Thursday April 7 had some early morning rain, then cloud and a few welcomed hours of sun in the late afternoon. It was quite windy and the high was 16C.
After breakfast, we headed out to the Pompidou to see the exhibit: Yves Saint Laurent au Centre Pompidou . It is part of the project Yves Saint Laurent aux musées celebrating the 60th anniversary of Yves Saint Laurent's first fashion show on January 29, 1962. There are six Paris museums focussing on different aspects of Yves Saint Laurent's work.
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| Outside the Pompidou |
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| Pompidou Centre (still a love it or hate it building after so many years) |
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| Poster for exhibit |
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| The views at the top of the escalator are awesome- Eiffel Tower and the rooftops of Paris |
The exhibition at the Centre Pompidou approached the work of Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) (1936-2008) as that of an artist "profoundly anchored in his time, a witness to the changes in artistic creation in the 20th century." YSL retired from haute couture in January 2002, following a final retrospective fashion show at the Pompidou. His choice of venue underscored his attachment to modern and contemporary art. He was a frequent visitor to the Pompidou and never ceased to be inspired by the artists in its collection.
There were thirteen displays of his clothes and the art that shed light on his sources of inspiration. The pairings were shown with a part of the Pompidou's incredible collection of modern art. I took many pictures of the art on display, but am gong to focus on the YSL pairings in the blog (with a few exceptions).
The first pairing was with a painting by Henri Matisse, who occupied an important position among the painters YSL appreciated: "For me, he is "the" painter. I love Matisse with his perfectly calm life and his constant research into colour". Evocations of the painter's work appear as early as his first collection. As a homage to the painter, YSL made a faithful transposition of the Blouse romaine (Romanian Blouse, 1940).
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| Matisse and YSL |
There was a room with many paintings by George Braque, Picasso and other cubists.
In 1988, YSL designed a collection to "pay tribute to artists". The whole show was a succession of animated paintings. He designed a group of 13 capes directly inspired by the cubist compositions of both Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. Picasso's Violin was part of the 'soft cubism' that appealed to the couturier.
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| Hommage à Georges Braque cape, Spring-summer 1988 and Picasso Le Violin 1914 |
Then a room full of wonderful paintings by Fernand Léger and Henri Laurens who were attracted by the forms imposed by modern industry.
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| Les Acrobates en gris, 1942-44 |
With his fall-winter 1981 collection, YSL paid tribute to the work of Fernand Léger, to whom the Pompidou had dedicated an exhibition only a few months earlier. The dress recalled Léger's
Fleurs (Flowers) sculptures.
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Léger (1881-1955) La Fleur polychrome, 1952 and YSL,
Robe Hommage à Fernand Léger, Fall-Winter 1981 |
There was a wonderful painting by Léger entitled:
Le Réveille-matin, 1914. The Pompidou's write-up with the painting noted the alarm clock in the lower right corner and the three coloured assemblage of the work which reflected the atmosphere of general mobilization for WWI. There is also a typical French black beret in the picture. The painting was begun in 1912 and in fact, was interrupted by the artist's departure for the war.
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| Le Réveille-matin, 1914 |
Another room was filled with a number of pieces by Picasso- some of which we had seen before and others which were new.
In 1917 and 1919, Picasso worked on the sets and costumes for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. The painting shown in the pairing with the YSL dress was influenced by his experience. YSL discovered the costumes in 1979 on the occasion of an exhibition at the Bibliothèque national de France dedicated to the Ballets Russes. He drew inspiration from them.
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| Picasso, Arlequin et femme au collier, 1917 and YSL Robe Hommage à Pablo Picasso, Fall-Winter 1979 |
There was a pairing of a YSL dress in a room of paintings by Robert Delaunay (1895-1941) and Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979). I have always been a fan of both painters-- their colours are fantastic.
In fact, the YSL dress owes its motifs to the costume for the character of the Chinese Conjurer, which Picasso had designed for the 1917 ballet Parade. The choice of colour as well as the swirling movements of the patterns, however, offer an insight into the influence of Robert and Sonia Delaunay. YSL was also aware of the 'simultaneous' dresses created by Sonia Delaunay.
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| Robe Hommage à Pablo Picasso, Fall-Winter 1979 |
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| Robert Delaunay, La Tour Eiffel, 1926 |
There was a beautiful painting by Sonia Delaunay entitled: Le Bal Bullier, 1913. The painting
could be many couples dancing, or one couple captured at different moments. Sonia and Robert would go dancing at the Bar Bullier on the boulevard Saint-Michel. The contrasting colours evoke the dressses that she designed.
Another room had many Marc Chagall (1887-1985) paintings. Here's one of our favourites where Chagall celebrated his marriage with Bella, whom he married in Russia in 1915. The write-up with the picture notes that "the couple is situated at the crossroads between heaven and earth, water and light. Bella, carrying her husband on her shoulders and walking on water, has just strode over his sombre and sleeping native city. Together, flouting the laws of gravity they set out for a new life".
