Download - Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain - Cartier

Takeshi kiTano
DaviD Lynch
aLessanDro MenDini
BeaTriz MiLhazes
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The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain and Cartier
present
from April 3 – 21, 2012
Cartier Jeweler of the Arts
To create a work of art using precious or semi-precious stones that have been pierced,
engraved, unmounted or even damaged, and can therefore no longer be used in classic
jewelry; to bestow new life on these pearls, emeralds, sapphires, mandarin garnets,
moonstones, paved diamonds, chalcedonies, rubies… This was the mission that the
Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain and Cartier entrusted to four internationally
renowned contemporary artists, well known to the Fondation.
David Lynch, Alessandro Mendini, Takeshi Kitano and Beatriz Milhazes each met and
worked with the Cartier master jewelers; from this passionate exchange four exceptional
art works were created – extraordinary unique materials for the artists and a new life for
these stones that no longer corresponded to the jeweler’s high standards.
The development and execution of this veritable précis of gemology was the work of
Cartier Joaillerie, while each artist and their creation revived the soul of these stones and
symbolized their eternity in their own special way. Together, artists and master jewelers
have crafted a precious story of gemstones.
Bernard Fornas
President & CEO Cartier International
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Nécessaire Gosse de peintre
Takeshi Kitano
The Nécessaire Gosse de peintre is a unique piece imagined by Japanese filmmaker Takeshi
Kitano in 2010. Inspired by the Japanese artist’s funny, dreamlike world, this suitcase
combines all the indispensable accessories a “perfect painter” could need. Made by the
Ateliers Cartier, it bears witness to Cartier’s savoir-faire in crafting leather, gold, quartz and
obsidian to make this offbeat creation.
In his exhibition Beat Takeshi Kitano, Gosse de peintre, presented at the Fondation Cartier
in 2010, Takeshi Kitano made a subtle and mischievous foray into the world of childhood
that was full of surprises, gags and games. The creation of the Nécessaire Gosse de peintre
is a direct prolongation of the exhibition: from brushes to palette, cup to easel, beret to
candies and pencils to an inflatable muse, the painter has everything necessary in this
complete suitcase to create a masterpiece in any location.
The Nécessaire Gosse de peintre was exhibited at Art Basel and Art Basel Miami in 2010.
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Nécessaire Gosse de peintre
Takeshi Kitano
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Takeshi Kitano
Born in 1947, Takeshi Kitano is a Japanese filmmaker who has directed major films such
as Sonatine (1993), Hana-Bi (1997), Zatoichi (2003), Achilles and the Tortoise (2008)
and Outrage (2010). Kitano is internationally famous for his films and hugely popular in
Japan as a comedian and television presenter. His tireless curiosity and passion for learning
and transmitting knowledge allow him to change fields and vocabulary with great ease,
switching from violence to humor and excess to restraint.
In 2010, he presented his first personal exhibition at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art
contemporain, Beat Takeshi Kitano, Gosse de peintre. Through painting and videos,
fantastical installations and incredible machines, Takeshi Kitano led the visitor from games
to lessons, making fun of contemporary art, enjoying the sciences and playing on the
clichés commonly associated with his native Japan.
In 2011, he took part in the thematic exhibition Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere at the
Fondation Cartier, with the game The Answer is 2011.
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Jeweled Triangle
David Lynch
Continuing the fruitful relationship between David Lynch and the Fondation Cartier pour
l’art contemporain, Cartier gave the artist and director carte blanche to create a singular
piece in 2009: Jeweled Triangle. Using precious and semi-precious stones, David Lynch
reinvented an everyday object close to his heart: a lamp.
When lit, this luminous work, a machine in motion, creates a decidedly “Lynchian”
atmosphere. Combined with the rhythmical movement of the three colored gems
– citrine, amethyst, green beryl – the light dancing over the smooth white metal shows the
ease with which David Lynch plunges us into his mysterious, surrealistic and surprising
world. In keeping with the intrinsically hypnotic power of gemstones, this lamp explores
our relationship to light, reflections and the symbolism of stones, while questioning the
way we relate to everyday objects.
