In 2014, the Perrotin gallery in Paris presented a group show, ‘GIRL’, curated by Pharrell Williams and named after an album he released a few months prior. Now, the gallery is revisiting the experience with the show 'Femmes', once again curated by Pharrell and exploring diverse interpretations of femininity. It features artwork in various media (much of it new) by 39 international artists, nearly all of them Black, representing different genders and generations. On the roster are pioneers such as 98-year-old Betye Saar and 89-year-old Esther Mahlangu, up-and-comers such as Kenyan photographer Thandiwe Muriu and British-Ghanaian-Vincentian painter Emma Prempeh, and art world darlings Mickalene Thomas (currently showing at London's Hayward Gallery) and Prince Gyasi – who, like Pharrell, has synesthesia (overlapping senses).

Wallpaper* had an exclusive conversation with the multi-talented American polymath and the French contemporary gallerist, Emmanuel Perrotin, about this latest collaboration.

Wallpaper*: How did you choose the artists for this show?

Emmanuel Perrotin: They were chosen after several brainstormings and back-and-forths between Pharrell and my team. Their works explore themes such as the body, fashion, motherhood, activism, queerness and spirituality, and challenge the stereotypes historically imposed on femininity. For sure, it was complicated to have all the artists we wanted, because as you can imagine there’s a lot of politics. Some artists were frustrated not to be able to participate, because their galleries didn’t want them to. But we have a large group, and a very good group.

W*: Why did you decide to feature predominantly Black artists?

Pharrell Williams: When we considered doing the show again, we remembered how much impact it had, and how I was able to leverage my platform. To give volume and visibility to female artists, how powerful it felt. And as you consider everything that's going on right now, how much more impactful it could be if we were to do this one even a little more focused than before. To be an homage to Black women. The truth is that women endure a gravity that most people will never understand. We wouldn't be here if it weren’t for women. On a philosophical level, you could say that the Black woman endures a gravity unlike any other. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for a Black woman. And if that makes anybody feel uncomfortable, that means that they have work to do in their lives.

W*: Can you tell me how the two of you first met?

PW: It was 2007. I was going through a very tough time. And [luxury brand director] Sabina Belli, who is a friend, knew I lived in Miami, and she said there's a gallerist that you should meet, Emmanuel Perrotin. So we were at a pool party, which is a crazy place to ask a gallerist to meet you, and he showed up and he was so nice.

EP: There were all these crazy sports cars parked in front of the house, and an incredible ambiance. Pharrell was interested in looking at the catalogues I brought, at contemporary art, and immediately something fit. Soon after, we worked together on a design project, a chair.

W*: How did you recognise this potential in him, to design a chair?

EP: Even before we met, I had gone into the boutiques of Billionaire Boys Club [a clothing brand co-founded by Pharrell in 2003], and I found out he did the store design, which was very sophisticated.

PW: Working with Emmanuel made me see my worth that I didn’t see in myself, even as a musician. When I played him the ‘Happy’ record, and ‘Get Lucky’ – this is before any of it had popped off – he was like, everything’s going to change for you. He has the ability to recognise things that will light fires and have a cultural impact.

W*: Emmanuel, what does Pharrell bring to the job of curator that's different from a classic curator?

EP: It's very interesting, because he has a very open mind to the art world. There isn’t this question – is an artist already too famous, or not famous enough. When we are in the art world we submit to a lot of pressure, deciding to consider someone as a serious artist. Many people in the arts are snobbish, and some artists are overlooked in the beginning. We organised this show with a lot of freedom. And yes, [Pharrell’s] list surprised me. It [features] a lot of artists I had no idea existed. And that's why we take curators, to discover things. To open the prism. It’s very interesting.

W*: Pharrell, what’s your arts background?

PW: My taste for art was acquired. It's taken a moment to get there, and I've learned from different people. Obviously, a lot from Emmanuel. I consider myself privileged to be able to afford various types of art, from street to world-renowned artists. But what I think about the most when it comes to all of this is how talented these people are, and how lucky we are to at least just put our eyes on the works, let alone own any of them.

W*: Has your job as creative director at Louis Vuitton menswear changed your perspective in other areas?

PW: Oh, man. I've learned so much. It's not a job, it's like an artist’s residency. It's been fantastic. It's changed my process and the way that I work with a lot of things.

W*: And life in France?

PW: France is the centre of the planet for me right now. It's my headquarters and where I'm focused.

W*: Emmanuel, has Pharrell changed your way of looking at art?

EP: I admire Pharrell for his multifaceted creativity, his incredible talent, his dedication to family and his generosity as a friend. We’ve done a lot of things together. I know many famous people, but few I consider as friends. This relationship is pretty incredible. You ask if he’s changed my way of looking of art – in fact, he’s changed my way of looking at life.

The included artists for 'Femmes' are Nina Chanel ABNEY, Mequitta AHUJA, Kenia ALMARAZ MURILLO, Malala ANDRIALAVIDRAZANA, Jess ATIENO, Seyni Awa CAMARA, Gaëlle CHOISNE, Joana CHOUMALI, Theresa CHROMATI, Kenturah DAVIS, Alex GARDNER, Todd GRAY, Prince GYASI, Leslie HEWITT, Reggie Burrows HODGES, Lauren KELLEY, Kapwani KIWANGA, Glenn LIGON, Naomi LULENDO, Esther MAHLANGU, Georgina MAXIM, Gabriel MOSES, Zanele MUHOLI, Thandiwe MURIU, Zéh PALITO, Emma PREMPEH, Robert PRUITT, Otis Kwame Kye QUAICO, Betye SAAR, Cinga SAMSON, Tschabalala SELF, Kathia ST HILAIRE, Tavares STRACHAN, Henry TAYLOR, Mickalene THOMAS, Chiffon THOMAS, Eden TINTO COLLINS, Carrie Mae WEEMS, Kennedy YANKO

perrotin.com

On 11 May, France began a gradual easing of restrictions after two months of strict lockdown. To mark the reopening of its Paris galleries, Perrotin invited 26 independent galleries from across the capital to take over its Saint-Claude space and gain further visibility within the wider contemporary art scene. 

Perrotin isn’t alone in expressing solidarity in this tentative, post-isolation period. Other blue-chip institutions are also demonstrating support to younger spaces including Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, who will host the work of 60 international emerging artists in its 2000 sq m Pantin gallery. 

Perrotin's initiative, ‘Restons Unis’ will take place in four consecutive phases, throwing the spotlight on six to seven galleries each time. Here’s what to expect from the first exhibition, titled ‘Emmanuel’:

Balice Hertling

Isabelle Cornaro

Founded in 2007 by Daniele Balice and Alexandra Hertling, the independent Belleville gallery will present Homonyms, a series of triangular relief sculptures by Isabelle Cornaro. In this series, the French artist represents the Western habit of over-consumption and accumulation, incorporating found objects into her Acrystal resin casts. 

Anne-Sarah Bénichou

Marion Baruch

Named after its founder, Galerie Anne-Sarah Bénichou opened four years ago in Le Marais, the go-to Parisian district for arts and culture. In this show, the young gallery is exhibiting the work of 90-year-old artist Marion Baruch, comprising installations made from leftover textile materials and creating an impactful dialogue between art and society. 

Crèvecoeur

Ad Minoliti

Founded in 2009 by Axel Dibie and Alix Dionot-Morani, Crèvecoeur has spaces in both Paris and Marseille. For ‘Emmanuel’, the gallery will showcase a selection of works by Ad Minoliti. The Argentine artist draws upon geometric abstraction to produce striking and vibrant installations that evoke alternative realities and explore issues around gender.

Frank Elbaz

Blair Thurman

Launched in 2002, this Parisian gallery focuses on celebrating the works of both French and American artists and offers insight into the contemporary art scene of each territory. In this show, it presents works by New York-based artist Blair Thurman, showcasing a series of pop culture-inspired and relic-like artworks channelling childhood and the poetic essence of memory. 

Antoine Levi

Piotr Makowski

Founded by Antoine Levi and Nerina Ciaccia, the eponymous gallery opened its doors in 2013 in the heart of the French capital. Its roster includes Polish painter Piotr Makowski, whose work will be featured in the show. Heavily inspired by architecture and literature, the artist’s monumental compositions explore the abstraction of objects while challenging humanity’s perception of tradition and legacy. 

Semiose

Stefan Rinck

For Semiose, founded by Benoît Porcher in 2007, humour and a ‘certain poetry of the absurd’ are recurring themes in the work they exhibit. For ‘Emmanuel’, they have selected sculptural works by German artist Stefan Rinck. These include stone figures of animal, monsters, and other fantastic creatures, creating a dream-like environment inspired by ancestral myths and legends. 

In this humanistic initiative, Perrotin, alongside each gallery involved, highlights the strength, cohesion and unity that emanates from Paris’ local art scene and beyond.

INFORMATION
‘Restons Unis: Emmanuel’, until 6 June, Galerie Perrotin. perrotin.com

ADDRESS

Galerie Perrotin 10 Impasse Saint-Claude 75003 Paris

It was the duct-taped banana that launched a thousand memes. Galerie Perrotin could have hardly anticipated the furor that would erupt over the course of four days at Art Basel Miami Beach last month, sparked by the debut of Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s first new ‘sculpture’ at a fair in more than 15 years.

The seemingly innocuous artwork – titled Comedian – barely caused a stir among collectors who descended on the Miami Beach Convention Center during preview day. After all, this was a clique hardened to the most outré of artist stunts (Banksy’s shredded painting, anyone?) Local media, however, soon picked up that a humble banana was being hawked for $120,000, in an edition of three no less.

Everyone had an opinion. Team Wallpaper* encountered bootleg versions of the banana at every turn, from satellite art fairs to the street. Artnet published six stories about the banana (and then another rounding up said coverage). It was the most-talked about artwork at Miami and arguably of 2019, eventually spawning its own Instagram account.

By Friday, fairgoers were queuing to get a selfie with the now-infamous perishable fruit. On Saturday, New York-based artist David Datuna helped himself to the banana, peeling it off the wall and devouring it in seconds. (The gallery swiftly manned the replacement work with a burly security guard.) Come Sunday morning, Comedian had been removed entirely with Perrotin citing safety concerns in a statement. #Bananagate had run its course – or so we thought.

