From october 1st to 29th, Galeries lafayette is going all out to support contemporary young creators.

Running from 13 September to 3 November 2007 at the art Gallery of the Galeries Lafayette, the third Antidote show will feature the work of ten French artists:

Pierre Ardouvin, Eric Baudart, Michel Blazy, Etienne Bossut, Didier Marcel, Mathieu Mercier, Marlène Mocquet, Laurent Montaron, Sylvain Rousseau and Tatiana Trouvé. Since the Antidote project was founded, the Galeries Lafayette Group, which has always defended such values as innovation and daring, has been actively engaged in a process of supporting the contemporary arts, notably through its partnership with the Foire internationale d’art contemporain (FIAC) in Paris. In keeping with this same process, the architect Pascal Grasso was invited to redesign the Galerie des Galeries, the Galeries Lafayette’s art space, to allow this venue to assert its own distinct identity. The new venue will be inaugurated in September of this year.

The series of Antidote shows was started in 2005 by Guillaume Houzé, the greatgreat-grandson of Théophile Bader, the founder of the Galeries Lafayette department store. In this undertaking, Guillaume Houzé enjoyed the support of his grandmother, Madame Ginette Moulin (the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Galeries Lafayette Group). As a collector, Guillaume has been especially interested in the French art scene. His exchanges with artists and a good number of other players in the field quickly allowed him to view the act of collecting not only from a personal and private point of view, but also as a form of financial support for artists and art professionals.

The same realization comes up again and again: despite its depth and variety, too often the French art scene is lacking in support. Eager to take an active role in the debate, and in the spirit of sharing his passion with the broadest audience possible, Guillaume decided to mount Antidote, an annual exhibition that would feature for several months in the Galeries Lafayette’s art gallery the work of ten or so established or emerging French artists. For the third consecutive year, visitors to the Galeries Lafayette will be able to discover different facets of the contemporary arts through a selection of recent works by some of the most promising artists of their generation, in media as diverse as painting,installation, video and sculpture.

During the same period, Antidote, which will be on hand at the Grand Palais for the FIAC, will be exhibiting a work coproduced with the Fonds régional d’art contemporain of Ile de France. The Galeries Lafayette will also be presenting in ten stores throughout France and at its Berlin location an event called “L’art, c’est renversant,” or “Art is astounding.” For an entire month these department stores will be displaying a selection of works from the collections of the Fonds régionaux d’art contemporain.

Media contacts :
Philippe Boulet
Tel: + 33 6 82 28 00 47
boulet@tgcdn.com

Elsa Janssen
Tel: + 33 1 42 82 30 90
ejanssen@galerieslafayette.com

Interview

Here we are in “season three” of ANTIDOTE, a sign that the determination displayed during the first installment hasn’t flagged. Rather it’s grown stronger with each passing year. What major modifications will you be making to this third exhibition in the series ?

ANTIDOTE is a new show each year. You will, however, find the same principles that we put in place in the first two exhibitions of the series, in particular setting established artists and younger ones side by side. For me it’s important to exhibit, for example, a piece by Tatiana Trouvé, whose work I’ve admired for several years now, and to introduce Marlène Mocquet, who joins Antidote this year for the first time.

ANTIDOTE (03) does have a new element this year since it’s going to inaugurate the new architecture designed for the Gallery of the Galeries. We organized a competition and asked five architects to rethink the gallery’s space. It was Pascal Grasso’s project that won us over. He’s going to make it possible for this venue to better assert its vocation.

Concerning the choice of artists, the presence of recurrent elements throughout the selections is noticeable, Tatiana Trouvé, Pierre Ardouvin, Michel Blazy, and so on. It’s a bit as though you were obeying a certain logic of affinity or taste, more than a logic of “distribution.” The very strong presence of Mathieu Mercier is also noticeable; he’s proved to be an inescapable personality in France’s artistic landscape for you. How does your selection operate? What predominates, pleasure or the feeling that certain artists possess a more emblematic, more federative dimension?

