Contemporary art is often perceived as elitist and inaccessible. Admittedly, some artists maintain this cliché. Two everyday objects in the center of a circle, a pompous name for the whole and presto, good wild analysis ladies and gentlemen! But for a few overrated smokers, what a shame to miss out on so many talented (sometimes visionary) artists. The Louis Vuitton Foundation , inaugurated with great fanfare almost a year ago, wanted and supported by businessman Bernard Arnault, is one of these new French museums dedicated to the popularization of contemporary art.
An ambitious setting
And what a museum! Huge egg of wood, glass and steel under a certain angle (an egg full of life) or gigantic prow of a conquering ship under another (with an elite army on board), the building imagined by the American architect super-star Franck Gehry impresses. Too much, argued some at the opening. Eccentric mistress of the king of luxury, others hissed. It is therefore perhaps time, a year after the controversies, to return to it with a peaceful eye. Yes, the building dazzles. But, why cry in the face of excellence? Wasn't the latest creation from the creator of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao built with private funds? So why spoil his fun?
Positioned in the heart of the Bois de Boulogne, the modern towers of La Défense on one side, the old Paname on the other, a stone's throw from the Jardin d'Acclimatation:The book fits perfectly into the wooded decor. It imposes but should not intimidate neophytes, quite the contrary. The ticket is at the normal price of a Parisian entrance, the staff is smiling and helpful (a detail but, so many haughty gallery owners in the city, when one is not an identified potential buyer; so many employees satisfied in many public museums).
Contemporary art:an atypical eye on history
The works - another criticism made upon opening - are not extremely numerous compared to the available space . But, precisely:they all take advantage of the space offered to better challenge the viewer (which is the goal of art, right?) Instead of bombarding in an industrial mode in order to dress up their Facebook, everyone can here take the time to really observe, to be shocked or moved. Gilbert and George's monumental triptych, made up of three huge photographs ('Class War', 'Militant', 'Gateway') questions, for example, the place of youth (and no doubt of homosexuality) in society, on two sections of walls.
Puerto Rican artists Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla play with the codes of comic books, their Captain America mingling with American GIs to better question disheveled patriotism and the new colonialism. In total darkness, in a room entirely dedicated to the installation of Christian Marclay ('Crossfire'), the visitor finds himself literally caught between four fires. On each wall, videos of shootings taken from famous films ('Nikita', 'Rambo',...), the sound of guns becoming an oppressive, menacing symphony. How, of course, not to think of American news. We touch the sideboard on leaving, to check that a stray bullet... Andy Warhol is there too, with his portraits of extinct, deceptively futile New York fauna. The eternal prince of street-art Basquiat and his colorful and sometimes violent patchworks, like the street. Many video and sound installations by artists asking only to be known to the general public, questioning our relationship to everyday life, to consumerism. To the difficulty of the link, intimate and global.
Large terraces flooded with light and benches, to encourage relaxation and reflection between each level covered. On the top floor, a kind of ship posed there, as if landed by chance, made of plants, rocks and even lost sneakers ('Where the slaves live', by Adrian Villar Rojas). Understanding is not the goal. To feel the strangeness, to identify it, is already a beautiful awakening of the senses and of the critical spirit.
Stop, watch, think
With these distinct and atypical constituents that are the works of artists, its architectural bases both powerful and dreamlike, the building itself is a contemporary work of art. It surprisingly invites to zenitude, while the works presented speak to us mainly of the turpitudes of today's society and that its materials could have made it cold.
Bet won, we want to say.
We look forward to the rotating exhibitions and we begin to imagine the result that such a setting would produce (and vice versa) on the works of a Sophie Calle, a Erwann Tirilly or a Mona Hatoum, for example, also bearers of a certain view of our immediate history.
In short, don't hesitate to discover this proud contemporary vessel of knowledge and introspection (two values recommended in these troubled times). The slightly too conspicuous 'LV' at the entrance, which could make one think of the flashy sign of a bling-bling group, quickly disappears from our minds - after a nervous twitch at the start - in front of the obvious quality and the place , and artists represented.
Make it your own:art should not remain the domain of the few. It would be a pity to be satisfied, once a year, with a dark and often disappointing Nuit Blanche when in the Bois de Boulogne, such an affordable setting is available to your curiosity all year round. It is also another approach to history. The one we are living right now.
Louis Vuitton Foundation
Frédéric L'Helgoualch is the author of Deci-Dela (since nothing goes as planned).