Perrotin today announced it is harnessing the viral sensation for a worthy cause, teaming up with Cattelan to release Comedian t-shirts at the gallery’s New York bookstore on the Lower East Side. Profits from each sale will benefit Feeding South Florida, a hunger-relief organisation serving Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. ‘Feeding South Florida is a small, but mighty organisation that fights hunger all across South Florida. For every $1 donated, the organisation provides 7 meals. I am proud to partner with them and I hope you will join me in supporting this worthy cause,’ says gallerist Emmanuel Perrotin.

Available from 25 January and priced at $25 each, the t-shirts are also available for pre-order via Perrotin’s online store, to be shipped from the gallery’s Paris location. It’s 2020, and we’re still talking about Cattelan’s Comedian. Bananas.

INFORMATION

perrotin.com; feedingsouthflorida.org

ADDRESS

Perrotin
130 Orchard Street
New York

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For almost 15 years, American artist Daniel Arsham has recreated iconic cultural items from the 20th and 21st centuries, inviting audiences to see these commodities anew. Using his signature technique, he’s crystallised everything from Walkman cassette players and Sony headphones to Polaroid cameras, Smeg refrigerators and Nike classics.

Such artefacts are recast and reframed, often presented as partially eroded ‘future relics’ that reflect how our culture might be historicised by generations to come. For his current exhibition at Galerie Perrotin in Paris, however, Arsham has stepped back even further into history, leaving behind current and recent cultural movements in favour of those from the 7th century BC up until the early 1800s.

‘The idea to work with sculptures from classical antiquity came two years ago when I was in Paris preparing for a project with a museum,’ the New York-based artist explains. ‘I have always been interested in the way that objects move through time, but this is the first time I’m working with classical and ancient objects.’ To that end, the exhibition at Perrotin includes a series of large-scale busts, friezes and sculptures cast from the originals.

We see Michelangelo’s Moses rendered in blue calcite and hydrostone, eroding near his thighs, chest and head. Alexandros of Antioch’s Venus de Milo, realised in white calcite, hews closely to the original – albeit with areas of her head, torso and right knee apparently weathering away. To create these works, Arsham was granted unprecedented access to the Réunion des Musées Nationaux – Grand Palais (RMN), a 200-year-old moulding studio that reproduces masterpieces for several major museums throughout Europe.

‘The RMN has a selection which includes thousands of moulds of works from antiquity to the Renaissance to neoclassical works,’ says the artist. Arsham sorted through these moulds and selected pieces to reform, a decision often based on two things: ‘one, the kind of historical context around some of these pieces and, two, around the works that were most visually iconic’. Finally, he ensured the pieces would work with his process, which involved recreating them in crystal, volcanic ash and ‘other materials that we associate with the geological time scale’.

The sculptures are presented on pristine plinths, illuminated from underneath by white fluorescent light. Sleek and cool, they are a stark reminder of where we’re standing: not in the Louvre or Acropolis Museum or the Kunsthistorisches Museum, but rather in a contemporary art gallery. The works here could easily be from the past, present or future, a confusion of time that is inherent to Arsham’s work. And just because the source material has changed doesn’t mean his artistic approach has become any different.

‘In general, I like try to create scenarios that allow these works to float in time,’ adds the artist. ‘I treated these [ancient] objects the same way that I would treat an Apple computer or a Jordan sneaker – objects that we associate with a particular era in history. And therefore, these objects can become useful in my project to confuse that history.’

Looking forward, we can expect to see more from the past. ‘I certainly will be engaging further with many of these objects,’ Arsham says. ‘There's a vast trove of moulds of these works that I now have access to, and the project is just beginning.’

INFORMATION

‘Paris, 3020’, 11 January – 21 March, Perrotin. perrotin.com; danielarsham.com

ADDRESS

Perrotin
76 rue de Turenne
75003 Paris

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In 1990, Lee Bae was a classic starving artist, a 34-year-old immigrant from South Korea working in a squat in a dodgy suburb of Paris. Lacking money for paint, he went to a service station and bought a bag of charcoal. Sitting in his current Paris studio, a two-storey apartment overlooking the Canal de l’Ourcq, he recalls, ‘The first time I saw it, I thought: “Ah, I come from
 a place that knows all about black.” He explains that Koreans had been making ink sticks from the soot of pine trees since around 4000BC. Now, far from home, ‘It was charcoal that gave me my culture.’

In Korea, charcoal is considered a purifier, a protector, a part of daily life. Every year, for the Moon House Burning festival, Lee’s home town lights a bonfire of pine trunks covered with wishes on paper, then distributes the charcoal to villagers. Traditional houses are constructed on a charcoal foundation, to keep humidity and insects away, and Korean families also hang charcoal over the door when a baby is born, to ward off sickness. And in charcoal, Lee found artistic inspiration, ‘the richness of a poor material’. Back home, he had worked mainly in colour. Now he found that charcoal contained an infinite variety of blacks – and that was enough.

At first he employed it like a crayon on paper. Then he started mixing it with
a semi-transparent fixative, caking it thickly onto canvas in large geometric shapes with blurry edges.
 At times, he polished shards of charcoal to highlight the different ways their wood grain reflected the light, arranging and gluing them onto the canvas like a mosaic in black. In 1997, he bought a traditional hanjeungmak sauna, located in the mountains near Cheongdo (where he was born), and started having his charcoal made there. Tree trunks were held together with elastic cord in the kiln, and Lee presented the charred results, still bound, as sculptural installations.

In the early 2000s he decided to modify his painting technique, marking the transition with a symbolic ceremony in which he tossed his charcoal powder
up into the air. He continued to use the material, but differently, contrasting it with a synthetic medium in white. Whereas they had been rough in texture,
 his paintings now became smooth and waxy-looking. He mixed a base from acrylic medium and resin, then painted a motif over it in carbon black. By alternating the two techniques in layers, he obtained a flat surface with surprising depth.

The black motif was embedded densely into the creamy white background, reminiscent of how Korean hanji paper absorbs India ink. ‘I wanted an effect like calligraphy,’ says Lee. But his symbols are not calligraphy; they’re abstract. Every morning, he does 20-30 quick sketches on paper with a brush and either charcoal paint or India ink. These are unplanned and spontaneous, as he allows his subconscious, ‘the memory of his body’,
 to guide his hand. Later, he chooses the sketches that please him and transfers the motifs onto canvas.

He demonstrates, mixing charcoal paint from Korean bamboo, pine and water, then making a series of small strokes on paper with his paintbrush. The effect is simple yet stunning – three dimensional figures appear to be leaping off the page. ‘I don’t look for the concept until after the gesture,’ he explains. He points at a large painting with three bold horizontal lines that remind him of a farmer’s field. Another makes him think of the bamboo he played with as a child. A curving line is like a river, while a dramatic swirl recalls an orchestra conductor. Each line is remarkably precise; even drips like Jackson Pollock splatters have been meticulously applied one by one.

The artist was born in the village of Cheongdo
in 1956, when South Korea was desperately poor. His father was a peasant and, as the eldest child of five, Lee was expected to take over the farm. But when he was 13, an art teacher at his school took an interest
 in his work and asked for a sketch, which would later earn him a national student art prize. As a result, he received a grant to study art at a high school in the nearest big city, then pursued fine arts at university in Seoul. He left South Korea hoping to expand his horizons and develop an international career.

His original plan was to live in the US, but he found the art scene there overwhelming. ‘I thought I might lose myself and become American, when the motivation for leaving my home was to find my Korean identity.’ Paris seemed softer and more welcoming, and there was a Korean art community – he served as Lee Ufan’s assistant for seven years in the 1990s. He learned to speak French and converted to Christianity, but has never lost his connection to South Korea, where he returns three to four times a year. He maintains studios in Cheongdo and Seoul, and currently has plans for a third on Ulleungdo Island. For more than 20 years, his charcoal has come from his kiln in the mountains, from a variety of newly fallen trees.

Virginia Moon, assistant curator of Korean art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, who went 
to meet the artist in South Korea last summer, says, ‘Lee Bae’s works do not insist; they simply are. Therein lies their effortless power and peaceful grace.’

Galerie Perrotin, which has worked with Lee since 2017, is hosting an exhibition of his work in New York this winter. The gallery is showing early charcoal canvases alongside his most recent creations, a forest made from 24 charcoal sculptures and some large-format charcoal drawings. Lee’s techniques have started to evolve again. After his period of smooth paintings, he is returning to the brushstroke. He has also introduced colour, starting with red, peeking out from behind the black. He is even making bronze versions 
of his carbonised tree trunks. But one thing that does not change is the artist’s fascination with charcoal. ‘There is such strong energy within,’ he says. ‘You set 
it alight and it burns.’ 


As originally featured in the December 2019 issue of Wallpaper* (W*249) – on newsstands now

INFORMATION
‘Promenade’, until 1 February 2020, Galerie Perrotin. perrotin.com; leebae.art

ADDRESS

Galerie Perrotin
130 Orchard Street
New York

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It is an interesting time for a street artist to be exhibiting in Hong Kong as protestors use the city’s streets and walls as their canvas. But this is a visual language that American artist Barry McGee, now in his early fifties, knows well. A leading member of San Francisco’s Mission School rooted in a working-class, largely Latino inner-city neighbourhood, McGee has long reflected on urban life though gritty found materials, colourful geometric prints and graphic archaic typography.

And McGee has retained his street reputation after achieving success exhibiting in galleries and museums both at home and on the international stage, where collectors are drawn to his curious juxtaposition of high and low art, rough and polished materials and found and made pieces. For his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, McGee transformed Perrotin’s pristine outpost into an eclectic immersive installation of new and archival mixed-media works.

These include an enormous 3m by 9m bulging ‘boil’ wall sculpture of more than 400 framed works, colourful totem-like and rustic wooden sculptures, glossy painted surfboards, ceramic vessels and plates and his trademark hobo caricatures based on the people on the street of his neighbourhood.

The smallest room in the gallery (which McGee refers to as the ‘naughty room’) is a highlight with an unusual net pattern neon sign made in Portland and the words ‘Sound Wall’ in steel chains, which the artist admits he cut from a fence erected near his studio with the intention of blocking residents’ access. ‘I like a touch of anarchy,’ he says.

The installation took eight days to install and McGee made good use of his time, exploring Kowloon’s industrial districts and surfing at Big Wave Bay – substantiating the exhibition’s title ‘The Other Side’, which refers to both sides of the harbour. The artist says he had no idea how the exhibition would look until he got to Hong Kong and started arranging the pieces including bottles and plywood that he found on the local streets: ‘It’s a process of adjusting, eliminating and then starting again. I like things quite messy.’

