The Fondation Carmignac is pleased to announce the opening of its Porquerolles island site on June 2, 2018.
The Fondation, created in 2000 under the initiative of Édouard Carmignac, will open to the public in Porquerolles, a Mediterranean island often compared to a floating forest on the sea.
Visitors will discover contemporary artworks of the Carmignac Collection in the beautiful surroundings of a national park, along with temporary exhibitions, a sculpture garden, and a rich programme of cultural events.
The island is not the result of a random decision: “As in all legends or initiatory journeys, the voyage to the island is always a dual crossing – both physical and psychological. It is about crossing over to the other side,” states the Director of the foundation, Charles Carmignac.
Once on the island, the visitor will discover a Provençal farmhouse blended into the landscape. Inside, the galleries expand to reveal 2,000 square meters of exhibition spaces. Natural light, filtered through a ceiling filled with water, illuminates the spaces hidden beneath the surface. Outside, a selection of works inspired by the surroundings is dispersed over a 15-hectare garden, conceived by landscape designer Louis Benech.
Created in 2000 under the initiative of Édouard Carmignac, the Fondation Carmignac is a corporate foundation with two main focuses: an art collection of close to 300 works, and the annual Carmignac Photojournalism Award.
In partnership with the Fondation Carmignac, the Villa Carmignac, this exhibition space open to the public, was conceived in Porquerolles to showcase the collection and to host cultural and artistic activities.
Inaugural exhibition
Dieter Buchhart – Curator
EXHIBITION SEA OF DESIRE
The phrase SEA OF DESIRE, written in sprawling letters on a large-scale painting by Edward Ruscha, will welcome visitors who venture into the Fondation’s forest. “Words have temperature,“ notes the artist. “When they reach a certain point and become hot words, then they appeal to me.“1 The lexicon of SEA OF DESIRE’s temperature is hot, boiling over with ambiguous meaning. It links our desires and expectations to the unknown, to drama, and potentially to destruction.
Ruscha’s “drama of words“2 offers new experiences in the same way as incisive works of art are integrated in this beautiful Mediterranean island. It anticipates our desire for beauty and Eros as much as the desire for a seemingly ideal world, recalling Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”. Written on the nearby island of Sanary-sur-Mer in 1931, Huxley’s monumental literary masterpiece anticipated profound changes in society due to new technologies, over-organization, propaganda, and brainwashing. While rebellion hardly seemed possible in his “Brave New World”, the civil unrest in France – known as «May 68» – meant protest, civil disobedience, intense violence, as well as newfound freedoms and the upheaval of old rules and systems. The movement – which subsequently spread around the world – and especially its visual manifestations, were a decisive inspiration for a myriad of artistic creations and practices. The spirit of rebellion and change is also at the heart of the inaugural exhibition of the Fondation Carmignac, SEA OF DESIRE. The exhibition mirrors both the collection and the philosophy of its founder Édouard Carmignac. But instead of starting a revolution by throwing paved stones, as a popular slogan of the May 68 movement demanded, SEA OF DESIRE confronts the viewer with compelling artworks that challenge with a thirst for revolution and freedom and a quest for beauty
As such, SEA OF DESIRE is devised as a journey exploring the dialog between iconic artists such as Sandro Botticelli, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Jeff Koons, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and younger artists whose artistic voices, although not part of the art canon yet, are no less loud and clear.
The inaugural exhibition strives to present the collection of the Fondation Carmignac juxtaposed with works from important international museums and private collections.
The exhibition is curated by Dr. Dieter Buchhart, who has organized major exhibitions by artists such as Edvard Munch, Georges Braque, Otto Dix, Ed Ruscha, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring for renowned institutions including the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Brooklyn Museum, the Albertina in Vienna, the Foundation Beyeler, and the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
Press release courtesy:
Brunswick Arts
fondationcarmignac@brunswickgroup.com
Fondation Carmignac
anne.racine@carmignac.com
valentine.dolla@carmignac.com
Cover image: Porquerolles Island – Photograph by Eric Valli
Info: Address
Villa Carmignac Île de Porquerolles
83400 Hyères, France