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| Double portrait au verre de vin, 1917-1918 |
There was a room with the paintings of the De Stijl group of painters, sculptors and architects that formed around a magazine with the same name in 1917. Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) was one of the group. In July 1965, YSL designed cocktail dresses inspired by the work of Piet Mondrian, whom he had discovered through a monograph. The collection, which was met with unprecedented success, contributed to the Dutch artist's late recognition in France where he had lived but had been largely overlooked by museums until his first retrospective at the Orangerie in 1969.
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Robe Hommage à Piet Mondrian, Fall-Winter 1965 and Piet Mondrian,
Composition en rouge, bleu et blanc II, 1937
Another room contained a number of pieces by Kasimir Malévitch (1879-1935). One was entitled: Sensation du danger, 1930-1931. In 1928, Malévitch began a new series in which he transposed suprematist forms and colours in a figurative style. The write-up says that " a man seems to run away from two windowless house that no doubt symbolise Stalinist prisons. The blood-stained blade of the sword underscores the threat that the regime brought to bear equally on country persons and the artistic world". Thus, Malévitch, who himself was interned in1930, denounced the coercive policy that forced him to abandon Suprematism. |
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| Sensation du danger, 1930-1931 |
In 1964, Martial Raysse (b. 1936) began his Made in Japan series, which reappropriated historical art icons. A detail from Ingres' La Grande Odalisque (1841), green-hued, adorned with trinkets became an icon of this kitsch aesthetic. In January 1971, when YSL presented his collection known as Liberation, he also revisited past aesthetic canons.
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| Martial Raysse, Made in Japan-La Grande Odalisque, 1964 and Manteau, Spring-Summer 1971 |
There was a wonderful piece by Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) entitled:
Le Monster de Soisy, vers 1966. It was part of a set for a Roland Petit ballet. She made her colours by shooting at cans of paint attached to the assemblage (white canvass on a metal structure).
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| The Monster- lots of objects attached |
The next YSL pairing was with a piece by Gary Hume (b. 1962) entitled: The Moon, 2009. In his 1966 Fall-Winter collection, a tribute to Pop Art, YSL presented two dresses inspired by American pop artist Tom Wesselmann's Great American Nudes. Gary Hume, a member of the Young British Artist group, owed much to Wesselmann in his use of colours and medium (enamel paint). In his painting, Hume hones in on details such as the arm of a pom-pom girl holding a large yellow pom-pom.
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| Gary Hume, The Moon, 2009 and Robe Hommage à Tom Wesselmann, Fall-Winter 1966 |
Another room had a number of pieces by Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015). Despite never directly referencing Kelly among his influences, YSL shared several sources of inspiration with him. Chief among them were Matisse.
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| Ellsworth Kelly, Black White 1988 and YSL, Robe de soiree long, Fall-Winter 1965 |
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| The Black and White room |
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| Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), Femme debout II, 1959-1960 --- Alain standing tall |
The next pairing was with Etel Adnan (1925-2021). She was a writer, poet and painter born in Beirut in 1925. Her abstract paintings, which she began in the 1960s were an integral part of her poetic oeuvre. She considered painting as a way of reciting poetry. Her works Untitled, made in 2010, were inspired by views of the sea in Beirut. The Pompidou write-up notes that the works of Adnan and creations of YSL both share a relationship to colour which is always sensory. The dress was created in 1966. He conjures up images of a 'beach with a sun as in Roy Lichtenstein's work: with dunes, the sea and a big yellow sun.'
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| View from inside the museum |
Towards the end of the 1960s, an Op-Art trend took over the world of fashion. The pairing was of three of YSL's dresses from Fall-Winter, 1968, Spring-Summer 1969 and a jumpsuit from Fall-Winter 1970, with Victor Vasarely (Hungary 1906-Paris,1997),
Alom [Rêve], 1966.
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| Alom, 1966 |
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| YSL Op Art dresses |
We spent an amazing two hours exploring the incredible collection of modern art (a bit overwhelming by the end), and the interspersed YSL match-ups. The Pompidou was not very crowded and we really enjoyed exploring the collection. When we emerged, the sun had come out and we started our walk to the Palais Royal. We took a route passed the finally finished renovation of Les Halles and surrounding area.
Saint-Eustache looked magnificent in the sun. The Church was built between 1532 and 1632 with a Flamboyant Gothic structure.
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| Saint-Eustache |
A new sculpture by Christian Lapie had just been installed in front of the church. There are four very tall men.
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| Outside the newest contemporary art museum housed in the former Bourse |
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| Charles Ray, Horse and rider, 2014-- part of a temporary Charles Ray exhibit at the Bourse |
We finally arrived at the Palais Royal. I love to stand on the
Colonnes de Buren, an art installation created by the French artist Daniel Buren in 1985-1986. The columns are located in the inner courtyard of the Palais Royal.
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