In person McGee is quiet and shy, the opposite of his bright and colourful work. ‘I just want people who come in to feel something, like when you discover something unexpected.’ He need not worry; this is an exceptional exhibition and particularly worth visiting because McGee’s raw and honest work reminds us of the palpable sense of tension between the street and the rarefied art world.

INFORMATION

‘The Other Side’, until 9 November, Perrotin Hong Kong. perrotin.com

ADDRESS

Perrotin Hong Kong
50 Connaught Road
Central

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For the first time in over 15 years, painter Bernard Frize is exhibiting in his native France, having opened not one but two major solo shows in May. Currently on view at the Centre Pompidou is ‘Bernard Frize. Without Remorse’, a show featuring more than 40 works made during the last four decades. Concurrently, at Perrotin Paris, ‘Now or Never’ comprises an additional selection of nearly 20 paintings made within the last three years, many of which are on view for the first time. And it’s through this duet of exhibitions that the artist’s practice can be seen afresh as new paradoxes arise.

Frize’s approach to painting has always gone against the grain, defying traditional notions associated with the medium. His practice is industrial, rather than figurative; deliberate, rather than spontaneous. Yet somehow, it’s also experimental and uncalculated. To make many of the paintings on view at Perrotin, for example, he painted with a type of resin that appears white until dry. So although he follows a geometric grid drawn on the canvas, the final image comes as a surprise – not dissimilar to the process of developing a photograph in a darkroom. He might not always like the results, but he does always learn from what you could call ‘mistakes’.

‘One failure provokes the next painting,’ he says, sitting in a gallery at the Centre Pompidou. ‘The destruction becomes the real subject of the painting. The norms and rationality are challenged.’ Frize’s work presents continual paradoxes, making it only fitting for the Pompidou show to be arranged across six spaces, the titles of which are paradoxical in and of themselves: with unreason, without effort, with system, without system, with mastery, and without stopping. Works from the same series appear in different sections, asking the viewer to reconsider their first impressions, and tongue-in-cheek wall texts written by the artist himself provide critical information – about every painting at hand as well as the complexity and many facets of his artistic practice.

While many people say that Frize’s practice is based on constraints and pre-established sets of rules, he lowers his eyes and shakes his head at the suggestion of this idea, explaining that there are rules because ‘you have to have a good reason to wake up and start to work’ but that he’s ‘trying to find a way to go beyond the grid’. Whether looking at a work from 1978 or 2019, the tension between experimental and deliberate mark making remains apparent. As Frize has written in one of the wall texts: ‘I always try to have more than one thing in the painting: a single thing shown, but that there is a paradox, an antagonism […] I try to get a confrontation between things happening.’

INFORMATION

‘Now or Never’ is on view until 14 August at Perrotin Paris, and ‘Bernard Frize. Without Remorse’ runs until 26 August at Centre Pompidou. For more information, visit the Perrotin website and Centre Pompidou website

The choice of artist for an inaugural exhibition says a lot about a new gallery. In the case of Perrotin Shanghai (see Wallpaper’s November 2018 issue, out 11 October) showcasing Belgian neo-conceptual artist Wim Delvoye, it also speaks volumes about China’s rapidly diversifying tastes in contemporary art.

Belgian-born Wim Delvoye already has a notorious reputation here for provocative art due to the Art Farm he established in 2003 outside Beijing, where piglets were tattooed with intricate paintings and luxury brand logos. As the pigs grew, the ‘art’ expanded and, after a natural death, the skins were transformed into canvases and framed.

Although Delvoye’s plans to show live tattooed pigs at the 2008 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair led to the work being banned from the exhibition, he remains enthusiastic about working in China. ‘The Chinese authorities are strict but at least things get done here whereas in Brussels the bureaucracy achieves nothing,’ he says.

Several skins feature in this solo exhibition of 30 works at Perrotin Shanghai, which includes earlier pieces such as the quasi-religious Chapel series of stained-glass windows depicting erotic images captured by MRI scans, a laser-cut steel Twisted Dump Truck, and the twisted ivory marble sculptures, embossed aluminium works including a fire extinguisher decorated by Iranian craftsmen and a replica of China’s most popular instant noodle pot carved in onyx that he is making now.

Material and scale vary dramatically but Delvoye’s idiosyncratic fusion of humour, anarchism and exquisite craftsmanship is instantly recognisable throughout. The combination was clearly an attraction for the young collectors who flocked to the opening of the 1,300 sq m André Fu-designed gallery on Shanghai’s Bund. ‘They are attracted to pieces that take a lot of work because they want good value for their money,’ Delvoye says.

This experience is markedly different to his memory of Shanghai in 2002: ‘Then I managed to meet everyone who was important in art in just one day; now it would take a couple of years. Today there are so many curators and many young people buying art – almost without thought – but they are very well informed.’

The artist says future projects may include designing a cemetery. ‘It’s perfect. You can be quite authoritarian. Every artist is a dictator; that is the attraction of making art and the attraction of collecting.’

Perrotin Shanghai’s inaugural exhibition will be followed by a monumental show of works by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami.

INFORMATION

‘Wim Delvoye’ is on view until 20 October. For more information, visit the Perrotin website

ADDRESS

Perrotin Shanghai
Room 501
27 Hu Qiu Road
Huangpu District
Shanghai

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Beaded spirals pirouette through the air at Galerie Perrotin’s freshly renovated space in the landmark Beckenstein building at 130 Orchard Street in New York, once a fabric factory and now converted into five floors for programming directed by Peggy Leboeuf and Emmanuel Perrotin. Suspended as the artworks are, their stilled movement reminds you of a dancer, a whirling mobile — or, as the titles suggest, a tornado. Jean-Michel Othoniel’s elemental, monochrome pearls of aluminium, mirrored glass and stainless steel, are part of the artist’s latest solo exhibition, ‘Dark Matters’, his idea of a perfect storm.

Over a 20-year career, the French artist has become known for his mastery of glass. Elsewhere in the gallery, glass brick ‘stonewalls’ in brilliant turquoise and warm amber glisten and shine – a grotto even awaits the viewer, complete with a fountain. The works are the result of a trip to Firozabad, India, to research glassmaking techniques, observing local craftsmen.

Othoniel’s Precious Stonewalls – one of them stretching to 17 metres across the gallery and looking as though you could dive into it – are experiments in radical architecture, made with glass brought back from India and arranged to refer to the stacks of bricks the artist observed piled up on roadsides in India. Their titles, meanwhile, are also a nod to the Stonewall riots on Christopher Street in 1969, a protest for LGBT rights.

A further series of knots paintings and sculptures are the result of a collaboration between the artist and mathematician Aubin Arroyo. Arroyo explains the interest in knot theory: ‘Up until today, mathematicians have cataloged more than one and a half million different knots, starting from the simplest one towards the more complicated, and the catalogue is still growing.’

Appealing in both their form and their symbolism, Othoniel’s paintings and sculptures visualise the infinite complexity of the theoretical space. Other inspirations steer from surrealism through to psychoanalysis to American artist James Lee Byars, known for his flummoxing performance pieces.

It might all be getting a bit cerebral – but Othoniel is equally invested in the beauty of things, even if it is a petulant kind of beauty. The violent force of both humans and nature comes together in ‘Dark Matters’, conveyed by the coldness and contradiction of the materials, and the way the works sharply interrupt the white space. Propelled by the ‘desire for violent, minimal and telluric enchantment, contrasted today with the sorrow of the world’, the exhibition is itself a tough knot to untangle, but sublimely tied.

INFORMATION

‘Dark Matters’ is on view until 15 April. For more information, visit the Galerie Perrotin website

ADDRESS

Galerie Perrotin
130 Orchard Street
New York

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Among Xavier Veilhan’s seventh solo exhibition at the Galerie Perrotin are two faceted, larger-than-life, stainless steel sculptures of Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano. The pair were forged in 2013 but completed in 2017 – their forms date back to 2009 when Veilhan exhibited a series of architects at the Château de Versailles, with Jean Nouvel, and Tadao Ando also honoured.
 
Whereas those originals were painted inky black, these variations appear in shades of green that should register to Parisians. Rogers, standing casually with his hands in his pockets, resembles the uniforms and vehicles of the city’s public cleaners; Piano, comfortably seated with his arms crossed, assumes the hue of the city’s public furniture — its lamp posts and benches. Fittingly, they are destined to become Veilhan’s first public installation Paris, landing in the Place Edmond Michelet alongside the Centre Pompidou, which marked a major achievement shared by the architects 40 years ago. Not by coincidence, both greens can also be detected in the building itself.  

As a donation to the Musee National d’Art Moderne by the Galerie Perrotin and the Beaumarly Group (the hospitality mini-empire founded by Gilbert and Jean-Louis Costes), they arrive in time for Fiac and just ahead of the museum’s exhibition of their work (the public-private arrangement also involves the Mairie of the 4th arrondissement of Paris).

It’s safe to say the two men will make a bold statement, especially since they will stand five-metres high once placed on open plinths through which people can pass. But for now, hanging out in the Marais gallery, their faceless depictions of indeterminate age transmit an approachable vibe; figuratively speaking, at least, Veilhan has not put them on a pedestal.
 
‘Richard is the coolest guy on earth; you can see his body language – it’s très, très easy. It’s not glorious,’ he confirms to Wallpaper* during a walkthrough. ‘The two of them, they are true gentleman.’ Still, given the ambiguity of their features and absence of ceremonial context, they could also be perceived as two ordinary guys facing each other – a reading that doesn’t bother the artist. ‘Even Napoleon or De Gaule may not be recognised after all these years when they are shown in public spaces,’ he suggests. ‘It’s like they merge into the buildings and the street. I like the way [public art] dissolves the identity of the person.’
 
He addresses similar questions of identity in his continuing series featuring music producers, with Pharrell, Swizz Beatz, Nigel Godrich and Philippe Zdar rendered as a group portrait that traces their full-length silhouettes as a mirror. ‘You can’t recognise them,’ he says, noting they typically assume an invisible role in the industry. ‘They are ghosts in a way, but always behind everything. It’s the artists who interpret them.’

