DAYS WHICH TURN TO SPRINGTIME AND QUESTIONS.......

I was very excited about going back to the Louis Vuitton Foundation with Marielle. It was a gorgeous day, the sun shining and maybe I could wear a light coat rather than the winter duvet?

The entrance hall

Hardly a soul when we arrived which was a turn up for the books after our first visit.








So up we went to the top floor again. A couple of rooms had changed versus our first visit. Annette Messager was there and very different from the woolen sculptures we are used to.

Le masque rouge  2011

Mes transports - 2011

Charlie don't surf - 1977

La petite ballerine - 2011

Maurizio Cattelan also with « Charlie don’t surf « (1997) which looked extremely painful and not perhaps as amusing as sculptures we had see elsewhere.




Another gallery where we discovered Ellsworth  Kelly with A series of Relief/Curves done in 2008/2009. I could see that these were not to Marielle’s liking but strangely when I see his work in this context, I rather like the angular movements on white backgrounds.

Ellsworth Kelly - Blue Diagonal - 2008

Kelly - Purple curve in Relief - 2009

Over looking the Defense

As Marielle said, we should have visited the upstairs galleries after the main exhibition. It didn’t really matter as we wended our way down stairs to the exhibition which I was so looking forward to.



« Keys to a Passion ». « Les Clés d’une Passion ». Why the French title rang better in my ears, I really don’t know. This was just the first question I asked myself. There would be others to follow. 



This is an unprecedented selection of works which have shaped the history of modern art. They all come from different horizons and are still benchmarks which guide us through a period. Many of the works we know. In fact those of us who have followed the early 20th century will know them or have seen them collectively in retrospectives or in museums. « Subjective expressionism », « Contemplative », « Popist », « Music and Sound ». All the artists were revolutionaries for the period. Several of them are considered to be iconic - those you will see for yourselves. I am not suggesting them as perhaps they are not icons for you. 

The exhibition is divided into four sequences. 

The first is « Subjective Expressionism » which evokes questions each of us have about life, death anguish, solitude….It will not surprise you to discover such artists as Otto Dix, Francis Bacon, Albert Giacometti, Malevich, Edvard Munch and Helene Scherbeck. (1862-1946)  The latter I had discovered during a retrospective in Helsinki and her work really touched me. In Helsinki there were forty or so self portraits and most of them were painted in the final years of her life. Aging faces, as they edge their way toward the final door. The eyes are frightening as we see them here next to the other paintings which also cry out to us in another way.

Hélène Schjerfbeck - Self Portrait 1946

Hélène Schjerfbeck - Self Portrait 1934

It is the relationship between the different paintings which is so striking. The scream next to Bacon (1909-1922)  or even Otto Dix ( 1891-1969) portrait of Anita Berber (1925) which I had seen in Munich last year. But in placing these paintings together their relationship shows the anguish of each of the artists. More so even than if you saw them individually. I had seen them all. And of course Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966)

Giacometti - Portrait of Jean Genet : 1954

Otto Dix - Portrait of the Dancer Anita Berber

Francis Bacon - Study from the human body - 1949

The Scream - 1893? 1910?

This was not « The Scream » (Edvard Munch - 1863-1944:) which most of us know. Usually the emotion is seized by the foreground silhouette. Here though the entry seems to be by the background, two people walking with their back to us. My eye was then drawn to the landscape which seemed so calm and peaceful. Because of this juxtaposition, the scream suddenly seemed to hit me. A face full of pain. There are four versions of this painting and Mr Pinault was lucky enough to have the one from the Munch Museum in Oslo.




 

The early paintings of Piet Mondrian (1872-1944)  which I had also seen, came as a relief to those cries of anguish and yet seeing the black cross or his white paintings alongside turned me around. I didn’t need that starkness which sometimes enthralls me.

Mondrian - Dune lll - 1909

Mondrian - Sea after Sunset -1909

The Second Room was called « Contemplative ». And the discovery of a new artist. Akseli Gallen-Kallela 1865-1931). Another Fin. Helena will have to tell me if I had seen him in Helsinki. Here were four identical paintings of « Lake Keitele » done in 1904 and 1905. But were they identical? Even sitting down and looking at them between semi-closed eyes, I seemed to see differences. They are magnetic, harmonious. Not a pure landscape. Far from it and yet the transparency of the shadows transports you into silence and solitude. I would be very happy to have one on my wall to gaze at on such a day as today. Dull and cloudy.

