Five must-see art exhibitions in Paris in early summer 2022
By HUANG YU-WEN
1.《YVES SAINT LAURENT AUX MUSÉES》
Taking an innovative approach to mark an important date, the exhibition YVES SAINT LAURENT AUX MUSÉES will convene six Parisian museums: the Centre Pompidou, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, the Musée du Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Musée National Picasso-Paris and the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, and delve into the profound inspirational bond the couturier had with art in general, and the collections of French public museums in particular.
YVES SAINT LAURENT AUX MUSÉES celebrates the 60th anniversary of the first Yves Saint Laurent runway show. On January 29, 1962, the 26-year-old designer presented his inaugural collection under his own name. From that day on, Saint Laurent seized upon a vision and a style that became his staple throughout his career and until 2002, forty years in which he broke down barriers and introduced bold new forms.
2. Gaudí
Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926), architect and ingenious creator, made his mark on Spain at the turn of the 20th century and continues to fascinate today. For the first time in fifty years in France, a large-scale exhibition is devoted to this master of Art Nouveau. It will show the remarkable creativity of this singular artist, who was the bearer of the upheavals at work in Catalonia at the end of the 19th century, and who expressed himself as much in the details of his furniture as in the scale of an extraordinary architectural project: the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.
The Musée d’Orsay will host the first major exhibition devoted to Antoni Gaudí organized in France in Paris in fifty years. In an immersive museographic experience, it will show the spectacular creations of this unique artist, in particular, presenting sets of furniture never before exhibited in France.
3. Graciela Iturbide, Heliotropo 37
From February 12 to May 29, 2022, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain presents Heliotropo 37, the first large exhibition devoted to Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide in France, spanning works dating from the 1970s to the present day.
For the occasion, she opens the doors of her studio at 37 Calle Heliotropo in Mexico, an architectural masterpiece by Mauricio Rocha, who has also been entrusted with the exhibition scenography. A veritable exhibition-portrait, Heliotropo 37 brings together over 200 images, from her most iconic photographs to her more recent production, as well as a color series created especially for the exhibition.
4. PIONEERS – Artists in the Paris of the Roaring Twenties
Having long been marginalised and discriminated against, both in terms of their training and their access to galleries, collectors and museums, women artists in the first half of the 20th century nevertheless played an essential role in the development of the major artistic movements of our times, even if this was not acknowledged during their lifetime. It is only recently that their role in the avant-gardes has been explored; indeed, it stands to reason that once these women’s role is properly recognised, these movements will be transformed.
This exhibition invites us to reinstate them in this changing history of art, from Fauvism to abstraction via Cubism, Dada and Surrealism, but also in the worlds of architecture, dance, design, literature and fashion, as well as scientific discovery. Their visual and conceptual explorations attest to their audacity and courage in the face of established conventions that confined women within certain professions and stereotypes. They express, in many different ways, a desire to redefine the role of women in the modern world. Through the many upheavals of the early 20th century, a number of key women artists began to emerge. Their number increased after the Russian Revolution and the First World War, which intensified challenges to the patriarchal model for practical, political and social reasons. Women gained more power and visibility and artists gave these pioneers a face that actually represented them.
5. Charles Ray
First major monographic exhibition dedicated to a major figure in contemporary American sculpture, Charles Ray (born in Chicago in 1953, currently lives and works in Los Angeles).
La Bourse de Commerce–Pinault Collection is dedicating an exhibition to the artist at the same time, designed in close collaboration with the Centre Pompidou. These two events offer complementary perspectives in a work engaging both the mind and the body, and constantly asking the viewer: “what is a sculpture?”
