18 March to 13
july 2009. Every day except Tuesday from 10h to 22h, Thirsday until
20h. 11 euros.
The Great World of Andy Warhol inside the Grand Palais of Paris is a
success. If the artist continues to attract, it is more than ever the
subject of a misunderstanding. Andy Warhol is most fashionable. In some
media, at least, where, at the opening of the exhibition The Great
World of Andy Warhol, the Grand Palais in Paris, said it very difficult
for the American artist, on the Mode burn what we have loved. " He
blamed his penchant for publicity and money or its lack of political
commitment. Worse, we suspect that they did not have talent. It is not
clear that all these critics have visited the exhibition, or at least
they have what it really looked to be seen. Because they would know
that Warhol was a great artist, who marked their time and leave their
mark in the history of art. Le Grand Palais almost exclusively
portraits. No series of bottles of Coca-Cola or Campbell soup cans. No
facilities, either. The business editor of the artist (he founded and
directed the great American magazine Interview), the beginnings of
advertising, his instinct for talent scouts, are addressed at the
margin. Remain more than one hundred portraits, usually multiple, two
large drawings, videos, photos. Enough to show, first, that it is a
real work of a painter. Like Delacroix, Warhol used photographs. If the
subject that was portrayed was not dead or absent (and in this case, he
left what he found, a snapshot of an agency, for example), he did ask
and, at the help of assistants, was engaged in a long session of
shooting. Then he began the work of drafting the final painting
obtained by different techniques: serigraphy, collage, overloading, use
of various substances to transform the subject ... The result is
usually extremely harmonious, sometimes ironic, of great evocative
power partly due to variations in color of a "test" to another. A
collective portrait of the contemporary world. Because the choice to
conduct multiple works, a sort of trademark of the artist, is not just
a shot. It is instead the result of a genuine reflection on the
painting in relation to cinema. Often, Warhol produced more variation
than did the control required. The client could finally buy them.
Otherwise, the artist kept the Factory, his studio, where the fund was
for him a kind of collective portrait of the contemporary world.
Warhol, sponge of his time, was fascinated by the society of the
spectacle. No group, as is often thought of this son of immigrants
reached the summit of society. Rather as a philosopher. His thinking is
not going through the written word but by the completion of works. When
he commanded portraits, aggregating it to the overall work, just like
the Renaissance artists could do. No more than they, not he chose his
models. When diverting a picture of Mao, he acted as Rubens
who joined the order of Marie de Medici (a series of huge paintings now
in the Louvre) in a reflection on power and its representatives. Deeply
of his time, Warhol was an artist as "old style", with a workshop, a
plan of care and bills to pay. Charles Le Brun and Jacques Louis David,
he led the work along with theoretical and philosophical reflections on
the contemporary world, life and art. He was a true artist.
