Tweet
DYNAMIC WAVE OF FRENCH COLLECTORS
The International Herald Tribune
October 17, 2012 Wednesday
France
Independent networks are shaking up and globalizing the arts scene
by DEVORAH LAUTER
ABSTRACT
Independent networks of art collectors are shaking up and globalizing
the arts scene in France.
FULL TEXT
When Sandra Mulliez received a private Facebook message from a
stranger inviting her to see the work of Armen Rotch, a little-known
Armenian artist based in Paris, she hesitated, but only for a
split-second.
"I thought, 'I never do this. I'm going to do this,"' said Ms.
Mulliez, the Brazilian-born art collector who founded the nonprofit
organization SAM Arts Projects in 2009 with her French husband, Amaury
Mulliez, to promote and finance French artists internationally, as
well as foreign artists from emerging countries within France.
Ms. Mulliez arranged to meet the artist's wife, Gilda Guegamian, who
drove her to Mr. Rotch's studio in a suburb southeast of Paris.
Now the stairwell windows and one of the larger rooms at the SAM Arts
headquarters in the 14th Arrondissement of Paris, are draped with Mr.
Rotch's sculptural paintings, which are fabricated from tea bags. The
exhibition of Mr. Rotch's work, along with works by the Brazilian
artist Brigida Baltar, will be part of the "Parcours V.I.P." - a
circuit of major galleries and exhibitions shown to important guests -
at the 39th International Contemporary Art Fair in Paris, or FIAC, for
its French acronym, which is running from Thursday through Sunday.
"This is fantastic," said Ms. Mulliez, watching the couple install
the exhibition earlier this month. Gesturing in the air in wide
strokes, Ms. Mulliez said she liked the "deconstructed," larger
piece of Mr. Rotch's work, where tea bags were ripped from parts of a
larger canvas, leaving behind stains. "I can't explain what they are,
but I like it," she said.
Ms. Mulliez is one of a growing number of "activist" art collectors
and gallerists in France who, alongside collecting artworks, are
looking to support artists and to better involve them - and often
France as a whole - in the international contemporary art world. They
aim to do this partly by promoting French artists abroad and at
international venues at home and partly by exhibiting lesser-known
contemporary foreign artists in France, which opens up the French art
scene. But they face an uphill battle.
For years, French participation in the contemporary art world has been
viewed as relatively sluggish compared to its British, Chinese, German
and American counterparts. This has been attributed in part to the
country's largely state-funded arts system, which, while ensuring a
plentiful flow of money, was also seen to bias the art market and
limit the dynamism of the arts scene, by imposing its own criteria as
to what constitutes great art. Another possible factor is a French
tradition of perceiving the contemporary art market as too commercial
and a tendency to hide evidence of material success, with many French
collectors storing art works rather than displaying them.
As the state has increasingly had trouble funding ambitious projects
in the arts and has reduced its budget, however, independently funded
networks and individuals have chosen to step in where the state has
fallen back, supporting artists and trying to internationalize the
French scene, while a small but growing number of collectors have
chosen to exhibit parts or all of their private collections to the
public.
Inspired by collectors abroad, and a few pioneers at home, France has,
in the past few years, "produced a generation of people that are
actually quite activist and quite militant," said Jennifer Flay, the
director of the FIAC. These art patrons, she added, are "proving that
France is not only producing art, but that collectors are actually
producers of cultural energy, cultural instruments, and that they can
be very effective."
Ms. Mulliez, whose organization includes a prize for emerging artists
and a residency program, said she believes in taking risks to support
new talents and building international networks with the aim of
helping artists get noticed abroad. SAM Arts funds and helps organize
independent projects and museum exhibitions for contemporary artists
in France and abroad, while also acting as a kind of public relations
agent for little-known artists. "When the artist arrives here, nobody
knows who he is, when he leaves... This is like a trampoline," she
said.