The three figures – sans Pharrell – return as smaller birch plywood sculptures on black carbon bases. So freshly finished, the scent of oil varnish lingers on their striated surface. The interesting aspect here is how the wood stacking never aligns with the sculpture’s axis, so that the different planes of their bodies and clothes reveal an enhanced artisanal technique despite the digital nature of their appearance. Yet another portrait of Swizz Beatz, this time in silver, manages to simultaneously capture the stance of someone posing on the red carpet and mid-movement like Rodin’s Walking Man. ‘He was just doing his own tough guy pose, but I’m always aware of classic forms through history of art,’ explains Veilhan.

The show’s title, ‘Flying V’, underscores his ongoing interest in exploring acoustics within the visual dimensions of art and architecture. The Gibson guitar reference is realised as an oversized, rudimentary homage that vaguely borrows from constructivist art. Meanwhile the three-part wall series in black steel and carbon, Les Rayons (Flying V) could be alternately compared to the evocations of an instrument, or else a sleek Doppler-esque interpretation of sound waves. His take: ‘I like how it’s static and dynamic at the same time.’
 
The grouping of works, a new monochromatic smoky grey mobile included, came together as Veilhan was conceiving – and still currently overseeing – the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, where a classical building from 1912 has been transformed into a working recording studio. ‘I am so deeply exhausted but it’s very good. I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s truly been a journey,’ he admits. ‘There are so many things I didn’t know related to music recording. I watch [the musicians] work and it’s incredible.’ Sounds like he’s making the most of this moment.

INFORMATION
‘Flying V’ is on view until 23 September. For more information, visit the Galerie Perrotin website

ADDRESS

Galerie Perrotin
76 rue de Turenne
75003 Paris

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Tokyo’s contemporary art scene is undeveloped, compared to the crowds flocking to Shanghai and Beijing, Seoul and Hong Kong in the last five years. Local gallerists offer different theories as to why Tokyo’s scene hasn’t made an international impact —from the lack of large exhibition spaces to the preference for traditional art forms – but Galerie Perrotin might be set to stir things up as it opens its first space in Japan, in the district of Roppongi.

Previously known as for its dynamic international community and salacious nightlife, Roppongi has more recently become home to several renowned galleries, forging a burgeoning arts hub in the metropolis. It’s the Parisian gallery’s third space in Asia, in addition to locations in Hong Kong and Seoul.

Founder Emmanuel Perrotin enlisted the help of André Fu to helm the design for the Tokyo gallery. ‘André Fu has already designed Perrotin gallery in Hong Kong in 2012. The simple fact of working again with the same architect is truly a proof of mutual trust, as it’s a very demanding collaboration,’ Perrotin told us.

The 140 q ft gallery is a pristine white cube flanked by floor-to-ceiling glass, with a more intimate, discreet entrance — in keeping with local architecture and custom – and occupies a ground floor space within the Piramide building, a complex that houses acclaimed Tokyo galleries OTA Fine Arts, Wako Works of Art and Zen Foto, as well as restaurants and retail. As the only gallery on the street level, Fu and AFSO sought to create harmony between the urban surroundings and the understated interiors, as well as between the Tokyo aesthetic and Perrotin’s established brand.

Providing a sanctuary from the city life, Fu has also incorporated a salon area — no doubt informed by his work at luxury hotels such as Villa La Coste in Provence, Singapore’s Fullerton Bay Hotel, and the Berkeley London – where visitors and clients can relax and discuss the art at ease.

‘You know I am in love with architecture, it is so appealing to me,’ Perrotin says of the process, ‘and I learned a lot with André, as he is such into details and subtle perception of the spaces.’ The details come from above and below: a sophisticated lighting system optimises the viewing experience, with luxuriant solid washed oak floorboards underfoot. 

Ahead of the grand opening on 7 June, Perrotin enthuses, ‘I am very happy of our collaboration with André Fu/AFSO for our new gallery in Tokyo, his modernist design responds very well to the gallery’s distinct identity and location.’ An exhibition by Hollande-approved, 97-year-old Pierre Soulages will inaugurate the space – a sound choice, given Japan’s ongoing love affair with all things French.

INFORMATION

Galerie Perrotin Tokyo opens on 7 June. For more information, visit the website

ADDRESS

Piramide Building
6-6-0 Roppongi
Minato-Ku
Tokyo 106-0032

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The Palais Fesch, an imposing 19th century building on the waterfront of the Corsican capital of Ajaccio, houses France’s largest collection of Italian paintings outside the Louvre. There are works by Botticelli, Michelangelo, Titian, Veronese and many others – interspersed among portraits and busts of the island’s most illustrious family, the Bonapartes.

It’s not the most obvious setting for showing contemporary art. But this hasn’t stopped director Philippe Costamagna from staging exhibitions of unusual audacity. Following a much-lauded collaboration with American photographer Andres Serrano in 2014, Costamagna has now worked with French conceptual artist Laurent Grasso to reinvent the museum’s top floor.

Titled ’Paramuseum’, Grasso’s show at the Fesch combines paintings and sculptures from the museum’s collection and his own work in creative configurations. By challenging representations of political power and religious might, and blurring the boundaries between meteorology and myth, Grasso plunges his viewers into an oddly beguiling parallel universe.

On entering ’Paramuseum’, the viewer is greeted by a long wall with 43 historical portraits. Grasso had selected them for their subjects’ piercing gaze, and hung them so the 43 pairs of eyes are horizontally aligned. Their presence is made eerier by Grasso’s neons on the opposite wall, which show epoch-defining dates (among them the destruction of Pompeii and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake).

More eyes scrutinise the viewer throughout the show. Disembodied pairs, borrowed from the Fesch’s portraits, brim with enigma on new canvases. There are also images of ghostly saints, transferred from larger paintings onto silver-coated wooden blocks. Grasso has reversed the power dynamic of the usual art exhibition, and made his viewers into objects of the artworks’ gaze.

Old and new works are juxtaposed to stirring effect. One room sets 17th-century portraits of ecclesiastical portraits against Grasso’s marble sculpture, showing a heron whose beak is obstructed by an egg. Titled S.T. (short for ’sile tace’, which means ’keep silent’ in Latin), the piece nods to signs within the Vatican, and more broadly the church’s demands for silent obedience. This critical view of religion is then complicated by Grasso’s photograph of a priest and astronomer at work at the Vatican observatory.

Another room brings together historical busts of Napoleon’s father, brother, sister, brother-in-law and niece with a film by Grasso, featuring sculptures of fantastic beasts from the Garden of Bomarzo in Viterbo, Italy – a whimsical allegory for the enduring power of the Napoleonic legend.

Further commenting on the allure of temporal power, Grasso presents a new film, Élysée, in the museum’s Grande Galerie. Shot in the French president’s office at the Palais de l’Élysée, it draws attention to furniture, fittings and day-to-day objects that have been gilded with gold, and uses the act of gilding as a metaphor for investing great power in a head of state.

Elsewhere, Grasso’s best-known film, Soleil double, is on view. Twin suns are shown blazing down on the magnificent Museo della Civiltà Romana in Rome, in allusion to the legend of Nemesis, a dwarf star that would one day collide with our solar system and cause its destruction. A sculptural representation, consisting of two overlaid yellow neon circles, illuminates the room next door. It shares the space with a group of old landscape paintings, which Grasso had chosen for their aged, yellowed appearance. Under the neon circles’ golden glow, the paintings seem rejuvenated – just as the Palais Fesch has taken on a new life under Grasso’s masterful intervention.

INFORMATION

’Laurent Grasso: Paramuseum’ is on view until 3 October, with the support of Galerie Perrotin. For more information, visit the Palais Fesch-musée des Beaux-Arts website 

Photography by Claire Dorn, courtesy of Palais Fesch-musée des Beaux-Arts, Ajaccio & Galerie Perrotin

ADDRESS

Palais Fesch-musée des Beaux-Arts
50-52 Rue du Cardinal Fesch
20000 Ajaccio
Corsica

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All three of Galerie Perrotin’s Parisian spaces are currently given over to the group exhibition ’¿Cómo te voy a Olvidar?’ – an ode to the variety and vitality of contemporary Mexican art.

Galerie Perrotin has made a bold declaration of love for Mexico with a new group show, spanning all three of its Paris gallery spaces.

Amorously titled '¿Cómo te voy a olvidar?' ('How could I forget you?'), the exhibition is the brainchild of gallery director Peggy Leboeuf. Gallery owner Emmanuel Perrotin invited Leboeuf to create a show of her choice to celebrate her 20th year at the gallery. Having been charmed by her experiences of Mexico City during a visit to the Museo Tamayo in October 2014, Leboeuf decided on an homage to Mexico.

Leboeuf and co-curator Anissa Touati spent two years travelling through the country to learn about its contemporary art scene, meeting with curators, critics, museum and art school directors and the like. They also visited each of the 16 artists whose works now appear in the exhibition. They are a mix of emerging talents and established names, and represent a broad range of styles.

Bursting with colour, Yann Gerstberger's tapestries are made from both cotton yarn and reclaimed vinyl banner; a perfect metaphor for a country that is simultaneously contemporary and imbued in history.

The more subdued works of Ana Bidart, on the other hand, discover beauty in found objects that usually escape our attention – among them the inkwell and the passport.

Curvaceous and seductive, the stretched tights of Martin Soto Climent stand in marked contrast with the rugged, architectural assemblages of Gwladys Alonzo.

Méndez Blake extols the inspirational force of literature with sculptures that nod to French novelist Georges Perec, whereas José Davila awes with gravity-defying assemblages that suggest a deep appreciation of physics.

A few pieces tend toward pessimism. The viewer's eye is inevitably caught by Fritzia Irìzar's Phrygian cap – a symbol of the anti-colonialist movement in Latin America – rendered in chain mail as a commentary on the transience of freedom in a forgetful society. Likewise, in documentary-style videos showing serene, yet sinister landscapes, Edgardo Aragón laments the fate of indigenous peoples, ponders on ideological conflicts and mourns political dissenters who had been disappeared by the Mexican government in the 1970s.

The show nonetheless ends on a joyful note, with a pair of paintings called Yo te amp más ('I love you more'). Ariel Orozco took painted two canvases, one in gold and one in silver, stuck them together face-to-face and tore them apart after two weeks. Flecks of gold are layered on the silver canvas, and vice versa – just as the art worlds in and outside of Mexico have discovered each other, and both come out more vibrant and fascinating.