Jeweled Triangle was first shown at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2009 along with Alessandro
Mendini’s Cartier Column. On Cartier’s initiative, David Lynch also directed a short film
entitled Diamonds, Gold and Dreams for the occasion. This cosmic work – a veritable
kaleidoscope of magnified diamonds – was projected directly on the Cartier Dome, which
it transformed into an elaborate planetarium. For the Cartier joaillier des arts exhibition at
the Fondation Cartier, the film will again be screened in a dome, allowing viewers to lose
themselves in a world of infinite dreams.
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Jeweled Triangle
David Lynch
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David Lynch
Born in Montana, USA, in 1946, David Lynch spent his childhood painting and drawing.
He directed his first experimental film in Philadelphia in 1965, at the Pennsylvania Fine
Arts Academy. Since then, he has shot ten feature films, including Wild at Heart, which
was awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1990. Acknowledged as one
of the most original directors of his time, David Lynch is also a photographer, a musician
and an artist, and was the youngest filmmaker to have won a Golden Lion for his oeuvre,
at the 2006 Venice Film Festival. In 2007, David Lynch presented the exhibition The
Air is on Fire at the Fondation Cartier, bringing together a large selection of works, some
dating back to the 1960s: drawings, paintings, photos, experimental movies and sound
environments were especially created for the exhibition. In 2011, he took part in the
Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere thematic exhibition at the Fondation Cartier by creating
the design for the ground floor and a number of films commissioned for the event.
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The Cartier Column
Alessandro Mendini
The Cartier Column is a unique work imagined by the Italian architect and designer
Alessandro Mendini. The artist wanted “to create an idealized symbol of utopian purity,
one that would replace religious devotion and the ostentation of royal power with a nonreligious,
abstract and spiritual treasure.”
Thanks to an extraordinary set of precious and semi-precious stones that could no longer
be of use to Cartier, Alessandro Mendini has created an exceptional “endless column”
that produces a magical play on radiance and reflections. Following the principles of
Greco-Roman architecture in a feat of ingenuity, the column is composed of seven blocks
stacked around a central axis: after being selected, the stones were sorted into categories,
encapsulated in crystal cylinders and inserted vertically inside pink gold fluting. Topazes,
citrines, peridots, emeralds: all the stones in this lapidary collection were set in epoxy
resin following 24 hours of polymerization. The Cartier Column stands 2.30 m high,
weighs 400 kg and contains 24 kg of gold; it required over 18 months of work, from the
preliminary sketches to the final creation.
The Cartier Column was first presented at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2009 with the Jeweled
Triangle lamp by David Lynch. It was subsequently shown at Art Dubai in 2011, along
with the first showing of a series of eight drawings by Mœbius entitled Matter and Light.
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The Cartier Column
Alessandro Mendini
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Alessandro Mendini
Alessandro Mendini is a trained architect and designer who was born in Milan in 1931.
A partner in the Nizzoli firm and co-founder of the Global Tools alternative movement,
he was successively editor-in-chief of the magazines Casabella, Modo, and the architecture
magazine Domus. In the late 1970s he joined the Studio Alchimia and developed his
theories on kitsch and the banal object. His career then built up around collaborations
with firms such as Alessi, Venini, Philips, Bisazza and Swatch. In 1989 he created the
studio Atelier Mendini.
He is purposefully polyvalent and associates his work with interior design, painting,
music and literature. Alessandro Mendini’s pieces invent, duplicate, superimpose and defy
definition. His objects never resemble their function, they instead take the form of the
feeling they elicit from us, thus making his work firmly anti-conventional.
In 2002, the Fondation Cartier presented Alessandro Mendini’s most emblematic works in
the exhibition Fragilisme, alongside a series of commissions that included the monumental
Poltrona di Proust – a famous Regency armchair whose pointillist design has reappeared on
various objects since 1978 – and the Petite Cathédrale, entirely covered in mosaic.
