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Naples à Paris

Reaffirming the importance of collaboration between European museum institutions, the Louvre Museum has entered into a partnership of unprecedented scope with the Capodimonte Museum for the year 2023. Former hunting residence of the Bourbon rulers, the palace (the Reggia in Italian) now houses one of the largest museums in Italy and one of the most important art galleries in Europe, both in number and in quality. exceptional works preserved. Capodimonte is one of the only museums on the peninsula whose collections make it possible to present all the schools of Italian painting. It also houses the second drawing cabinet in Italy after that of the Uffizi as well as a remarkable set of porcelains.

Around sixty of the greatest masterpieces of the Neapolitan museum will be exhibited in three different places in the Louvre, the Salon Carré, the Grande Galerie and the Rosa room. The desire of the two museums is to see the emblematic masterpieces of Naples mingle with those of the Louvre, in a truly exceptional presentation: the combination of the two collections will offer visitors for six months a unique insight into Italian painting from the 15th century. in the 17th century, also allowing a new vision of both the Louvre and Capodimonte collections.

Thirty-three paintings by Capodimonte, among the greatest of Italian painting, will enter into dialogue with the collections of the Louvre (works by Titian, Caravaggio, Carracci, Guido Reni to name but a few), or complete them by allowing the presentation of schools little or not represented – in particular, of course, the singular Neapolitan school, with artists with dramatic and expressive power such as Jusepe de Ribera, Francesco Guarino or Mattia Preti.

It will also be an opportunity to discover the moving Crucifixion by Masaccio, a major artist of the Florentine Renaissance but absent from the Louvre’s collections, a large historical painting by Giovanni Bellini, The Transfiguration, of which the Louvre has no equivalent or three more of Parmigianino’s most magnificent paintings, including the famous and enigmatic Antéa. The confrontation of these works with the Correggios of the Louvre certainly promises to be one of the highlights of this meeting.

The Capodimonte collection is the result of a unique history in Italian collections, which largely explains the diversity of the works presented there. Before the unification of Italy (the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was attached to it in 1861), three dynasties played an essential role in the constitution of this impressive ensemble: the Farnese, the Bourbons and the Bonaparte-Murat.

Bringing together such important paintings as the Portrait of Pope Paul III Farnese with his Nephews by Titian and the Portrait of Giulio Clovio by Greco, spectacular sculptures and art objects, which are all exceptional loans – including the Cofanetto Farnese, the most precious and refined of Renaissance goldsmith works with Benvenuto Cellini’s Salt Shaker of Francis I, and Filippo Tagliolini’s extraordinary biscuit, La Chute des Géants – the exhibition in the Chapel room will allow visitors to discover the richness of this collection, reflection and witness of the different golden ages of the Kingdom of Naples.

Rich in more than 30,000 works, the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints of Capodimonte owes part of its treasures to Fulvio Orsini, humanist, great scholar and librarian of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, known as the Grand Cardinal and grandson of Pope Paul III . Orsini constituted the first collection in the world to consider study drawings and preparatory drawings. This new and revolutionary approach will make him acquire four fabulous cartoons which were then considered to be the hand of Raphael and Michelangelo. Moses before the Burning Bush by Raphael and the Group of Soldiers by Michelangelo are preparatory to the decorations of the Vatican and today recognized as rare autograph works. The cartoon of the Madonna of Divine Love and that of Venus and Cupid are considered works executed in the immediate entourage of the two masters.

These extremely rare works will be presented at the Louvre in dialogue with famous cartoons kept in the Cabinet des Dessins du Louvre, such as Saint Catherine by Raphaël or the cartoon of La Moderation by Giulio Romano, Raphaël’s closest pupil and collaborator, recently restored. An ambitious cultural program will give this invitation, beyond the rooms of the museum, the dimensions of a true Neapolitan season in Paris.

Louvre.fr

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Ron Mueck

The Cartier Foundation invites the Australian sculptor Ron Mueck to exhibit a set of works never before shown in France alongside emblematic works from his career. the Foundation is therefore pursuing a long-term dialogue with this artist whom it revealed to the French public in 2005 and whose works are as rare as expected.

This third exhibition bears witness to the recent evolution of Ron Mueck’s practice. The scale and craftsmanship of the monumental installation Mass marks a new milestone in the artist’s career. This work, commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne, Australia) in 2017, is the largest he has ever produced. Composed of one hundred gigantic human skulls, Mass is reconfigured by the artist according to the space he has available for each presentation. It offers a fascinating physical and psychic experience that leads us to contemplate the fundamental notions of human existence. Its title alone gives an idea of the polysemy of the work. The English word “mass”, meaning both a heap, a heap, a crowd but also a mass, is a source of interpretations specific to each visitor. The iconography of the skull itself is ambiguous. If the history of art associates it with the brevity of human life, it is also omnipresent in popular culture.