She recently organized a prolonged exhibition of the works of her
organization's artists at the Museu Brasileiro da Escultura in São
Paulo and is planning a new show in Mexico. "I see these good
projects and I want to help them happen," she said. "You have to
help ... and there's less public money, so you've got to invest
yourself."
The French collector Steve Rosenblum, who, with his wife, Chiara
Rosenblum, started one of France's first private-gone-public
collections, Rosenblum Collection & Friends, agrees that art patrons
have to take risks in order to help artists.
"Hiding work in a warehouse or a house is the opposite of what an
artist wants," said Mr. Rosenblum, one of the founders of the French
e-commerce Web site Pixmania. The couple opened a large space in the
13th Arrondissement in Paris in 2010. Their next display, "Crossing
mirrors," an interplay between contemporary and tribal art, opens
Thursday to tie in with the opening of the FIAC.
Alongside the couple's own works, collectors from around the world are
invited to loan works to the space (hence the "Friends" concept).
"We said we'll take the risk, and exhibit, and we'll support artists,
especially when they're young," Mr. Rosenblum said.
"We also show artists who are well-known abroad, but not necessarily
in France," Ms. Rosenblum added, pointing out that as individuals,
they are able to take "the risks that institutions can't."
Within the last decade, internationally-minded initiatives by key
institutions and individuals in the Paris art scene - like the Palais
de Tokyo museum, which exhibits young artists; the Maison Rouge
foundation, overseen by the collector Antoine de Galbert; and the
young collector Guillaume Houze of Galerie des Galeries - have helped
to bring emerging artists from all over France into a wider public
view.
The Marcel Duchamp prize, created in 2000 by the Association for the
International Diffusion of French Art or Adiaf, which is chaired by
the French collector and art patron Gilles Fuchs, is another key tool
in bringing French artists to a wider audience. The prize is awarded
each year during the FIAC and winners, who include Laurent Grasso,
Cyprien Gaillard, Mircea Cantor and Tatiana Trouve, have gone on to
become global art stars. The winners receive (EURO)35,000, or about
$45,000, as well as a solo show at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, but,
more importantly, they also gain a wider international credibility.
Five laureates of the prize, for example, will be showing their work
at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery from Nov. 29 through Jan. 7,
in conjunction with FLAX (France Los Angeles Exchange) an organization
that works in partnership with the Palais de Tokyo, the Adiaf and the
Los Angeles department of cultural affairs to connect emerging French
and Californian artists.
The FIAC's success in recent years, meanwhile (this year over 65,000
visitors are expected to attend and more than 180 galleries),
continues to attract top international galleries and collectors,
providing a crucial opening for French galleries and artists looking
to break into the international scene.
"The FIAC's new status is linked to the improved image of
contemporary art in France in recent years, and has almost certainly
pushed some art lovers to start collecting," said Cyril Mercier, a
specialist on the French art scene whose doctoral thesis, completed
this year at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III university, focused on
the role of collectors in the contemporary French art market. Mr.
Mercier said he had notably seen an increase in younger art collectors
in France, attracted to a contemporary art scene become more glamorous
since intertwining with the fashion and design world. And, he added,
many of these collectors take an activist role.
"Collectors are clearly becoming more involved in attempts to
distribute French contemporary art more widely throughout the world,"
said Mr. Mercier.
The French gallery owner Emmanuel Perrotin, who has long had
international ambitions for his artists, who include Sophie Calle,
Maurizio Cattelan and Xavier Veilhan, and who opened a new space in
Hong Kong in May and plans to open another in New York, said that it
has become increasingly easy to export French artists abroad. "I have
noticed an enormous evolution," Mr. Perrotin said. But, he added,
French artists need gallerists or collectors who are willing to take
the risk to support them and, crucially, to provide them the means to
display their works internationally.
"I start on the principle that it will work," he said of his
attitude toward working with new French artists. "You have to dare to
do it, and make other galleries want to take these artists as well."