ANTIDOTE is first a collection and then an exhibition. Collecting is a question of sensibility, intuition and passion. To put together this collection, which I’ve been developing with the attention and generous support of my grandmother Ginette Moulin, I’m constantly out in the field, at shows and in studios, and I meet all the time with gallery owners to discover the work of new artists. But of course I also remain very attentive to the development of artists who are already present in our collection. Indeed, it’s very important for me to acquire groups of works that illustrate the distance traveled by an artist. Today Mathieu Mercier is at the heart of our collection. A central element of an entire generation, he brings with him a fascinating view of the conditions and perception of his own artistic output.

Perseverance and passion determine the final coherence of a collection: in ANTIDOTE (03) you’ll run into works by Didier Marcel or Michel Blazy once again, both present in the first two shows in the series. Several ANTIDOTE artists today are beginning to make a real name for themselves in France and abroad. I’m pleased to see that, among the four artists shortlisted for the 2007 Marcel Duchamp Prize, three of them (Pierre Ardouvin, Richard Fauguet and Tatiana Trouvé) were part of ANTIDOTE (01) and (02). Pierre Ardouvin and Tatiana Trouvé will actually be showing in ANTIDOTE (03) at the very moment they announce the 2007 prize. And Mathieu Mercier will be exhibiting in a solo show at the ARC, Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, next October. The Galeries Lafayette Group will be the main partner of that show. I’m thrilled by all that. However, the most important thing for me, as you said, is to feel pleasure. My choices aren’t determined by the market or the artists’ standing. Above all else, it’s a passion that drives me, a passion that I would like to share with ANTIDOTE.

ANTIDOTE brings about an encounter between the work of artists, who are bearers of a radically contemporary world, and an audience that is not well informed but open to being surprised. The important thing is to give these visitors the chance to discover artworks in the unusual framework of a large department store.

Artists often find it difficult to realise their projects, which is why my grandmother and I have agreed to act as the producers of an exceptional work this year. We are supporting a film project by Laurent Grasso – it's a work that plays on strange sensations experienced by the viewer in response to images that are part fact, part fiction, and the memory of a woman who has become well-known thanks to French cinema, namely Carole Bouquet.

The video explores one of cinema's most mysterious faces, like a slowly-unfolding painting.

Reconstructing a gallery space in place of the old area represents a generous decision, but it also shows that you’re very much wagering on the presence of contemporary art and the long-term continuity of that presence in the middle of a temple dedicated to fashion and more generally pure consumption. What direction did you give to the design specifications? Will the new space be directly in touch with the Galeries, or will it be clearly set apart from the sales areas?

The Galeries Lafayette is a resolutely modern company. It has always been conscious of the dialog that fashion engages in with art today. It is essential that an institution like ours be concerned about its environment, contemporaries, artists.

One of the missions of large department stores, as I see it, is not only to sell, but also to offer the public various ways of understanding society. People no longer only go to the big stores to buy but also to get a sense of what’s in the air or sometimes simply to have fun. It’s our duty to offer new and different views to a public that looks forward to leaving the Galeries Lafayette better informed about art today. That’s why the Galeries Lafayette inaugurated the Gallery of the Galeries in 2001, a 300-m2 noncommercial space devoted to the contemporary arts.

The idea of the gallery is to go from fashion to art in just a few steps. This year we are pursuing that conquest by giving Pascal Grasso the task of rethinking the space in a totally contemporary spirit. Chiefly, what he has to do is enhance the works of art by using new materials and new lighting systems for the space, and transforming a part of the venue into a place that will see daily use (library, reception desk). As part of the Gallery of the Galeries’ redevelopment, the Galeries Lafayette would like to assert its difference by establishing a place that is unique from the point of view of its architecture and by its vocation, i.e., to host contemporary-arts exhibitions in the disciplines that have always influenced the Galeries Lafayette, fashion, design, the visual arts. The clear purpose of this venue then is to serve the creation of art without compromise.