Aksell G.K. Lake Keitele 1904

Aksell G.K. Lake Keitele 1904

Ferdinand Hodler (Switzerland - 1853-1918) landscapes show another form of solitude but they seem to be much more accessible and intimate that those of Akseli. Everything seemed to dissolve in lines and space as if you were stepping into his world. Here as well as I knew them, there was something strange and compelling about them next to Emil Nolde (1867-1956). Dark, rich colors on canvas with rough and broad strokes.  I have always liked Nolde but here the paintings took on a different meaning. They seemed to be naturally dramatic next to the other two painters.

Ferninand Hodler  Mount Grammont

Emil Nolde - Early Evening - 1916

Pressentiment or Bust with a yellow shirt. 1932

In the next room we discover Brancusi, Kazimir Malevitch (1879-1935) with his squares which I will not dwell on, Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) with a couple of his earlier paintings before he became obsessed with dots and lines. These I enjoy. The dots and lines I don’t.

Rothko - N°46- Black, Ochre, Red over Red

There at once when we went into the third gallery was a Mark Rothko (1903-1970). I told Marielle « that his work needed to be discovered by looking at it from the side. Discovering shadows and brush work which are not necessarily seen when looking at his work front on. Like Soulages", I said. « His work it not really black at all, but many shades of black ». I love both these painters and even if I knew this work, because of the lighting, there were new brush work to be discovered.

The Pierre Bonnard  (1867-1947) « Summer, 1917 » was really contemplative. The more I looked it, the more I saw. Perhaps I will go to see his retrospective after all.

Pierre Bonnard - Summer 1947

Would an exhibition be complete without Picasso ? (1881-1973). One I had not seen. For once there was a gentleness about her. In a way her body had been respected?  Her golden hair had a sensuality about it. The sculpture though, as fabulous as it is, does not have the soft lines of the two paintings.

Picasso- Head of a woman with large eyes : 1931

Picasso Woman with yellow hair - 1931

Picasso: Nude woman in a Red Armchair - 1932

Léger - The Acrobat and his Partner - 1948

In the Popist gallery, there was a new Fernard Léger. (1881-1955) This too had a gentleness about it and blocked out the other paintings which I had already seen.

Panel for Edwin Cambell N°3

Panel for Edwin Cambell N°1

 Music was the final room. Of course there was Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944). Music flows through his work. The colors dance before your eyes and play sounds which are gay and full hope.





Frantisek Kupka (1871-1957) too saw music as a language. Perhaps a little more romantic that Kandinsky. It’s worthwhile remembering that Kupka was the first to exhibit publicly an entirely non figurative composition in 1912 at the Salon d’Automne in Paris. It’s impressive work. I do know that I would have been enchanted, even then.

Kupka - Amorpha, Fugue in two colours, 1912

Kupka - Localization of Graphic Motifs, 1912-13

Severini - Dynamic Hieroglyphic of the Bal Tabarin - 1912

Gino Severini ( 1883-1966) who was the first of the Italian Futurist painters. This is a dance. It could only be.











Of course there was Henri Matisse (1869-1954i  with his « The Dance » (19091-910) straight from the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. There are other versions which I like better. Sure enough seeing them in the « musical context » there was something else to discover. It is much bigger than I remember it, ambitious with those interlacing bodies brought together in motion. Some are graceful. Another is not. But this is a world of movement as all these pictures in the final gallery displayed. 



Matisse - The Dance 1909-1910

Matisse - The Sorrows of the King, 1952

Yet something was missing. Was it that there were no titles next to each painting? Each gallery started with a very brief indication of what we were to see. The little booklet was full of interest and yet I don’t like reading such brochures in an exhibition. Was it the lack of information that surprised me? After all, not having the name of the artist next to each painting was a test for me. Did I recognize all the artists? One I didn’t and that was Ferdinand Hodler. Was testing my knowledge worrying me? Each room gave a new relationship between the masters. A new way of seeing and entering into the pictures. That was marvelous. I think I know what the problem was. They were icons, reassuring icons with only 6 paintings which I didn’t know. Those six paintings made the exhibition for me. The others were comfortable pillows, reassuring me that my taste in art does not change too much.Perhaps I like looking at "periods" rather than general retrospectives......