves.

Ultimately, the question is not merely:

“Could Tomas Lagūnavičius become an exhibit in the Louvre?”

The real question is:

“What would happen to me if, one day, my life were framed as an exhibit?”

And an even more radical one:

“Do I want my life to be preserved, classified, and explained by others?”

In this way, the empty frame in the Louvre transforms from a museum object into a philosophical stage.

There is no painting within it.

No exhibit.

No answer.

There is only a human being looking at a place where, theoretically, his own image could be.

And deciding not to stand there.