Bringing together a vast selection of pieces made mainly from the 80s to today, half of which are exhibited for the first time by Pinault Collection, underlines François Pinault's passion and commitment tocontemporary art directly with our times.
Borrowing its title from a philosophical tale by Voltaire, this exhibition tale of the Pinault Collection reveals “the acute awareness of the present” among the artists, according to its commissioner Jean-Marie Gallais. Established characters (Maurizio Cattelan, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Sturtevant, Rosemarie Trockel…) to a generation of younger artists (Anne Imhof, Mohammed Sami, Pol Taburet, Salman Toor...), the choices of François Pinault, collector, have always reflected this passion for an art in tune with his time, committed or simply observant, provocative or more obscure
The exhibition itinerary
It starts with Mohammed Sami who with his work highlights the ambivalence of a tormented world. Born in 1984 in Baghdad, Mohammed Sami emigrated to Sweden in 2007, before settling in London where he studied fine arts. His paintings often take memories as a starting point. in imaginary settings.
Liu Wei follows with a work with knowledge supports diverted from their primary function capable of creating flickering urban landscapes. Liu Wei reflects on the chaos of the world, of the systems and mechanisms of power that are at the center of the main social metamorphoses.
Goshka Macuga features two monumental tapestries. The first part shows a crowd of Afghans and Westerners gathered in front of the ruins of the Darulaman Palace, a European-style building located in Kabul. The second tapestry instead depicts a group of activists and personalities from the art world, including the artist herself, gathered in the gardens of the Kassel Orangery, a royal architecture of the European 18th century. These two historical environments have in common the fact that they were partially destroyed in the 20th century.
sigmar polke animals, clowns and acrobats go on stage. Coming to life on a two-tone background on which an old photograph of a “point cloud” street is painted, these “circus figures” – like the title of the work – appear orchestrated by a childish gaze.
A brief overview of some of the works on display
When walking around this kneeling figure, the visitor discovers the identity of Hitler when he might have expected that of an innocent person. All the problems of this work of Maurizio Cattelan lies in the paradox it depicts: the body of a child and the face of criminal horror, crossed by the entire collective history of one of the greatest traumas of the 20th century. By titling this portrait Him (2001), the Italian artist also refers to him as "He": what we struggle to name, to distinguish, what we see from afar and from behind, at the beginning, and which becomes, turning around, this adult on his knees, the
hands crossed, perhaps praying.
The photographer Cindy Sherman an expertly composed portrait appears here, like the simulacrum of an old fashion photograph or film. The latter is part of a series of portraits of elderly women. Sheath gloves, satin dress, fur boa: everything within the appearance of the woman portrayed in this large photograph evokes an old-fashioned charm of women's fashion associated with the period between the two wars. Her frozen pose with codified, almost obsolete gestures also meets the standards found in portraits of movie stars of the time.
The decline of the power of Sun Yuan and Peng it is represented by hyper-realistic male figures transported on electric wheelchairs, a dance of macabre bodies curled up, sleeping. In the amazement of this silent, absurd and chaotic scene, a strident irony is added when we think of recognizing - without clearly identifying them: the features of the great world leaders, of the past and of the present past: politicians, military, religious, dictators, philosophers... all their possibilities of actions and movements are limited. The old men of Sun Yuan and Peng Yu embody here both a patriarchal and pathological vision of power and the decadence of the leading authorities, supporting senility and the desire to exist.
Young artist from the Pinault Collection, Pol Taburet he nourishes his paintings with heterogeneous references borrowed as much from hip-hop clips and cartoons as from Caribbean Voodoo and Greco-Roman mythology. On flat colored backgrounds, the artist stages appearances of characters and objects, often animated or adorned with faces with piercing red eyes and mouths with glittering grillz: these prostheses are made of precious metal erected as a symbol of success by rappers).
Salman Toor he paints the staging of characters (harlequins, sad clowns, marionettes) between comedy and dream, sprinkled with references to the history of Western art. He gives them a contemporary and queer tone, going against the generally homophobic context he found himself growing up in Pakistan. Now a naturalized American, he brings into play in his work the vulnerability of identity, the split, the anxiety or apprehension of the image we postpone of himself. The same characters return, dark-skinned and slender-bodied heroes, and there are many self-portraits of the artist or his companion, represented as actors and migrants to bohemian life. These characters are looking for their place and find themselves sometimes isolated, sometimes accompanied, as in the dances of Ghost Ball, a swirling composition whose green background evokes nocturnal, unreal atmospheres, but also the toxicity of poison.
In 1974 Kiki Kogelnik he created his first ceramic pieces on the initiative of his ceramist friend Renate Fuhry, whom he met in Vienna and represents here as a futuristic motorcyclist. This portrait is part of a series of female heads that the artist models as mechanical, dismembered, transformed avatars. In an era marked by the conquest of space and the Cold War, as well as the evolution of technologies, Kogelnik does not hesitate to immerse himself in the surrounding pop culture to capture a cartoonish aesthetic.
Presented for the first time by the Pinault Collection during the “Debout!” exhibition. (2018) at the Couvent des Jacobins, in Rennes, Dino is part of the "construction sites" of Bertrand Lavier. These ensembles, born in the 80s and coexisting with each other, can be hired by the artist at any time. The Ferrari, presented as if in a landfill, is part of the already destroyed project, thus evolving the history of the ready-made. “The explosion of the ready-made that makes death unacceptable” according to the artist he chose a legendary car of great economic value whose accident did not cause deaths or serious injuries, but which has a strong emotional charge and suggests a background narrative. The sculpture, through the power of its visual impact and the artistic approach used also calls into question the status of a work of art.
Other artists featured: Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Robert Gober, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rosemarie Trockel, Christopher Wool, Luc Tuymans, Franz West, Marlene Dumas, Martin Kippenberger, Frank Walter, Sturtevant,
Cover work: Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, Waiting, 2006, Fibreglass, silicone, feather, 127 × 75 × 164 cm. Pinault Collection © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney and Marca Architectes, Pierre-Antoine Gatier agency. Photo: Aurélien Mole / Pinault Collection.
