Fondation Louis Vuitton announces its programme of exhibitions for 2018
 

Three exhibitions will be shown from April 2018 to January 2019

(Press Release update on 15 February 2018)

1. THE COLLECTION: A NEW SELECTION OF WORKS

 “Au diapason du monde” (In tune with the world) will exhibit a new selection of artists, bringing together an array of modern and contemporary works from the Collection which have never been exhibited here before.

Some 29 French and international artists are presented in two complementary sequences, with works by: Giovanni Anselmo (1934, Italy), Matthew Barney (1967, USA), Christian Boltanski (1944, France), Mark Bradford (1961, USA), James Lee Byars (1932-1997, USA), Maurizio Cattelan (1960, Italy), Ian Cheng (1984, USA), Andrea Crespo (1993, USA), Trisha Donnelly (1974 , USA), Dan Flavin (1933-1996, USA), Cyprien Gaillard (1980, France), Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966, Switzerland), Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (1965, France), Jacqueline Humphries (1960, USA), Pierre Huyghe (1962, France), Yves Klein (1928-1962, France), Mark Leckey (1990, United Kingdom), Henri Matisse (1869-1954, France), François Morellet (1926-2016, France), Takashi Murakami (1962, Japan), Philippe Parreno (1964, France), Sigmar Polke (1941-2010, Germany), Gerhard Richter (1932, Germany), Bunny Rogers (1990, USA), Wilhelm Sasnal (1972, Poland), Shimabuku (1969, Japan), Kiki Smith (1954, USA), Adrián Villar Rojas (1980, Argentina), Anicka Yi (1971, South Korea).

These artists engage with current issues that echo the bustle and hum of the world, by re-appropriating founding myths and developing a new awareness of living things.

The exhibition itself is inspired by Roland Barthes's injunction in La Chambre Claire: "I have determined to be guided by the consciousness of my feelings" (La Chambre claire, 1980)

•  Sequence A, displayed on the 2nd floor, is dedicated to the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, whose prolific work revolves around a culture that is both ancestral and contemporary, and upon which historical trauma and natural disasters have left a considerable mark. It unfolds in three parts: the first is arranged around DOB, a character invented by the artist and considered to be his alter ego; the second around a pictorial fresco which references the story of the “EIGHT IMMORTALS” of the Taoist religion; completing the display is a “KAWAII” space of sculptures and animated films.
• Sequence B extends through the rest of the building. It explores the current and recurring issues concerning man’s position within the universe and his relationship with other living things. The question has inspired artists and has led them to engage with and create pieces that resonate with works by researchers, scientists and also poets and philosophers; each artist questions the relationship between the different living beings, beyond the distinctions of human, plant, animal.

Each floor of Sequence B has its own theme:

On the first floor, in galleries 5 and 6, Irradiances includes works by Matthew Barney, Mark Bradford, Trisha Donnelly, Dan Flavin, Jacqueline Humphries, Pierre Huyghe, Yves Klein, James Lee Byars, François Morellet, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter and Anicka Yi; and Christian Boltanski occupies gallery 7.

On the ground floor, in gallery 4, Là, infiniment… (Here, infinitely…) displays works by Cyprien Gaillard, Wilhelm Sasnal

and Adrián Vilar Rojas.

On the pool level, L’Homme qui chavire, (The man who capsizes), presented in galleries 1 and 2, includes works by Giovanni Anselmo, Maurizio Cattelan, Ian Cheng, Alberto Giacometti, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe, Yves Klein, Henri Matisse, Philippe Parreno and Kiki Smith.

This exhibition will give rise to a special publication; a collector's edition of Journal dedicated to artists; to accompany the standard issue. A series of multidisciplinary events intended to bring together artists, scientists, philosophers, poets and musicians is also planned.

1. JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT AND EGON SCHIELE

Two simultaneous exhibitions from 3^rd October 2018 to 14^th January 2019

• Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988)

Jean-Michel Basquiat, one of the 20^th century’s most significant painters, will be presented by Fondation Louis Vuitton across the four floors of Frank Gehry's building. Covering the period of 1980 to 1988, this exhibition examines the painter's entire career, focusing on around 100 of his finest works.Just like the Heads series of 1981-82 or the display of several collaborations between Basquiat and Warhol, the exhibition includes ensembles previously unseen in Europe; fundamental works such as Obnoxious Liberals (1982, Broad Art Foundation collection), In Italian (1983, Brant Foundation collection) or Riding with Death (1988, private collection) and paintings rarely seen since their first showing during the artist’s lifetime, such as Offensive Orange (1982) and Untitled (Yellow Tar and Feathers) (1982, private collections)

• Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

A major exhibition of the Austrian painter composed of around 80 drawings, watercolours and paintings will be shown at the same time, on the first floor of the building. Schiele’s very singular vision, inseparable from the Viennese context of the early twentieth century, in the space of a few years became one of the heights of expressionism. This solo exhibition, focusing on nudes and portraits, includes first-class works such as Self-Portrait with Chinese Lantern Plant (1912) borrowed from the Leopold Museum (Vienna), Pregnant woman and Death (1911) from the Národní Galerie (Prague), or Portrait of the Artist's Wife Seated (Edith Schiele), Holding Her Right Leg (1917) from the Morgan Library & Museum (New York), and is the first in Paris for 25 years.

The two exhibitions allow the simultaneous contemplation of two sensational bodies of works. If the existential nature of Schiele’s lines, like Basquiat’s, is one of the main themes identified by Dieter Buchhart, curator of the two exhibitions, it is also the intense nature of their careers that resonate here, from the beginning of the 20th century to its end.

In 1909, Egon Schiele left his fine arts academy to found the Neukunstgruppe, and thanks to Gustav Klimt, discovered the work of Van Gogh, Munch and Toroop. From 1911 onwards, he concentrated on his artistic production in isolation, fascinated by the distortion of bodies and the introspection and outward expression of desire and tragedy. Defeated by the Spanish flu in 1918, Schiele had produced around 300 paintings and several thousand drawings over the course of a decade.

A self-taught man, Jean-Michel Basquiat left school and made the streets of New York his first studio. His painting quickly found a desired but endured success. While his work returns to the dawn of modernity and expressionism, he drew inspiration from numerous other motifs, such as African-American tradition and revolt. Basquiat’s death in 1988 left a rich collection of works, comprising a few thousand paintings and an even greater number of drawings.

With these two exhibitions, Fondation Louis Vuitton is once again demonstrating their determination to contextualise their presentation of contemporary creation with historical references.