The exhibition includes 16 artists with varying connections to Mexico – some were born and raised, others have chosen it as a place to live and work. Pictured: Fritzia Irízar’s room references the Phyrgian cap, an anti-colonial symbol in Latin America. Rendered in chainmail and iron, their rigid forms suggest the fossilisation of democratic ideals in contemporary society.

For two years, gallery director Peggy Lebeouf and curator Anissa Touati travelled through Mexico to meet with each of the 16 artists exhibited, including the Uruguayan-Mexican Ana Bidart, whose work incorporates found objects that usually play an invisible role in our lives. 

A mix of established and emerging artists feature in the exhibition – among the former is Martin Soto Climent, known for exploring the allusive potential of day-to-day objects.

Video artist Edgardo Aragón depicts scenes that are simultaneously serene and sinister, and in doing so invites reflection on violent episodes of history. Pictured: a still from El paso, hombre invisible, a portrait of bison in a North American national park and a meditation on the invisible, indigenous peoples who have ceased to live with them.

A still from Aragón’s Exterminio, in which floating detritus alludes to disappeared political dissenters whose corpses were dropped into the Pacific in the 1970s. 

Dr Lakra’s art is imbued with nostalgia for the relative political innocence of 1950s Mexico. Pictured left: Sin título / Untitled (Midlands sun maid), a pin-up that the artist has graffitied with a menacing skeleton. Right: Untitled.

In the foreground, sculptures by Pia Camil, who appropriates small segments of abandoned billboards as a critique of consumerism. Flanked in the background by Drawing the national emblem erased, by artist collective Tercerunquinto. 

Two works, both entitled Yo te amo más, by the Cuban-born Ariel Orozco. A canvas of silver and one of gold were stuck together for several weeks and then torn apart to create this mesmerising pair of paintings.

José Davila’s assemblages are a feat of physics as well as aesthetic composition. Pictured: Untitled, which has a mirror, boulder, rock and concrete blocks balanced precariously on top of each other and held together by a ratchet strap.

The exhibition is the brainchild of gallery director Peggy Leboeuf, who was given free rein by owner Emmanuel Perrotin to create any show in gratitude for her 20 years of service.

The exhibition is the brainchild of gallery director Peggy Leboeuf, who was given free rein by owner Emmanuel Perrotin to create any show in gratitude for her 20 years of service.

One of the best known artists to feature in the show, Jorge Méndez Blake’s sculpture examines the way in which we construct our cultural heritage, by way of forging connections between literature and architecture. 

Juxtaposing natural objects with neon lights in geometric or mathematical forms, Gabriel Rico’s work ponders our relationship with nature.

INFORMATION

’¿Cómo te voy a olvidar?’ is on view until 30 July. For more information, visit Galerie Perrotin’s website

Photography: Claire Dorn, Abigail Huerta and Agustin Arce

ADDRESS

Galerie Perrotin
76 Rue de Turenne,
75003 Paris

8 Impasse Saint-Claude
75003 Paris

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While Paris- and Berlin-based painter Bernard Frize is best known in Europe, he is now receiving his dues with Galerie Perrotin’s ‘Bernard Frize: Dawn comes up so young’, which happens to be the New York gallery’s first solo show devoted to his oeuvre. The stately brick Georgian building is the perfect setting for Frize’s paintings, which owe a nod to Morris Louis’ acclaimed diaphanous drip endeavors.

Mixing synthetic resin with acrylic paint, Frize turns to a subtle palette of pink, lavender and blue, tilting the canvas slightly so the paint flows to the very bottom. There’s a performative aspect to his technique; with the artist’s fluid application of paint, he explains that his objective is for the work ‘to make itself’. This approach is perfectly encapsulated in the works Capiteux, Elfuenté and Fragante, in which the top of the canvas is anchored by an amorphous form in black. All were completed last year.

And while his thin fluid application of paint may seem spontaneous, Frize is exacting. Frequently, he will complete a total of ten paintings, rejecting nine of them. Many of the other works on show rely on amorphous geometric shapes.

With Frize’s work represented in the collections of the Tate, Centre Pompidou, the MoMA, and a slew of museums in Switzerland and Vienna, this exhibition is certain to cement the artist’s Stateside reputation.

INFORMATION

‘Bernard Frize: Dawn comes up so young’ is on view until 18 June. For more information, visit the Galerie Perrotin website

Photography: Claire Dorn. Courtesy the artist / ADAGP, Paris & ARS, New York, 2016

ADDRESS

Galerie Perrotin
909 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10021

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Most art ‘schools’ or movements, mini and major, fire, fizzle and fade rapidly. An initial burst of creative energy soon dissipates; there is tension and splintering and key players move on to other things. Some though show more staying power, the artists involved convinced that their mission and methods remain vital and relevant.

A new show at Paris’ Galerie Perrotin looks at the foundation, remarkably long-life and continuing influence of Korea’s Origin school, and particularly the work of three founder members Choi Myoung-Young, Suh Seung-Won and Lee Seung-Jio.

All were born in the early 1940s, studied at Hongik University in Seoul and lived through the end of the Japanese occupation (just about), the Korean War and the April Revolution of 1960. Founded in 1962, the Origin school responded to this turmoil with an insistence on a cool, controlled and system-based abstraction. After the hot and high emotion of the Korean take on abstract expressionism, Choi, Suh and Lee were determined, as the name suggests, on going back to basics and developing their own creative constraints.

Instead of using a brush, Choi Myoung-Young paints with his fingers, making thousands of repeated fingerprints, each impression unique, creating regular but pulsing patterns. Suh Seung-Won sends coloured triangles, squares and diamond shapes spinning across and off the canvas. Lee Seung-Jio meanwhile plays, to hypnotic effect, with repeating perfectly rendered cylinders, or buzzing neon tubes. In all three the emphasis is on both reason and repetition, on meditative process and effect.

INFORMATION

’Origin: Choi Myoung-Young, Lee Seung-Jio and Suh Seung-Won’ is on view until 27 February. For more information, visit Galerie Perrotin’s website

ADDRESS

Galerie Perrotin
76 rue de Turenne
75003 Paris

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The New York-based artist Paul Pfeiffer is best known for his video works, usually comprising short loops of athletes and entertainers where meticulous digital editing distorts the figures into a ghostly trace.

In his latest exhibition at Galerie Perrotin’s Hong Kong outpost, Pfeiffer recreates the ‘fight of the century’ between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao held in Las Vegas earlier this year.

Video footage of the 12 rounds of boxing has been transformed so that the fighters fade and merge into each other while the audio track – reduced to the sound of the boxers and the crowd – is artificially reproduced using traditional ‘foley’ techniques, of creating sounds from other objects.

The title, ‘Three Figures in a Room’, references a 1963 triptych by the painter Francis Bacon. ‘I enjoy playing with images with a temporality that I associate with painting,’ Pfeiffer explains.

Although the boxing match footage is mesmerising in the way it focuses attention on the innate violence of the spectacle, the highlight of the piece is a second video, presented in a separate room in the gallery and synced to the fight, showing two live ‘actors’ hunched over slabs of raw meat recreating the sound of human flesh being punched as they match the live sound effects.

Nearby, in a third room, a collection of new tabletop works shown on small screens almost steals the show. These Caryatids present video footage of solitary boxers being punched in slow motion. Intensive editing and computer manipulation has erased the opponent, focusing the viewer’s attention on the brutal impact inflicted by the invisible assailant.

INFORMATION

'Three Figures in a Room' is on view until 9 January 2016. For more information, visit Galerie Perrotin's website

Photography courtesy of Paul Pfeiffer and Galerie Perrotin

ADDRESS

Galerie Perrotin Hong Kong
17/F, 50 Connaught Road Central
Hong Kong

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In the pages of a recent monograph on Pierre Paulin, the French designer admitted, ‘I designed a number of objects that were too complex and met no response whatsoever from the public – whether it was too early or they scratched where it didn’t itch. I do not really know.’

A new exhibition at Galerie Perrotin, which anticipates a comprehensive retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in May, promises to elicit the opposite reaction. This owes in part to a dynamic arrangement of Paulin pieces, surrounded by works from other contemporary artists including Xavier Veilhan, KAWS, Elmgreen & Dragset and Jesús Rafael Soto. But for longtime Paulin connoisseurs, the main attraction will be his Déclive, an S-curved chaise longue that had only existed in prototype until now.

Hours before the opening, the designer’s family – his widow Maïa Wodzislawska Paulin, son Benjamin and his wife Alice Lemoine – guided Wallpaper* through the four principal spaces. They pointed out how an old black-and-white photo of the Déclive from the family apartment featured Pierre’s toes in the immediate foreground; and they singled out the maquettes detailing Paulin’s proposal for the Palais Royal. This would be won by Daniel Buren, but the designs were not in vain; Paulin repurposed the geometric patterning for the carpets that grounded his Jardin à la française within Auguste Perret’s Palais d'Iena in 1987.

That same mise-en-scène has been recreated in the gallery; here, however, it is surrounded by the hyperrealist paintings by Mike Bouchet (the processed cheese triangles melting from a hamburger oddly echo Paulin’s Tapis Siège) and punctuated with a Veilhan mobile.

In some cases, the homage to Paulin is deliberate and direct: a readymade by Bertrand Lavier in which he has mounted a violet Tongue chair atop a filing cabinet; or Candida Höfer’s deep perspective photograph of the Louvre’s Grand Galerie from 2005, where Paulin’s circular banquettes serve as de facto distance markers.

For the family, which has established 'Paulin Paulin Paulin' as a means of revisiting the first edition of the pieces in very limited editions, the show breathes new life into the repertoire while emphasising the collectible aspect of his rarer works. ‘We wanted to give a chance for these pieces to exist,’ says Benjamin, adding that his father championed limited editions 30 years ago, when designed furniture still favoured industrial production. ‘I went with the collection to galleries in the States and they said it would never work,’ recalls Maïa.

In a gallery setting, the size of both the Déclive and the Ensemble Dune, which debuted last year at the Louis Vuitton-supported solo exhibition in Miami offers some indication of Paulin’s vision of seating as a larger statement. The former, a technical feat of craft and engineering, emerged from his idea to have floorboards resemble a magic carpet. As a child, Benjamin treated it as his personal indoor playground; a privilege not afforded to visitors of the show. But the notion of seeing people interact with the pieces accounts for the provocative placement of John De Andrea’s bronze nudes throughout the show—reclining forlorn on a rug or posing confidently within the 'Dune'. At first, Maïa believed one of them to be real, and conceded that the furniture is most alive when experienced first-hand. ‘It’s not a work of art in the sense that you just walk around it,’ she says. ‘In a way, it’s a shame when you can’t enjoy the comfort and the pleasure of the form; a piece like the 'Dune' is here to receive people – it’s welcoming and friendly.’