In addition to devoting space to contemporary art within the flagship of the Galeries Lafayette, you decided as well to be a partner of prestigious events like the FIAC. Is this a way of more effectively supporting contemporary art beyond the confines of the Galeries Lafayette in the very place where it’s appreciated, or is it rather a question of reconciling defending artists’ interests and ensuring a high profile for a particular undertaking?

A little bit of both. The Galeries Lafayette is a highly dynamic firm in constant motion. The energy of the FIAC reveals the vitality of the art scene in Paris. So we have points in common. That is, spreading the creative power of France, and to accomplish that, we’re very pleased to be able to join with the FIAC, which each year proves more innovative than the last.

It’s also a question of making clear within the Galeries Lafayette Group our commitment to contemporary art. Our being at the FIAC increases the standing of ANTIDOTE artists, since we’ve chosen to communicate essentially through that event, and the group’s undertaking. By joining their energies, the FIAC and Galeries Lafayette Group are striving to enhance France’s creative power and, in doing so, contribute to its influence throughout the world.

In the fall of this year, the Galeries Lafayette is going to launch a great national event in each of its establishments in the major cities outside Paris, directly in connection with the Regional Funds for Contemporary Art [known by their initials in French, FRAC]. It’s rather encouraging to see a private institution supporting a public institution that is being subjected to numerous attacks just now. Beyond the fact that this brings to completion a panoply of actions both inside and outside the Galeries, doesn’t this indicate that you consider the job of raising awareness of the FRAC as something that is absolutely vital and necessary for the public? That public and private spheres can get along, like each other, live under one roof?

The Regional Funds for Contemporary Art are now over 20 years old. A magnificent idea is at the source of their creation, that is, to enable the regions of France to purchase works by living French and foreign artists, and to mount shows with these works throughout the whole of an individual region, in order to raise the awareness among new audiences, who have had nothing to do with art and especially contemporary art until today. You don’t see there a resonance with ANTIDOTE?

Thanks to the FRACs, whose collections amount to nearly 17 000 artworks, France can boast of having the largest public collection of contemporary art in the world. So the Galeries Lafayette came up with “L’art, c’est renversant” [roughly Art Is Astounding], where ten regional stores as well as our store in Berlin will host next September, for one month, a selection of works from the FRAC collections. Like the cultural decentralization brought about by the regional funds, the Galeries Lafayette hopes to make it possible for all of its visitors to have access to this artistic heritage thanks to this project.

The directors of the regional funds and the Galeries Lafayette are very excited about the project, one that strikes them as altogether modern. Indeed, I think that at present the collaboration between the public and the private in the artistic landscape is a sign of modernity.

The collection that you and your grandmother are putting together in the Galeries Lafayette’s name seems to be dedicated entirely to French art. It’s true that the intention is commendable, and if we draw a parallel with the great foreign examples (Saatchi & Saatchi in particular), we know what that kind of support can bring to an art scene. However, no great collection can exist without turning to “non-national” artists. Do you expect to bring “foreign bodies” into the Galeries Lafayette collection? Do you have the names of artists that really excite you and that you would like to introduce into the collection?

Originally we directed our collection towards the French art scene. That’s neither nationalism nor a chauvinistic spirit, but rather the desire to support the artists and gallery owners I rub shoulders with. Geographic proximity has allowed me to form special ties with a few of them.

For all that, I’m not indifferent to foreign artists, on the contrary. We’ve already begun, moreover, to acquire works by foreign artists like Douglas Gordon, Peter Coffin, Ryan Gander, Rupert Nurfolk and Gedi Sibony.

Art is envisaged globally, it can’t be a matter of borders for me, and the market has gone quite global. You need to observe the different influences or the appropriation of media by artist to appreciate contemporary art. From that point view, I would like to contrast the works of French artists with those from other lands in the next Antidote shows.

Interview conducted by Patrice Joly, the editor-in-chief of the review 02.

*Great great grandson of Théophile Bader, groupe Galeries Lafayette founder, Guillaume Houzé studied economy and started his company "Air de je", dedicated to youth. A passionate collector of contemporary art, he is the promoter of the Antidote project.