Upside Down World – Style

First – a fairy tale. An angel came to the house of the Scythian Babuk and said: the madness and outrages of the Persians have crossed all boundaries. Go, look at what’s there and we’ll decide whether to save Persepolis or destroy it. On his way, Babuk met soldiers who did not know what they were fighting for; met commanders who were only interested in money; I met generals who did not believe that all this was for good, but continued to fight. He saw the atrocities and atrocities of people: both from the Persians and Indians, the war turned them into savages. And then peace was concluded. Nobody won. The dead lay in the ground, the monarchs returned to their palaces. This philosophical parable by Voltaire, “The World as It Is,” gave both the title and the storyline to the exhibition at the Bource de commerce.

The curators and consultants of 87-year-old François Pinault are accomplished storytellers. Voltaire had Babuk’s vision; in the Bourse, curator Jean-Marie Galle offers a look at the world through the eyes of one of the most influential collectors, the founder of the luxury giant Kering (brands Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Boucheron, Alexander McQueen) and owner of Christie’s. He has been collecting his collection for half a century, and in recent years he has been focusing only on it, since the business was transferred to his heirs. Since the arrival of general director Emma Lavigne at Bource de commerce three years ago, exhibitions (and everything we see in both Paris and Venice are part of Pinault’s collection, numbering more than 10 thousand works) are increasingly devoted to the view and choice of the collector himself.

“The World as It Is” is a new portion of a concentrated squeeze – 30 artists and about 80 works (painting, sculpture, video, installations). Taken out of the curatorial vision, they can simply look like hits of the modern art scene. Jeff Koons’s inflated dog, Damien Hirst’s cabinet of pills, Maurizio Cattelan’s human sculptures, Bertrand Lavier’s Ferrari, Sigmar Polke’s creepy circus… All have been shown more than once. But that’s why curators are needed, to “illuminate,” as they say now, the collector’s view. François Pinault buys art that touches sore spots, reveals the wounds of the modern world, and makes us think about them. Some artists do this in a poetic form, others – sharply, others – with humor. In this “World”, authors of two generations coexist: some of the works shown are from the 1980s-90s, the second are after 2010. Both here and there – death, destruction, war, disease. The Koons vacuum cleaners and Robert Gober sink collected in one room take you back to the 80s, when people thought that to protect themselves from AIDS, it was enough to wash their hands or get rid of dust. Nearby is the 90s, where Lavier’s Ferrari is flying at full speed of consumerism and luxury into the wall, and opposite is our time – clouds of explosive dust and smoke of Anna Imhof, which either require or do not require 3D glasses to see the impending disaster.

The epigraph to the exhibition is a huge canvas by Mohamed Sami (One Thousand and One Nights, 2022), which greets viewers at the entrance. In 2003, the artist fled from Iraq to Sweden, and from there to London. Twenty years have passed, and flashes of explosions in the peaceful night sky are still before our eyes. To see them or the stars, as if straight out of Van Gogh’s paintings, is the viewer’s choice. This duality of view and interpretation is inscribed in each work of the exhibition and the artists, and with them the collector, seem to echo Voltaire’s Babouque: “Inexplicable people! How can one combine in oneself so much meanness and greatness, so many virtues and crimes!”

The spectacular conclusion of “The World” is the installation “Breathe – Constellation” by South Korean artist Kim Sooji. The curators gave her carte blanche and a central place in the rotunda. She covered the floor with mirrors, which reflected the majestic dome of the exchange. A simple trick nevertheless gives a physical sense of the world turned upside down, to which the exhibition is dedicated. Well, what about Voltaire’s Babuk? He returned to the angel and said that the world, of course, is not very good, the Persians are savages, the Indians are no better, but we have no other way.

Maria Sidelnikova