Having been passionate from a young age, Hélène Jourdan Gassion comes from a family of artists and art enthusiasts. She became interested in contemporary art in the 1970s, through interactions with artists working on the French Riviera and by collecting their works. This passion led her to open a gallery in Nice, primarily dedicated to young emerging artists.
In 1986, she founded the contemporary art fair Art Jonction International, which she chaired for more than 10 years. Additionally, she dedicated herself to writing by authoring prefaces and reviews of exhibitions.
“The exhibition dedicated to the collection assembled by Hélène Jourdan-Gassin opens up an interesting perspective on the concept of cultural consumption. It reveals a complex form of engagement with art, which is aesthetic, intellectual, and emotional, leading to a genuine existential experience.
Thus, sketching the history of the collection amounts to reporting on a dual adventure: the subjective one of an evolving perspective and the objective one of the socio-historical context that is its natural landscape.
Hélène Jourdan-Gassin’s multifaceted activism is reflected in the collection, where each artwork attests to a moment of her activity in support of art. This proximate collectivism is also essentially emotional and intuitive, developing through encounters, paced by a free-spirited personality who has always managed to preserve the spirit of enthusiastic curiosity of a true art aficionado.”
Jean-Marc Réol
Art critic and Director of the École Supérieure d’Art de Toulon
Exhibition “A Look at a Collection”
Hélène Jourdan-Gassin
from April 9 to June 8, 2008
Galerie des Ponchettes and Galerie de la Marine
Her website: www.lolagassin.com