For the artist, “the human skull is a complex object, a powerful, graphic icon that one immediately identifies. Familiar and strange at the same time, it repels as much as it intrigues. It is impossible to ignore, subconsciously capturing our attention. The skulls are presented as a group, a sum of individuals that imposes itself on the visitor. In this, Mass differs from the previous works of Ron Mueck who had, until then, always represented the human being in his individuality.

Also exhibited for the first time in France, Dead Weight (2021), a nearly two-ton cast iron skull, contrasts with his usually naturalistic works. The traces of the molding of this sculpture remain, the artist having voluntarily left the marks of its manufacture and the raw nature of the material to speak for themselves.

The exhibition also unveils a spectacular sculpture representing a group of menacing dogs, created especially for the occasion, which Ron Mueck was already feeding into the project when he was preparing his monographic exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in 2013.

Three emblematic works from the 2000s are also presented. For Baby (2000), a tiny sculpture of a newborn baby boy, Ron Mueck modeled an image found in a medical textbook showing a baby held aloft by its feet just minutes after delivery. . At the antipodes of the installation Mass, an evocation of the post-mortem body, this meticulous representation of the first moments of life attracts attention just as intensely. By reversing the original image and hanging the sculpture on the wall like a crucifix, the artist first presents his work as a religious icon. But on closer observation, the visitor is transfixed by the almost insolent gaze of the baby.

Man in a boat (2002) depicts a particularly mysterious scene. A man whose arms hide his nudity is seated at the prow of a long boat and leans forward, with a questioning or scrutinizing gaze. As often with Ron Mueck, this character seems to “withdraw or drift into inner states that are almost inaccessible to us”, in the words of art critic Justin Paton.

With A Girl (2006), the visitor finds himself face to face with a gigantic newborn, who takes his first look at the world. Stained with traces of blood, the umbilical cord still present, her body is still marked by the experience of childbirth. The artist plays on an impressive distortion of scale to evoke both the miracle and the ordeal of birth, a forgotten yet fundamental moment for each of us.

June 8 – November 5, 2023

FONDATION CARTIER

261 boulevard Raspail 75014 Paris

fondation-cartier

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Elliott Erwitt

A retrospective

“In reality, to say that there is humanity in my photos is the greatest compliment I have ever been given. »
–Elliott Erwitt

The exhibition pays tribute to one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, a member of Magnum Photos since 1954. The tour presents his work through a set of 215 black and white and color photographs.

American photographer of European origin, Elliott Erwitt is both a painter of the intimate, photojournalist, advertising photographer, director and portraitist of personalities such as Marilyn Monroe or Jackie Kennedy, Charles de Gaulle, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Alfred Hitchcock , Nikita Khrushchev,…

The exhibition is the most comprehensive retrospective of Elliott Erwitt’s work to date. She attempts to present its many facets and to bring out its distinctive features: humor, irony tinged with tenderness, curiosity always on the alert, the emphasis on emotion, which this man, however cultivated, favors to the detriment of a dryly intellectual approach. Humanism above all, which permeates all of his work.


He strove to make a distinction between black and white and color – personal black and white shots, commissioned color work: “I don’t put color in my personal work. Color is professional. My life is already complicated enough as it is. I stick to black and white. It’s enough. However, if the distinction is intended, it is theoretical: Erwitt, in fact, combines artistic and commercial activity, not without adding his touch to his commissioned works which suddenly acquire an undeniable artistic quality.

The Maillol Museum also offers the opportunity for a unique dialogue between the work of the photographer and that of the sculptor. However different their means of expression may be – the chisel for one, the camera for the other, a single model for one, a sort of collective muse with many faces for the other – the gaze they pose on women, on museums, on the nude, subtly resonate. The top floor of the Maillol museum is an invitation to a renewed and unusual reading of works known or to be discovered.

March 23 – August 15, 2023

MUSEE MAILLOL

61 rue de Grenelle 75007 Paris

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Des Cheveux et des Poils

The Museum of Decorative Arts presents an exhibition dedicated to hair and body hair in the Western world. This original project, curated by Denis Bruna, chief curator in the fashion and textile department, continues the exploration of fashion and the representation of the body. After “The Mechanics of Below” (2013), “Proper Dress Required!” (2017) and “Walk and Gait” (2019), “Hair and Body Hair” shows how hairstyle and the arrangement of human hair have been involved for centuries in the construction of appearances.

