Thirty years is long enough to reflect on the staying power of a project that has grown exponentially and somewhat anarchically in terms of entrepreneurial design, fostered by the very healthy drive of the business culture.
Vivid memories
To mark its 30th anniversary the Fondation Cartier in Paris proposes a “bijoux collection” of all the souvenirs and precious gems that have featured over a long exhibition season.
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- Ivo Bonacorsi
- 26 May 2014
- Paris
The founding action behind the romanticism intrinsic to this location was the building designed by Jean Nouvel, which arrived in 1994 with the same nonchalance as its surrounding garden – Lothar Baumgarten’s splendid botanical theatre on Boulevard Raspail, with all around it clear vestiges of 19th-century places of creation. Actually, it is pleasing to live it as an atelier, the support structure of an approach to collecting with its gaze focused on the fluidity of the contemporary world. This is what prompted the need for versatile places and patronage, and the search for a farsighted approach, for a collection. Sometimes it is easier to imagine the magnificent naiveties that are today turned into selective gestures. With the turn of the 21st century, it comes naturally to think of the logic of foundations rather than the poetry of experimentation or the eclecticism of genres.
I would say all or nearly all the big names on the contemporary stage have passed through the Fondation Cartier: superstar artists such as Takashi Murakami, “in” designers such as Marc Newson, the artists’ artists Chris Burden and Matthew Barney, and conceptual and video artists such as Bill Viola and Gary Hill. Even the exhibition programme is eclectic, with rigorously designed exhibitions, the memorable “être nature” and the blockbusters that mixed areas of expertise: from the installed bakery churning out baguettes in Jean Paul Gaultier’s “Pain Couture” to rock stars that photograph, draw and – fortunately – sing, such as Patti Smith. It is a place that has captivated us with mathematics in a Depardon film and drawn us into debates with film directors such as David Lynch, whose exhibition launched his career as an artist outside the film industry. Nearly all are now giving the 30 years exhibition splendid anniversary gifts – no bad thing. A splendid screen with ultra-modern technology by Lynch; an Alessandro Mendini-Peter Halley totem; and a lovely Mueck to be seen again and again.
Cai-Guo-Quiang explosions, Nan Goldin’s splendid Ballad of Sexual Dependency, small relics from exhibitions that have opened our eyes to unknown scenarios and most enjoyable Chéri Samba and Bodys Isek Kingelez parings from Africa and Latin America: a “bijoux collection” of all the souvenirs and precious gems that have featured over a long exhibition season.
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Until 21 September 2014
Vivid Memories
Fondation Cartier
Boulevard Raspail, Paris