Incidentally, she revealed that as much as her husband held artists such as César, Soulages, Miró and Bacon in high regard, he did not possess the mentality of a collector – even when it came to his own pieces. ‘He was always thinking to the future,’ says Maïa. ‘Sometimes people would ask him, “Which has been your favorite?” And he would always answer, “The one to come”.’

INFORMATION

'Paulin, Paulin, Paulin' is on view until 19 December

ADDRESS

Galerie Perrotin Paris
76 rue de Turenne
75003 Paris

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How do you get four horses most of the way up the Eiffel Tower? In the lift, two at a time, of course. We know this for certain because the Italian artist Paola Pivi has done it. And to otherworldly effect.

'Yee-Haw', Pivi's latest exhibition at Paris' Galerie Perrotin, her ninth in fifteen years, includes five photographs of rearing horse muscle and sinew set against the tower's intricate, and still astonishing, steelworks. Again working with photographer Hugo Glendinning, Pivi captures the horses, two white, two chestnut, from a low angle in early morning light, camouflaged somehow, and entirely at home, or perhaps animal spirits generated by the tower itself.
 
Pivi, ignoring conventional wisdom, has often worked with animals, landing them in unfamiliar places. She has put zebras up mountains, ostriches and donkeys in boats and 84 goldfish on a plane; 'performative happenings' she records photographically, still and moving images.

Never simple protests at man's indifferent advance, though there may be some of that there, these misplacements seem to open up cracks in the known shape and order of things, to allow for fabulous alternatives. We spoke to Pavi about horses in lifts and other things...

Wallpaper*: First the practicalities of producing 'Yee-Haw': you actually got horses up the Eiffel Tower. How did you get them up there?
Paola Pivi: Actually, we just put them in the lift.

W*: Where were the horses from?
PP: They were horses trained for the film industry. They are incredibly well trained.

W*: And did they like it up there? They look like they are enjoying themselves but it's hard to imagine what a horse makes of finding themselves high above a city?
PP: Well, they were completely relaxed. Mario Luraschi, the trainer told me that these horses are trained in the same way that horses used to be trained for war; they cannot be afraid of anything.

W*: But it is important to you that these are live animals re-acting to a situation, not stuffed animals?
PP: Yes, it is a performance.

W*: It's odd how this re-contextualising of animals, putting them in these unfamiliar, remarkable environments, is so disorientating and powerful?
PP: Yes, in some cases it can highlight the design of the animal, as if there could have been a designer.

W*: And oddly they make us, the man-made environment, feel like the intrusion, not them?
PP: Yes, there is that effect too. It is as if the animals bring their whole world with them and it creates a fusion with our world.

W*: Why horses on the Eiffel Tower? I read that you had wanted to put an elephant on top of the Arc de Triumph and/or a giraffe on top La Defense?
PP: Yes, but that never happened and never will, and that's ok.

W*: And is there a link between the horses and the Eiffel tower?
PP: Sure. There is a history to this. Virginie Coupérie Eiffel, Gustave Eiffel's great-granddaughter, is interested in making sure that the tower participates in the contemporary life of the city. She feels that the tower is an artwork and shouldn't just be a symbol of the past, or a tourist attraction. She is also a champion show jumper and organises 'Paris Eiffel Jumping,' a show jumping event that happens under the tower. She has an idea to invite artists to do something with the tower. And this year she invited me. She uses the art image in the poster for the event. After she invited me, it was natural to work with horses.

W*: Funny that the tower has become this tourist attraction and icon but we forget what a startlingly modern structure it was, and in many ways still is, and how much it was fundamental to Modernism in terms of signaling this break from the past.
PP: Yes, I completely agree, especially after spending so much time with the building. It is such a tourist attraction because it is an extraordinarily unbelievable artwork.

W*: I know in the past you have talked about basing your art on 'visions' that you have. Did you see this scenario in a vision? Do you have very precise visions? And do your ideas change as you go along?
PP: Sometimes I get a very fixed image, and some times it is not so fixed. In this case it was just the idea to put the horses and the tower together. And I was open to seeing what would happen. But in other cases the idea was much more formed and I just made it happen. Like when I placed the ostriches on the boat.

W*: You are very careful to draw a distinction between the performance as a discrete thing, and the photographic record of that event.
PP: The performance and the photography and the films that I make are a completely separate art works, different mediums and different languages. When I did 'I wish I am fish', a performance with 84 goldfish flying in a passenger plane, it was particularly evident that the real fish on the airplane, and the photographs and the movie that I did, they were all different aspects of the same source. Some of these performances need to be private. If you have an audience it changes the performance in some cases. When I put the zebras in the mountains, there was no audience and there could be no audience. The only way I have to bring this artwork to other people is with a photograph. Actually there was a huge audience at the Eiffel Tower on the first day of the shooting because there are hundreds of people who work there, even before it opens, and they heard we were shooting horses on the tower and came to watch.

W*: How many pictures are in the exhibition? And are they stand-alone images?
PP: There are five images. Each is a single image that stands by itself. It was actually a very short time we could have the horses up there before the tower actually opened and there was enough light. I work with the photographer Hugo Glendinning and we shoot as much as we can and then see how many images work as art works. This time there were five. With the zebras they were three.

W*: There are shots where the tower looks almost white and matches the horses and another where there are brown horses and the tower is brown. How did you achieve that effect?
PP: The tower changes colour a lot. Sometimes it looks black, sometimes brown or light brown, sometimes light grey. The photograph just delivers what happened with the sunlight at that particular moment.

W*: And what are you working on at the moment?
PP: I will show at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial in Japan which opens on 26 July. It's a brilliant show, held in a huge valley. There are permanent and semi-permanent art works all over the valley, in bus stops, in a school, on a mountain, we can really use the urban and natural environment.

ADDRESS

Galerie Perrotin
76 rue de Turenne
75003 Paris

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When last we encountered architect Norman Swann he was between bankruptcy and his 75th birthday, still stubbornly ensconced in his family home - a grand residence that shared an address with the Victoria & Albert Museum. The ornery bachelor, now 76, has recently traded South Kensington for New York's Upper East Side, where he has downsized to a single splendid room - double-height, dentil moldings, crimson walls - in a landmark 1930s building on Madison Avenue. Until 23 May, visitors are welcome to barge in and snoop around.

'Be a not-so-polite guest - sneak into his private stuff!' encourages Michael Elmgreen, one half of the Danish-Norwegian artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset, as he reaches for a leather-bound photo album resting not far from a half-drunk cup of tea. 'The more you look at things, the more curious you will get.'

Despite the ephemera of a life in progress - personal photos (handsome young men, gorgeous buildings) and correspondence, shelves of well-thumbed books (Foucault, Proust, a 39-volume set of Shakespeare's complete works in miniature) and stacks of yellowing magazines - Swann is not a real person. He is the creation of Elmgreen & Dragset and his bedroom is their latest solo exhibition, on show at Galerie Perrotin.

Entitled 'Past Tomorrow' and accompanied by a short book written in the style of a screenplay, it picks up where the artists' 2013 V&A installation left off, with Swann realising he has little more than maquettes to show for a life that prized utopia over reality, theory over practice, dogmatism over compromise.

'We were jealous that filmmakers could focus on a few characters and comment on society through those fictional characters, so that's what we've done over the last few years - look at different characters and try to tell their stories and also our stories through their objects, their collections, all of the traces they leave in a domestic setting,' says Ingar Dragset. 'It's quite rare to make a sequel in an art context, but we're always up for a new challenge.'

ADDRESS

909 Madison Avenue & 73rd Street
Upper East Side
New York
NY 10021

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Art Basel swept into Hong Kong this week sparking a creativity frenzy that spread well beyond the 233 galleries showing in the city’s monolithic convention centre as everyone from up-and-coming young local designers to international galleries and fashion designers jumped on for the ride.

The winners were the public, who were treated to a series of world-class public installations in shopping centres across the city including Zhu Jinshi’s ‘Boat’, an intricate 15x3.5x4.2 metre immersive installation crafted from 10,000 sheets of Xuan paper, presented in Exchange Square.  At Central’s Landmark mall, local art collector and architect William Lim’s suspended plexiglass dome displayed nine important artworks valued at over US$ 19 million including a mesmerising portrait by Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi, while a set of telescopes enabling closer inspection of the works reflected on how contemporary art is viewed.

Across the harbour, the Peninsula Hotel turned tradition on its head with British sculptor Richard Wilson’s full-sized replica of a vintage twin-axel Harrington Legionnaire coach teetering rather alarmingly on the edge of the hotel’s 7th floor terrace. The installation, titled ‘Hang On A Minute Lads…I’ve Got A Great Idea’, replicated the final scene of the iconic film, The Italian Job.

Nearby, the city’s tallest building, the International Commerce Centre, exhibited Chinese multimedia artist Cao Fei’s ‘Same Old, Brand New’ light show. Drawing inspiration from 1980s video games, images from Pac-Man and Tetris were projected onto the skyscraper’s futuristic façade.  A smartphone app allowed viewers to hear music while watching.

The city’s growing number of art galleries also upped their game with a stellar showing of works from French graffiti artist and photographer JR who exhibited several ethereal new pieces titled ‘Ghosts of Ellis Island’ at Galerie Perrotin, to Duddell’s ‘ICA Off-Site: Hong Kongese’ that reflected on the pace of urbanisation with a range of works including Shinro Ohtake’s intricate ‘Time Memory’ collage, Zeng Hong’s ‘Balcony’, and a miniature replica of Millie’s Centre Neon Sign courtesy of the M+ visual arts museum.

Meanwhile, in the rapidly gentrifying Sheung Wan district, Pearl Lam’s newest gallery dedicated to emerging artists unveiled an intriguing collection of architectural beeswax installations by the young Beijing artist, Ren Ri.  The beekeeper-artist ‘collaborates’ with bees, manipulating the formation of honeycombs to create organic sculptures and intricate maps of the world.

