Thursday : Louis Vuitton foundation, Guimet museum, MAM (museum of modern art)
Jean-Michel Basquiat – Andy Warhol, 2 major 20th-century artists exhibited together in Paris
Keith Haring (1958-1990), a witness to their friendship and joint production, describes the 160 or so canvases painted “four-handed” between 1984 and 1985, around a hundred of which are on show as part of the exhibition, as a “conversation taking place through paint, instead of words” and two minds merging to create a “third, separate and unique” one. And it is true that both Warhol and Basquiat express themselves in unison in these paintings. Basquiat found in Warhol, whom he admired, a new artistic language, and Warhol returned to the great ensembles and painting alongside Basquiat.
In order to recreate the New York downtown art scene of the 1980s, individual works by each artist, as well as a collection of works by others, from Keith Haring to Jenny Holzer, Kenny Scharf and many others, are also on show.
The famous series of boxing-glove photographs taken by Michael Halsband for the poster of the Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol exhibition in 1985 also enriches the exhibition, which opens with a series of cross-portraits, Basquiat by Warhol, Warhol by Basquiat. The exhibition continues in all the Foundation’s galleries with the first collaborations between the two men, showing how their works interact with each other. Looking beyond styles and forms, it also highlights crucial issues such as the integration of the African-American community into the North American narrative, a continent in which Warhol was one of the great icon-makers.
If you love contemporary art, you won’t want to miss the “Basquiat × Warhol, à quatre mains” exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton from 5 April to 28 August 2023. This is the most important exhibition ever devoted to the works that Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol painted together between 1984 and 1985.
HIROSHIGE and the FAN, a journey through 19th-century Japan.
Until 29 May, 19th-century Japan is on show at the Musée Guimet. Discover a little-known aspect of the work of the master printmaker Utagawa Hiroshige: fan prints. Ephemeral and inexpensive objects, Edo fans quickly became the medium of creativity for renowned artists. The pages on display at the Musée Guimet are the first to be shown in France. Uncut and in their first print run, these prints are unique.
The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris is presenting the first major retrospective devoted to the Norwegian artist Anna-Eva Bergman (1909-1987), a key figure in post-war painting and a free, visionary artist whose work, characterised by the use of gold and silver leaf, is a powerful celebration of the beauty of nature and the landscapes of the North and the Mediterranean.
Zao Wou-ki at the MAM
The Zao Wou-Ki exhibition at the Musée d’art moderne (MAM) in Paris, to mark the tenth anniversary of the death of the Chinese painter (1920-2013). On view until 1 December 2023.
The result of two donations from his wife Françoise Marquet-Zao in 2018 and 2022 and earlier acquisitions, this is one of the most important collections in France.
A great master of lyrical abstraction, the Japanese artist arrived in France in 1948 and nurtured his creative process through contact with his artist friends, poets, musicians, painters and writers.
At the crossroads of two worlds, Zao Wou-Ki’s work is “a model of the search for harmony between East and West” (Claude Roy). A perfect balance between Western abstraction and Chinese pictorial tradition, his painting is a tribute to light, movement and silence.
