Comprised of “mood rooms”– a reference to “period rooms” in decorative arts museums– this exhibition brings together and confronts, but not only, the lithe design of the “Podify” table by Konstantin Grcic with the graphic power of « Burned Out » by Michel Majerus; the invitation to escape with the « Carbon » ladder by Marc Newson with an « Escalade » by Nate Lowman.
But these associations, whether formal, historical, conceptual or simply unexpected, are not entirely due to coincidences, they derive from the many years of collecting by Marcel Brient, a cutting edge art and design lover, the same kind the Galerie kreo stands for–he was one of the first visitor when the gallery opened its doors in 1999.
A camaraderie and uninterrupted dialog materialized by this exhibition. Already in 2008 for the exhibition “Sixteen New Pieces” Marcel Brient wrote: “A marriage is, for example, putting a Naoto Fukasawa coat-hanger with my portrait by Felix Gonzales Torres, in other words, 85 kilos of sweets. This proximity will change the meaning and destination of the works. The coat-hanger loses its function.”
At home Marcel Brient lives with a Sam Francis print and binders with photographs of his entire collection; “it is all here, in my head” he says. At their home Clémence & Didier Krzentowski live with their c ollection of contemporary art, design, lights, and memories from collections past. It is also the encounter of the ascetic and the prolific, reunited by one state of mind: to attach more importance to the next piece of the puzzle rather than the one recently acquired.
At the Galerie kreo, works of art, design and poetry converse.
This is the singularity of the proposition. It is not only about seeing but also reading and telling, to fill the exhibition space following a poetic route. Speaking of poets: Arthur Rimbaud with his “Lettre du Voyant”, Paul Verlaine with his “Sagesse”, Antonin Artaud with his drawing and notebook. From the first day of his friendship with Louis Clayeux, Marcel Brient has shared his passion for original autographs. For Louis past and contemporary poetry, for Marcel autographs and portraits of writers. And one writer in particular, Susan Sontag in « The Volcano Lover” (1992) writes with accuracy about collecting: “Collections unite. Collections isolate. They unite those who love the same thing. (But no one loves the same as I do; enough.) They isolate from those who don’t share the passion. (Alas, almost everyone.) Then I’ll try not to talk about what interests me most. I’ll talk about what interests you. But this will remind me, often, of what I can’t share with you. Oh, listen. Don’t you see. Don’t you see how beautiful it is.”
There is no doubt we will all see how beautiful it is.