On the opposite side of Hong Kong island, one of Hong Kong’s strongest alternative art institutions Para Site opened a larger new space in Quarry Bay with ‘One Hundred Years of Shame – Songs of Resistance and Scenarios for Chinese Nations’.  Works include Huang Xiaopeng’s ‘When Harry Met Sally’ light box artwork and Firenze Lai’s hauntingly beautiful ‘Human Chain’ painting.

One of the strongest showings in town, however, was at the Tod Williams and Billie Tsien-designed Asia Society in Admiralty, where Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara’s ‘Life is Only One’ retrospective of paintings, sketches, photographs and installations offered a fascinating glimpse into the notoriously shy artist’s world.

A new satellite event - Art Central - also appeared on the scene this year, targeting a younger crowd with works like Stella Zhang’s all-white hand-sewn space installation for Galerie du Monde and Chinese ink painter Lan Zhenghui’s monumental paintings. The 10,000 square meter harbourfront tent designed by London-based architecture firm Stiff & Trevillion-designed was also home to local architect Joyce Wang’s ultra contemporary take on the traditional crystal chandelier for Swarovski.

Back at Art Basel, now under the direction of Adeline Ooi, visitors found the usual list of big-hitting names such as Anish Kapoor and Grayson Perry, whose ‘Comfort Blanket’ tapestry generated considerable interest on opening night. David Zwirner Gallery, which presented a polychromed wood sculpture of Buster Keaton by Jeff Koons, and several enigmatic paintings by surrealist-realist painter Neo Rauch, also reported very strong sales.

This year, the Fair’s expanded Encounters Sector benefitted significantly from curation by Melbourne art expert Alexie Glass-Kantor who introduced 20 large-scale installations from 14 countries. The most noteworthy was Hong Kong-based artist Joao Vasco Paiva’s ‘Mausoleum’, a 5.6-metre tall installation of ubiquitous marketplace Styrofoam boxes cast in stone resin.

On the VIP Lounge front, Art Basel lead partner UBS went beyond providing a comfortable refuge, exhibiting an eclectic mix of works by Haegue Yang and Wilson Shieh alongside David Hockney, Andy Warhol and Gilbert and George, reinforcing the strong Japanese and Korean presence this year.

Sculptural highlights included young Korean artist Myeongbeom Kim's striking deer and Paolo Pivi’s shocking pink-feathered polar bear.  The ultimate crowd-pleaser, however, proved to be Japanese artist Shintaro Miyake who, perched on a Sori Yanagi-designed Elephant Stool, treated visitors to a live wall drawing performance.

'Millie's Centre Neon Sign (miniature replica)' was another highlight at Duddell's. Courtesy of M+, West Kowloon Cultural District

ADDRESS

Art Basel Hong Kong 2015 was at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, 1 Expo Drive, Wan Chai, Hong Kong

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Glimpses of a ghostly, monochrome world are what mark out Daniel Arsham. The New York-based artist, and co-founder of experimental design and architecture practice Snarkitecture, has long been moulding his own blend of art, performance and architecture in a hypnotic greyscale palette, which has never veered off-course – that is, until now.

This month, Arsham’s first solo exhibition takes place at the New York branch of Galerie Perrotin, which has represented him for the past 11 years. The exhibition brings together ten sculptural works, as well as an immersive, large-scale installation that takes over the gallery’s entire basement floor – and for the first time is in colour.

‘For the last few years, I have been working with these fictional archaeological objects from our present that have been recreated in materials that we associate with time,’ Arsham says. ‘All of the materials have been in a tonality of black and white. Partly that was due to the colouration of the actual materials, but also I’m colour blind, so most of the work I’ve made has been in that scope.’

He continues, ‘I recently got lenses that partially correct my vision. Now that I’m able to see properly, this exhibition further explores the themes that I’ve been working with, but does it with a palette of colour.’

Arsham’s new work expands upon his role as a historian of contemporary culture, recovering abstracted icons of 20th century living. The exhibition replaces the crumbling boomboxes, video game controllers, motorcycle helmets and cameras that Arsham has conjured up in past work, with symbols of sports culture, such as baseball caps, varsity jackets, protective masks and vests, basketballs and footballs made with rich blue calcite crystal and vibrant purple amethyst.

‘Even though I can see a fuller range of colour now, I’m not just making a rainbow. My vision is actually not that reduced. If you see 100 per cent of colour, I see about 20 per cent of the range, so it’s not entirely black and white,’ Arsham explains. ‘The colour in the exhibition comes from the materials themselves. I’m still using some of the reductive palette that I’ve used in my work in the past, which is a simplification of things.’ Arsham’s fascination with turning everyday objects into mysterious and curious artefacts is a mission that continues to define his practice. ‘I’ve looked for things that are icons of themselves. Things that are immediately recognisable, not just to me and to Western culture, but worldwide,’ he says. The crystalline effect of the materials – and the fact that Arsham doesn’t repair the failings of the casting process – produces a frozen yet imperfect portrait of contemporary life that leaves the viewer with a dissociative take on today’s pop culture.

‘I have always been interested in architecture and time. I’ve done a lot of work in which I’ve explored archeology and objects, but I’ve never explored the fictional archeologist, if you will. This exhibition sort of hints at this character,’ he adds.

That character is most apparent in Arsham’s installation of amethyst basketballs, which takes over the gallery’s basement like some obsessive collector’s cavern. Realised in varying shades of violet, the balls, which vary in size, are cast from crushed crystals and compressed into moulds to great visual effect. ‘There are no rules on how to cast volcanic ash or crystal into these shapes, so the framework of that was really based on casting techniques that have existed for hundreds of years,’ he says. ‘They are quite rudimentary processes that I’ve then further developed and expanded on.’

As for the choices of blue and purple for his first foray into colour, Arsham says, ‘The final materials happened to be the first ones that really worked for me. But I did play around with jade and different types of selenite crystal. I also have a wide range of other crystals in various colours that we will do something with at some point.’ So watch this space.

As originally featured in the October 2016 issue of Wallpaper* (W*211)

INFORMATION
Daniel Arsham’s ‘Circa 2345’ is on view from 15 September – 22 October. For more information, visit the Galerie Perrotin website

ADDRESS

Galerie Perrotin
909 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10021

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In a 1956 photo, Germaine Richier stands over a table in the back corner of her Paris studio sorting through papers. The profile view reveals a lower lip pushed out and up in the act of discernment and a utilitarian grey ensemble that makes her nearly invisible against the ashy studio walls. She is simultaneously surrounded, protected, dwarfed, and upstaged by her sculptures: bronze figures of various sizes and patinas that are at once organic and demonic, familiar yet unknowable. A survey presented jointly by Dominique Lévy and Galerie Perrotin brings together 46 of these bewitching forms in the first US exhibition of Richier's work since 1957.

'To me, she really was the mother of post-war sculpture in Europe,' says gallerist Dominique Lévy, who assembled works from the artist's estate as well as loans from private collections. 'She aroused curiosity from the beginning and created a lot of debate about the constant dilemma of postwar art: figuration or abstraction?'

Richier (1902-1959) managed to split the difference. Classically trained, first at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Montpellier and later as a student of sculptor and Rodin protégé Antoine Bourdelle, she initially focused on busts before working her way down. After World War II, which was spent on prolonged vacation in Zurich, she began incorporating animal and vegetal elements - insects, trees, bats and toads - into bodies ravaged of all but their strange and profound humanity.

The frequent choice of dark patinated bronze intensifies the rough surfaces of the sculptures. Anna Swinbourne, who contributed an essay to the exhibition catalogue, traces this aspect of Richier's work to a formative 1935 trip to Pompeii. 'She talked very often to people that she knew about the impact that that trip had on her, to see the charred remains of human beings,' says Swinbourne, 'and I think that it's an underestimated influence in her work.'

Works from the 1950s such as 'Le Griffu' and 'Le Mandoline (ou La Cigale)' show Richier experimenting further with structure and surface. The addition of metal wire adds a lean, geometric counterpoint to her earthy figures, while polished natural bronze injects exuberance into a perforated carapace. And although Richier made a career out of defying categorisation, there are works that cross paths with the elongated lopers of Giacometti and a monumental bronze shell that would look at home in the electro-plated undersea garden of Claude Lalanne.

The masterstroke of the exhibition is the decision to eschew the sparsely populated rooms typical of contemporary shows for a more dense arrangement, heightened by a selection of Brassaï photos. 'The sculptures echo each other. They bounce off each other. So even sometimes you're disturbed, because they're too close,' says Lévy. 'When you look at the photographs of Germaine Richier in the studio, she was always working in relation to her own work. And so we tried to recreate that atmosphere.'

'La Tauromachie', 1953. Richier's national identity is often quietly present in her sculptures. The trident is the symbol of horsemen guarding the wild horses and bulls of the Camargue, situated in the Rhône delta in the south of France.

Detail of 'La Forêt', 1946. This work illustrates the sculptor’s relationsip with nature and her Provençal identity. Richier wrote a letter to her mother asking her family to collect tree branches for her, which she then used in the making of this sculpture.

The masterstroke of the exhibition is the decision to eschew the sparsely populated rooms typical of contemporary shows for a more dense arrangement, heightened by a selection of Brassaï photos. 'The sculptures echo each other. They bounce off each other. So even sometimes you're disturbed, because they're too close,' says gallerist Dominique Lévy

'Le Sauterelle, grande', 1955-56. Part woman, part insect, this work is a study of animal dynamism. Richier's crouched creature, defined by its sharp angles, seems ready to pounce at any minute

ADDRESS

Dominque Lévy/Galerie Perrotin
909 Madison Avenue
New York NY 10021

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Inflatable Swiss chalets, huge easter eggs and bare-breasted women beating resin blocks in a public park. It's the first week of December, and once again in Miami, the art fair has come to town, with this year activities neatly bookended in the north of the city by a show at MOCA of Tracey Emin's neon works - 67 created over 20 years - called Angel Without You and in the south by a retrospective exhibition of Ai Weiwei's work at the newly opened, Herzog & de Meuron-designed Pérez Art Museum.

Emin's archive of chaotically scrawled and spelt slogans - in a lofty blacked-out space - read like illuminated scribblings on a toilet wall. From inanities such as 'Is Legal Sex Anal?' and 'Is Anal Sex Legal?', to moments of beauty ('Love happens - like lightning') and self-knowledge ('I know, I know, I know' - crossed out three times), it's Emin in her best light.

