Art is divine

Poetry of Disorder

by Alessandra Cenna

FONDATION PINAULT

Bourse du Commerce Paris

until September 2, 2024

THE WORLD AS IT GOES

LIU Wei Library III, 2012 Livres, bois, fer 3 éléments : 170 × 140 × 115 cm ; 330 × 205 × 185 cm ; 156 × 117 × 90 cm Pinault Collection Vue de l’exposition « Le monde comme il va », Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2024. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo : Nicolas Brasseur / Pinault Collection. ©Liu Wei / ADAGP, Paris, 2024.

LIU Wei Library III (détail), 2012 Livres, bois, fer 3 éléments : 170 × 140 × 115 cm ; 330 × 205 × 185 cm ; 156 × 117 × 90 cm Pinault Collection Vue de l’exposition « Le monde comme il va », Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2024.© Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier.Photo : Nicolas Brasseur / Pinault Collection. © Liu Wei / ADAGP, Paris, 2024.

The exhibition “The world as it goes”, borrowing its title from a philosophical tale by Voltaire, brings together pieces mainly produced between the 1980s and today, half of which are exhibited for the first time by Pinault Collection. François Pinault’s passion and commitment to contemporary art clearly appear in each of his choices.

The recognized artists, Maurizio Cattelan, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Sturtevant or Rosemarie Trockel, are accompanied by a generation of younger artists, Anne Imhof, Mohammed Sami, Pol Taburet, Salman Toor, and together they bear witness to a world in ruins in which they become messengers and prophets, cynics or poets. South Korean artist Kimsooja has created a new installation in the Central Rotunda and in the Passage windows to understand and reinterpret a historic space. She chose to reverse the perspective of the place through a play of mirrors and to give visitors the opportunity to become actors in this world. Putting on slippers, they can enter the work and interact.

Jeff KOONS Moon (Light Blue), 1995 2000 Acier inoxydable au poli miroir avec revêtement transparent coloré 315 × 315 × 101,6 cm Pinault Collection Vue de l’exposition « Le monde comme il va », Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2024.© Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier.Photo : Nicolas Brasseur / Pinault Collection.

Jeff KOONS Balloon Dog (Magenta), 1994-2000 Acier inoxydable au poli miroir avec revêtement transparent coloré 307,3 × 363,2 × 114,3 cm Pinault Collection © Jeff Koons

Continuing the path, visitors are confronted with several disturbing works such as the statue of Maurizio Cattelan with Adolf Hitler kneeling in the prayer position or a group of old men, wax statues seated on electric wheel chairs. Imagined by Chinese artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, they represent heads of state, religious figures or soldiers governing a world beyond them.

The figures of the jester and the clown rub shoulders here with those of the activist and the despot. Chaotic visions of the world where two generations confront each other.

A badly damaged Ferrari Dino, recovered and placed on a plinth by the artist Bertrand Lavier (1993), reinforces the cataclysmic vision of a sky blackened by an explosion in the work of Anne Imhof (2022).

Maurizio CATTELAN Untitled (Picasso), 1998 Polystyrène, résine, coton, cuir 217,2 × 139,7 × 59,7 cm Pinault Collection Vue de l’exposition « Le monde comme il va », Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2024. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. - Photo : Nicolas Brasseur / Pinault Collection

Martin Kippenberger, Ohne Titel, 1989 Fer, laque, verre, ampoule, câble Dimensions variables Pinault CollectionVue d’exposition, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2024. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo : Aurélien Mole / Pinault Collection.

Luc TUYMANS Eternity, 2021 Huile sur lin 314,9 × 275,4 cm Pinault Collection © Luc Tuymans. Courtesy de l’artiste et de David Zwirner

The diversity of representational techniques and subjects is evident in each work of the Foundation. Damien Hirst’s famous cabi net of curiosities with his glass and steel medicine cabinet created after discovering the immense quantity of medicines prescribed daily to his grandmother, is a prelude to the objects in Jeff Koons’s “Luxury & Degradation” series, representing the leisure activities of the American proletariat.

The viewer wanders through the enigmatic, ironic, and violent works of great masters of contemporary art to discover the world in its duality.

“The World as it Goes” Bourse du Commerce

- Fondation Pinault -

until September 2, 2024

www.pinaultcollection.com

KIMSOOJA To Breathe — Constellation, 2024 Vue de l’exposition « Le monde comme il va », Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2024.© Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo : Florent Michel / 11h45 / Pinault Collection.© Kimsooja / ADAGP, Paris, 2024

Sigmar POLKE Zirkusfiguren, 2005 Acrylique, résine artificielle et craie sur tissu 300 × 500 cm (avec cadre) Pinault Collection © The Estate of Sigmar Polke, Cologne / ADAGP, Paris, 2024.