Through more than 600 works, from the 15th century to the present day, we explore the themes inherent in the history of hairdressing, but also questions related to facial and body hair. The professions and know-how of yesterday and today are highlighted with their emblematic figures: Léonard Autier (Marie-Antoinette’s favorite hairdresser), Monsieur Antoine, the Carita sisters, Alexandre de Paris and more recently the studio hairdressers.

Big names in contemporary fashion such as Alexander McQueen, Martin Margiela or Josephus Thimister are also present with their spectacular creations made from this singular material that is hair.

April 5 – September 17, 2023

MAD

107 rue de Rivoli 75001 Paris

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Manet / Degas

Édouard Manet (1832-1883) and Edgar Degas (1834-1917) were both key players in the new painting of the 1860s-80s. This exhibition, which brings together the two painters in the light of their contrasts, forces us to take a new look at their real complicity. It shows what was heterogeneous and conflicting in pictorial modernity, and reveals the value of the Degas collection where Manet took a greater place after his death.

Bringing together artists as crucial as Manet and Degas cannot be limited to identifying the similarities offered by their respective corpuses. Admittedly, among these essential actors of the new painting of the years 1860-80, there is no lack of analogies concerning the subjects they imposed (from horse racing to café scenes, from prostitution to the tub), the genres they reinvented, the realism that they opened up to other formal and narrative potentialities, the market and the collectors that they managed to tame, the places (cafés, theaters) and the circles, family (Berthe Morisot) or friendly, where they met.

Before and after the birth of Impressionism, on which the exhibition takes a fresh look, what differentiated or opposed them is even more striking. Of dissimilar training and temperaments, they do not share the same tastes in literature and music. Their divergent choices in terms of exposure and career cooled, from 1873-1874, the budding friendship that bound them, a friendship reinforced by their common experience of the war of 1870 and the aftermath of the Commune. One cannot compare the former’s quest for recognition and the latter’s stubborn refusal to use the official channels of legitimization. And if we consider the private sphere, once the years of youth are over, everything separates them. To the sociability of Manet, very open, and quickly quite brilliant, to his domestic choices, respond the secret existence of Degas and his restricted entourage.

Because it brings together Manet and Degas in the light of their contrasts, and shows how much they define themselves by distinguishing themselves, this exhibition, rich in masterpieces never before brought together and an unprecedented partnership, forces us to bring a new a look at the short-lived complicity and enduring rivalry of two giants. The journey also makes more salient what pictorial modernity, in its point of emergence, then of growth and success, had of conflict, heterogeneity, unforeseen. He finally gives all its value to the collection of Degas where, after the death of Manet, the latter took an increasingly imperious place. Death had reconciled them.

This exhibition is organized by the Musées d’Orsay and de l’Orangerie and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York where it will be presented from September 2023 to January 2024.

March 28 – July 23, 2023

MUSEE D’ORSAY

Esplanade Valéry Giscard d’Estaing 75007 Paris

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Pastels

From Millet to Redon

The 18th century is considered the golden age of pastel. This unequaled medium for rendering the effects of matter and the velvety complexion is then often restricted to portraiture. Passed out of fashion during the French Revolution, pastel experienced a renaissance from the mid-19th century until the beginning of the 20th century. The range of pastels then extends considerably both in terms of shades and textures, thus opening the door to all types of experimentation. The collection of the Musée d’Orsay testifies to this renewal in an exceptional way.

Neither drawing nor painting, pastel is a singular art that offers an immediate relationship with matter. Made up of pure pigments, it rests in suspension on the grain of the paper or on the canvas. The resulting vibration gives it its beauty, but also its fragility. Multifaceted, it allows all modulations, from the vaporous blur to the most vigorous hatching. Pastel fuses line and color, and it is significant that an artist like Degas used it almost exclusively from 1888-90, the choice of the medium marking the culmination of his assiduous research on drawing and painting. color.

The exhibition is structured around eight major themes highlighting the revival of pastel from the second half of the 19th century. From the portrait, in the continuity of the 18th century, to the chimeras of symbolist artists, passing through the landscape or social transformations, the route will bring together many artists and will honor the works of Millet, Degas, Lévy-Dhurmer, Redon, Mary Cassatt, and many pastellists.

March 14 – July 2, 2023

MUSEE D’ORSAY

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