From: A. Papazian
The International Herald Tribune
October 17, 2012 Wednesday
France
Independent networks are shaking up and globalizing the arts scene
by DEVORAH LAUTER
ABSTRACT
Independent networks of art collectors are shaking up and globalizing
the arts scene in France.
FULL TEXT
When Sandra Mulliez received a private Facebook message from a
stranger inviting her to see the work of Armen Rotch, a little-known
Armenian artist based in Paris, she hesitated, but only for a
split-second.
"I thought, 'I never do this. I'm going to do this,"' said Ms.
Mulliez, the Brazilian-born art collector who founded the nonprofit
organization SAM Arts Projects in 2009 with her French husband, Amaury
Mulliez, to promote and finance French artists internationally, as
well as foreign artists from emerging countries within France.
Ms. Mulliez arranged to meet the artist's wife, Gilda Guegamian, who
drove her to Mr. Rotch's studio in a suburb southeast of Paris.
Now the stairwell windows and one of the larger rooms at the SAM Arts
headquarters in the 14th Arrondissement of Paris, are draped with Mr.
Rotch's sculptural paintings, which are fabricated from tea bags. The
exhibition of Mr. Rotch's work, along with works by the Brazilian
artist Brigida Baltar, will be part of the "Parcours V.I.P." - a
circuit of major galleries and exhibitions shown to important guests -
at the 39th International Contemporary Art Fair in Paris, or FIAC, for
its French acronym, which is running from Thursday through Sunday.
"This is fantastic," said Ms. Mulliez, watching the couple install
the exhibition earlier this month. Gesturing in the air in wide
strokes, Ms. Mulliez said she liked the "deconstructed," larger
piece of Mr. Rotch's work, where tea bags were ripped from parts of a
larger canvas, leaving behind stains. "I can't explain what they are,
but I like it," she said.
Ms. Mulliez is one of a growing number of "activist" art collectors
and gallerists in France who, alongside collecting artworks, are
looking to support artists and to better involve them - and often
France as a whole - in the international contemporary art world. They
aim to do this partly by promoting French artists abroad and at
international venues at home and partly by exhibiting lesser-known
contemporary foreign artists in France, which opens up the French art
scene. But they face an uphill battle.
For years, French participation in the contemporary art world has been
viewed as relatively sluggish compared to its British, Chinese, German
and American counterparts. This has been attributed in part to the
country's largely state-funded arts system, which, while ensuring a
plentiful flow of money, was also seen to bias the art market and
limit the dynamism of the arts scene, by imposing its own criteria as
to what constitutes great art. Another possible factor is a French
tradition of perceiving the contemporary art market as too commercial
and a tendency to hide evidence of material success, with many French
collectors storing art works rather than displaying them.
As the state has increasingly had trouble funding ambitious projects
in the arts and has reduced its budget, however, independently funded
networks and individuals have chosen to step in where the state has
fallen back, supporting artists and trying to internationalize the
French scene, while a small but growing number of collectors have
chosen to exhibit parts or all of their private collections to the
public.
Inspired by collectors abroad, and a few pioneers at home, France has,
in the past few years, "produced a generation of people that are
actually quite activist and quite militant," said Jennifer Flay, the
director of the FIAC. These art patrons, she added, are "proving that
France is not only producing art, but that collectors are actually
producers of cultural energy, cultural instruments, and that they can
be very effective."
Ms. Mulliez, whose organization includes a prize for emerging artists
and a residency program, said she believes in taking risks to support
new talents and building international networks with the aim of
helping artists get noticed abroad. SAM Arts funds and helps organize
independent projects and museum exhibitions for contemporary artists
in France and abroad, while also acting as a kind of public relations
agent for little-known artists. "When the artist arrives here, nobody
knows who he is, when he leaves... This is like a trampoline," she
said.