Weiwei's politics often focus on the billions of Chinese who labour thanklessly in the creation of their country. At PAMM an enormous sculpture made of shiny metal bicycle wheels (a nod to both Duchamp and the only transport available to many working Chinese) has the feel of a war memorial for workers, recognising all those subjugated by the system.

Between these two poles, the business of the fair has gone along briskly, dealers having upped their game with some fighting work. (Miami is no longer the funsome little sister of June's Art Basel but a more serious player in its own right, particularly with its geographical attraction for the Latin American market.)

Gagosian's big gun is the Jeff Koons showstopper 'Baroque Egg with Bow', in scintillating turquoise and hot pink (1994-2008), a massive bundle of symbolism (from new birth to a stealthy restraint, suggested by the big bravura ribbon). At Sadie Coles, Sarah Lucas's 'Tit' chair (2012) - entirely 'upholstered' in stuffed stockings that pop up like perky breasts - is a ribald piece of feminism, poking particularly apposite fun at a Miami audience, where enhancements come as standard. And at Gavin Brown's Enterprise, Martin Creed has constructed an elegant pyramid of bog-standard toilet rolls. It isn't ironic - more an act of transformation of this prerequisite of contemporary life into a perfect architectural component.

Other ways to get noticed include the booth of Neugerriemschneider, which Jorge Pardo has turned into a lush domestic space, lined with cheap fabrics more usually used to make Mexican pinafores (Pardo, who is Cuban, now lives in Merida). Everything is for sale, while other artists' work is encased in the shelving system he has created around the outside of the stand. And at Marianne Boesky, Roxie Paine's massive moving neon piece of a man being knocked down and getting back up could hardly be missed. 'I think it's how artists feel everyday,' says Boesky.

Beyond the Convention Centre, projects take on a more expansive form. LA artist Ry Rocklen has created an art bar, sponsored by Absolut, turning a patch of ground by the W Hotel into a basketball court, filled with chess and ping pong tables created from trophies and trophy parts, a comment, perhaps on the winners and losers that an overly competitive art market now creates.
 
Another large-scale installation came in the inflatable form of a Swiss-style chalet. Perched over the water at the Miami Marina Stadium, its polyurethane skin gently heating in the Florida sun, it is the creation of French artist duo Kolkoz for Swiss watch company Audemar Piguet. 'We love clichés and we love Pop,' say the pair. Indeed.

French art dealer Emmanuel Perrotin has christened his new space in New York with an anarchistic exhibition by Italian artist Paola Pivi, entitled 'Ok, you are better than me, so what?'

The art world wunderkind, Emmanuel Perrotin, opened his third international gallery this week, opting for the well-heeled environs of Manhattan's Upper East Side for his sole American outpost. Situated on the corner of Madison Avenue and 73rd Street, the gallery is spread over two floors in a glamorous, 1932 landmark building that was once the headquarters of the Bank of New York.

'New York continues to be the capital of the art market,' said Perrotin, whose impressive track record includes giving Damien Hirst his first commercial gallery show back in 1991 and being the first to exhibit Takashi Murakami's work outside of Japan. 'It's also home to the largest number of international leading-edge artists. Being part of this, engaging with local artists, curators and collectors, and reaching new audiences, is absolutely essential.'

In contrast to its fancy new digs and venerable neighbours, such as the Whitney Museum and the Frick Collection, Perrotin has christened his new space with an anarchistic exhibition by Italian artist, Paola Pivi. For her first major solo exhibition stateside, Pivi worked with a taxidermist to create eight eurethane sculptures of polar bears. Created in a myriad of realistic positions, the bears are covered in colourful feathers for that trademark Pivi twist.

Flick through illustrator Jean-Philippe Delhomme's witty sketches of the opening evening of the exhibition

While the bears take centre stage on the gallery's ground floor, an animated sculpture - a blue box spitting out dollar bills called 'Money Machine (true blue, baby I love you)'- gently references the space's banking heritage. Polarising and completely open to interpretation, Pivi's show is an exciting taster of the gallery's plans to come.

The new space is a coup for Perrotin, who made his foray into the art business back in 1989 when he opened his first gallery at age 21, and now has an outpost in Hong Kong and three in Paris under his belt. He envisions his New York gallery will be a springboard for artists like Maurizio Cattelan, JR, Jean-Michel Othoniel and Pivi herself, to make the jump into the collections of American institutions. The New York space will be helmed by Peggy Lebouf, who is currently the chief director of Galerie Perrotin in Paris.

Situated on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Perrotin's new gallery - his third international outpost - is spread over two floors in a glamorous, 1932 landmark building that was once the headquarters of the Bank of New York

ADDRESS

Galerie Perrotin New York
909 Madison Avenue & 73rd Street
Upper East Side
NY 10021

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As Hong Kong presents ART HK 12, its fifth international art fair – now under the Art Basel franchise and expected to draw even more visitors than the 63,500 last year – it is also celebrating its transformation into the de facto art capital of Asia. Thanks to an unprecedented boom in China’s art market and a growing demand for Western art (Christie’s Hong Kong sold £225 million in a week last autumn), several influential international galleries have opened permanent spaces timed to coincide with this year’s fair.

Explore the galleries making their mark on Hong Kong's art scene

‘There is palpable excitement about how the art scene is developing,’ says ART HK director Magnus Renfrew, who believes the combination of location, language, reputation and international culture has contributed to its status as an art hub.

Just a decade ago, the city was relatively provincial with a weak art infrastructure compared to traditional art centres. But recently a handful of galleries have introduced a rare pedigree of artists to the city. Ben Brown Fine Arts, which recently extended its Andre Fu-designed space, last week launched an exhibition by Italian artist Alighiero Boetti; the White Cube gallery, which staged a successful opening in March, unveiled Anselm Kiefer’s ‘Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom’. Meanwhile, the Gagosian Gallery has spent its inaugural year treating Hong Kong to Damien Hirst and, this month, Andreas Gursky’s first Asian exhibition.

The newest clutch of blue-chip galleries will likely up the ante still further. Parisian dealer Emmanuel Perrotin opens his vast 17th floor Galerie Perrotin with ‘The Nature of Need’, exhibiting the work of American neo-pop artist KAWS. ‘It is the perfect time to be opening in Hong Kong,’ says Perrotin. ‘The market is very exciting and we have a space that allows us to show exactly what we want.’ Striking interiors by Andre Fu make full use of the harbour views and natural light. ‘For me, art spaces are about creating experiences, so we flipped the circulation to the window side, creating free movement along the full-height windows,’ says Fu. ‘It is a quite subtle but effective use of the space.’

Spurred on by exponential growth in Asia, Sotheby’s is opening a sleek 1,400sq m gallery in Pacific Place, designed by local architects Richards Basmajian, and taken the entire fifth floor as an auction and lecture hall. The spaces were micro-designed with flexibility in mind. ‘Even the windows have panels to hang pictures,’ says David Richards. ‘With Sotheby’s the art works vary dramatically from traditional to cutting-edge modern, so the space had to be simple by necessity but details such as flexible lighting were critical,’ The gallery opens on the 19th May with ‘Hong Kong Blooms In My Mind’ by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, as well as an exhibit of French landscape painting from the19th and 20th centuries.

Also this week, Pearl Lam’s eponymous gallery presents its inaugural exhibition of Chinese abstract art, re-examined by contemporary-art scholar Gao Minglu and Paul Moorhouse, curator of 20th-century portraits at London’s National Portrait Gallery. Says Lam: ‘Contemporary abstract art is usually regarded by the West as second hand and derivative, but the Chinese see it differently. This exhibition will show a different perspective.’ The 350sq m new gallery in the Grade II-listed Pedder Building has temporary walls to create bespoke spaces for each piece. ‘The next exhibition will change completely. Windows will appear,’ says Lam, who was drawn to the building’s high ceilings and its paradox: ‘Outside is old but inside is new.’

Simon Lee Gallery opens this week in the same building with an exhibition of new works by American artist Sherrie Levine . Designed by Belgium-based Bataille Ibens, the gallery carries over the aesthetic of the Lee’s London gallery and acts as a project space. ‘We are adopting a different model to the conventional gallery,’ says Asia director Katherine Schaefer. ‘During the rotations in our space, mediums will range from painting, drawing and sculpture to multimedia installation and film.’

It’s not yet clear what benefit these international players will bring to Hong Kong’s emerging art community. Although they clearly have the potential to reshape the cultural landscape, local gallerists and collectors like Calvin Hui, founder of 3218, a loft-style contemporary gallery in Hong Kong’s Wong Chuk Hang district, have mixed feelings. ‘Many people say Hong Kong is the number one art market and there are a lot of opportunities, but I am still concerned about the size of the market. Tiny galleries will still find it hard to promote art.’

Galerie Perrotin has assembled the work of three provocative figures from the last one hundred years for its current exhibition in Paris to refute the persistent notion that artworks produced in editions are less valuable than one-offs.

First up is French artist Marcel Duchamp, arguably one of the earliest to look upon print series as unique works, who naturally turned to multiples because of his preoccupation with authorship. Duchamp produced 275 portable retrospective museums of his work, which he named 'Box in a Valise'. 'Everything important I have done can be held in a small valise,' he said. He also let his imagination loose on all kinds of media, including posters, invitations, telegrams and enamelled plates.

Next comes another avant-garde master, Joseph Beuys. The social and political bent to the German artist's work meant that it was important for it to be readily available in the public domain. 'I am interested by the transmission of physical vehicles in the form of editions, because I am passionate about spreading ideas,' he said. Between 1965 and 1986, he condensed his political theories into a continuous production of 567 multiples, to which he later added numerous postcards.

Contemporary Japanese artist Takashi Murakami takes Duchamp and Beuys' lead and pushes it further still. Drawing on the Manga and Kawai (cuteness) culture in his work, he has long blurred the boundaries between high and low art, producing painting, sculpture, prints, wallpaper, animation films and accessories. He has even created his curious characters on T-shirts and balloons before using them to populate his paintings.

Duchamp, Beuys and Murakami are by no means the only artists to explore the concept of the edition - they are joined by everyone from Salvador Dali to Andy Warhol - but they did so in a wildly original fashion, convincing collectors that editions can be a vital part of a creative process. Galerie Perrotin illustrates this with a neatly curated selection of their work.

ADDRESS

Galerie Perrotin
76 rue de Turenne
75003 PARIS

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