A very extensive program is presented and offered to us by the Emile Hugues Foundation with the presentation of a hundred works by artists from the Lambert collection. From Warhol to Basquiat is undoubtedly a vast challenge, one that has been admirably met.
The works exhibited in the Vence museum and at the chapel of the penitents are witnesses to this modern art, but what does it mean to be modern? Throughout time, there has been this dispute between the ancients, those settled in the monastic stalls of success and recognition of their art. Are they ancient? Yet, in their time, they were modern!
We should rather define artists like Andy Warhol or Jean Michel Basquiat, key figures of this exhibition, as message bearers, defining the contradictions of a society proclaiming freedoms. What to think of this series of monochrome electric chairs?
We know this barbaric instrument was used to execute the condemned in the United States. Andy Warhol helps us understand the contradiction between this object used to kill a human being and the ideal proclaimed by American society. Jean Michel Basquiat, whose piece Asbestos features in this exhibition, denounces the ravages of asbestos.
This extraordinary artist, who died at 28, far too early to affirm his already well-established art, is very eclectic. Anatomical boards, white bones on a black background, important to know he is black, all the symbolism is there! An anecdote shared by the exhibition director: Basquiat, invited to Paris, repainted his room at the Ritz, which caused quite a scandal.
The director at the time was unaware, more ignorant than the café owners of Montmartre, of the value Basquiat gave to this room. Andy Warhol is also a photographer and he captured on film, in the ’80s when they worked with analog photography, Basquiat, Liza Minnelli, and Rudolf Nureyev, a fantastic trio, with magnificent photos.
Two films are offered to the public, pardon, the visitor: a tribute to Jean Michel Basquiat dating from 1996 and the second, set to music by Ennio Morricone, featuring a man juggling with a lasso under the amazed gaze of a young girl jogging. Land Art with Richard Long is not forgotten. The title From Warhol to Basquiat should not be taken literally, but in spirit.
It goes far beyond, over there towards lands where utopia is reality and dream realized, where this exhibition must be understood. At the chapel of the penitents, in a circle of screens, anonymous young men tell you…
Hush, you have to go there to understand the meaning. Another film will be presented to you. Let’s not lift the veil, let’s leave the surprise of discovery to have its full effect for the greatest satisfaction of the visitors.
Thierry Jan