She recently organized a prolonged exhibition of the works of her
organization's artists at the Museu Brasileiro da Escultura in São
Paulo and is planning a new show in Mexico. "I see these good
projects and I want to help them happen," she said. "You have to
help ... and there's less public money, so you've got to invest
yourself."
The French collector Steve Rosenblum, who, with his wife, Chiara
Rosenblum, started one of France's first private-gone-public
collections, Rosenblum Collection & Friends, agrees that art patrons
have to take risks in order to help artists.
"Hiding work in a warehouse or a house is the opposite of what an
artist wants," said Mr. Rosenblum, one of the founders of the French
e-commerce Web site Pixmania. The couple opened a large space in the
13th Arrondissement in Paris in 2010. Their next display, "Crossing
mirrors," an interplay between contemporary and tribal art, opens
Thursday to tie in with the opening of the FIAC.
Alongside the couple's own works, collectors from around the world are
invited to loan works to the space (hence the "Friends" concept).
"We said we'll take the risk, and exhibit, and we'll support artists,
especially when they're young," Mr. Rosenblum said.
"We also show artists who are well-known abroad, but not necessarily
in France," Ms. Rosenblum added, pointing out that as individuals,
they are able to take "the risks that institutions can't."
Within the last decade, internationally-minded initiatives by key
institutions and individuals in the Paris art scene - like the Palais
de Tokyo museum, which exhibits young artists; the Maison Rouge
foundation, overseen by the collector Antoine de Galbert; and the
young collector Guillaume Houze of Galerie des Galeries - have helped
to bring emerging artists from all over France into a wider public
view.
The Marcel Duchamp prize, created in 2000 by the Association for the
International Diffusion of French Art or Adiaf, which is chaired by
the French collector and art patron Gilles Fuchs, is another key tool
in bringing French artists to a wider audience. The prize is awarded
each year during the FIAC and winners, who include Laurent Grasso,
Cyprien Gaillard, Mircea Cantor and Tatiana Trouve, have gone on to
become global art stars. The winners receive (EURO)35,000, or about
$45,000, as well as a solo show at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, but,
more importantly, they also gain a wider international credibility.
Five laureates of the prize, for example, will be showing their work
at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery from Nov. 29 through Jan. 7,
in conjunction with FLAX (France Los Angeles Exchange) an organization
that works in partnership with the Palais de Tokyo, the Adiaf and the
Los Angeles department of cultural affairs to connect emerging French
and Californian artists.
The FIAC's success in recent years, meanwhile (this year over 65,000
visitors are expected to attend and more than 180 galleries),
continues to attract top international galleries and collectors,
providing a crucial opening for French galleries and artists looking
to break into the international scene.
"The FIAC's new status is linked to the improved image of
contemporary art in France in recent years, and has almost certainly
pushed some art lovers to start collecting," said Cyril Mercier, a
specialist on the French art scene whose doctoral thesis, completed
this year at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III university, focused on
the role of collectors in the contemporary French art market. Mr.
Mercier said he had notably seen an increase in younger art collectors
in France, attracted to a contemporary art scene become more glamorous
since intertwining with the fashion and design world. And, he added,
many of these collectors take an activist role.
"Collectors are clearly becoming more involved in attempts to
distribute French contemporary art more widely throughout the world,"
said Mr. Mercier.
The French gallery owner Emmanuel Perrotin, who has long had
international ambitions for his artists, who include Sophie Calle,
Maurizio Cattelan and Xavier Veilhan, and who opened a new space in
Hong Kong in May and plans to open another in New York, said that it
has become increasingly easy to export French artists abroad. "I have
noticed an enormous evolution," Mr. Perrotin said. But, he added,
French artists need gallerists or collectors who are willing to take
the risk to support them and, crucially, to provide them the means to
display their works internationally.
"I start on the principle that it will work," he said of his
attitude toward working with new French artists. "You have to dare to
do it, and make other galleries want to take these artists as well."
From: A. Papazian