He is currently creating the design for a Fondation Cartier exhibition; presented from
May 13 to September 30, 2012, this thematic exhibition unites a selection of works often
associated with self-taught art or art brut.
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Aquarium
Beatriz Milhazes
In response to a commission from Cartier, Beatriz Milhazes imagined and designed an
installation made up of suspended elements and decorative motifs. Composed of 15
strands, the longest of which measures almost 2 metres, Aquarium is a richly decorated
mobile in monumental dimensions, crafted in 2010 by the Ateliers Cartier.
Inspired by the motifs and colours of her paintings and collages, the mobile was created
with exquisite attention to detail. Choosing from a vast array of precious and semiprecious
stones and pearls to adorn this work, Beatriz Milhazes took the same care as
she does when choosing the colors in her painting palette: diamonds, rubies, opals,
topazes, sapphires, turquoises… Rosettes, abstract and floral ornaments, geometric forms,
rhythmic motifs and arabesques are associated with unexpected materials such as resin and
metal to compose a fantastic, theatrical work that is both pure and surprising.
Aquarium was exhibited at Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach in 2011. The work will
also be presented at Art Dubai in March 2012.
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Aquarium
Beatriz Milhazes
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Beatriz Milhazes
Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1960, Beatriz Milhazes studied at the Curso de Comunicação
Social (FACHA) and the Escola de Artes Visuais de Parque Lage in Brazil from 1978 to
1982. Composed of a sumptuous superimposition of ornamental motifs, her dazzling,
hypnotic paintings refer to Colonialist Baroque, Modernism and Brazilian popular art.
Shown in numerous galleries and international biennials (Venice Biennale 2003), her work
features in the collections of the world’s greatest museums, such as the Museo Reina Sofia in
Madrid or the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa; in New York, she
is one of the rare artists of her generation to have major paintings in the collections of the
Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
For her exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in 2009, Beatriz Milhazes presented a set
of paintings selected among works from the past ten years, plus a monumental collage
created especially for the event. In 2011, she created the O Paraiso collage for the
exhibition Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere at the Fondation Cartier.
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Since moving to Paris in 1994, the Fondation Cartier has been housed in an airy building filled
with light that was designed by the architect Jean Nouvel. In this unique setting, exhibitions,
conferences and artistic productions come to life.
At once a creative space for artists and a place where art and the general public can meet,
the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain is dedicated to promoting and raising public
awareness of contemporary art. Each year, the Fondation Cartier organizes a program of
exhibitions based on either individual artists or themes, and commissions work from artists,
thus enriching an important collection. It also organizes the Nomadic Nights, a rendezvous that
focuses on the performing arts, where artists explore links between the visual arts and other forms
of contemporary artistic expression. Exhibitions and the collection itself are frequently sent to
institutions abroad, enhancing the Fondation Cartier’s international profile.
As a reflection of our times, the Fondation Cartier embraces all creative fields and genres of
contemporary art, ranging from design to photography, from painting to video art and from
fashion to performance art. This testifies to the Fondation Cartier’s commitment and skill, to its
blend of rigor and eclecticism which opens up contemporary art and renders it more accessible.
Recognized on the international artistic scene and hailed by the public, the Fondation Cartier
distinguishes itself by its curiosity, originality and heterogeneity.
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FroM ApriL 3 rD To ApriL 21 sT 2012
prEss oFFiCEs
Cartier:
Patricia Schiffbauer +33 1 58 18 10 18
patricia.schiffbauer@cartier.com
Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain:
Matthieu Simonnet +33 1 42 18 56 77
matthieu.simonnet@fondation.cartier.com
Visits and conferences on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Reservation with the Visitor’s Department necessary.
Information on www.fondation.cartier.com/cartier
Telephone: +33 1 42 18 56 67
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