The Louvre’s director, Laurence des Cars, has joined forces with Paris+ by Art Basel to pursue the museum’s policy of exhibiting modern and contemporary works in its gardens. And she has imparted new coherence to this project by inviting Ténèze, a leading figure on the contemporary French art scene, to curate the show. The collaboration between the Louvre and the Paris art fair has thus yielded an overall scheme specifically designed for the Tuileries and the grounds of the Musée Delacroix. For this inaugural version, Ténèze – the director of Les Abbatoirs, a regional contemporary art museum in Toulouse, France – has been asked to devise an exhibition that will be free and accessible to all visitors to the Tuileries, an essential feature of the city-wide event proposed by this year’s Paris art fair.
An archivist and palaeographer as well as executive curator of national heritage, Ténèze has had a dynamic impact on the two institutions she has headed, thanks to some remarkable, committed programming. As director of Les Abbatoirs since 2016 she has been redrawing the lines between the historic and modern scenes, organising certain exhibitions that establish links between contemporary art and history. Recent projects include a 2021 show devoted to The Lady and the Unicorn, sparking a dialogue between that masterpiece of medieval tapestry and modern artists such as Rebecca Horn and Suzanne Husky, plus another exhibition on art and psychiatry, titled La Déconniatrie: Art, Exil et Psychiatrie autour de François Tosquelles. In 2022, a spring/summer show was devoted to the artist Orlan, followed in October by another one at Les Abbatoirs featuring Nikki de Saint Phalle, Les Années 1980s: l’Art en Liberté.
For this new show, titled La Suite de l’Histoire – punning on ‘The Rest of the Story’ and ‘The Next Stage of History’ – Ténèze has brought together some twenty artists from various continents (Africa, North America, South America and Europe), ten of whom are women. This broad representation of modern and contemporary art – which often seeks to develop new artistic practices within the public sphere – has been combined with deliberate shifts in familiar landmarks, enabling Ténèze to propose a fresh view of the Tuileries Garden and the Musée Delacroix.She thereby addresses the many layers of the Tuileries’ existence: initially a political, royal and public place where, over the centuries, many monuments were installed; an architectural design playing on perspective, and on enclosed and open spaces as originally conceived by landscape architect André Le Nôtre; and finally, a living garden visited every year by ten million people, one that operates like an autonomous ecosystem.
‘I’m delighted with this inaugural exhibition,’ said the Louvre’s director, Laurence des Cars, ‘which is part of the new thrust I would like to impart to contemporary events in the Tuileries, and which participates in the rejuvenation and transformation of the autumnal display of sculptures in the garden alongside the new event, Paris+ par Art Basel. Ever since the seventeenth century, the Tuileries has been a public place, a venue for art. Annabelle Ténèze, whose career I have followed closely, first at the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Rochechouart and then at Les Abbatoirs in Toulouse, has accurately and brilliantly grasped the stakes of scale and artistic creativity, devising an exhibition that includes remarkable works by artists of every generation, from various backgrounds and with differing approaches. Like the Musée du Louvre and the Musée Delacroix, the Tuileries is a living, multifarious place. This exhibition is a way of writing, collectively, ‘the rest of the story’.
Meanwhile, Clément Deléphine, the director of Paris+ by Art Basel, stated: ‘I’m very pleased with the scope and ambition of this inaugural version of Sites – which will unfold in four emblematic spots in Paris, including the Tuileries Garden and the Musée Delacroix – and with the exhibition curated by Annabelle Ténèze. The sites are open to all, as is the discursive Conversations programme, extending the event beyond the Grand Palais Éphémère to a broader public. Although these events are taking place outside the fair, they are part of its conceptual focus, infusing new life into contemporary cultural discourse.’
" La Suite de l'Histoire" by Annabelle Ténèze
This first version of Sites in the Tuileries, part of the Paris+ by Art Basel fair, stresses the dialogue between the artists and the garden, based on a pre-selection made from proposals arising from a call for submissions from galleries.
La Suite de l’Histoire combines works that expand the various dimensions of the Tuileries Garden, simultaneously a historic site, a green space, and a popular attraction in the centre of the city. This selection is also a broad representation of contemporary art, keen to develop new artistic practices in the public sphere, liable to startle visitors thanks to calculated disturbances of their usual reference points. Roughly twenty works, in the Tuileries and the Musée Delacroix, break free from the traditional erection of monuments, challenging unfinished narratives. By proposing alternative monuments, subverting sculptural forms, or inhabiting the garden differently, the artists potentially reveal the ‘next stage of history’.
Three themes emerge from the roughly twenty works selected :
Alternative monuments
The artists in this group represent an aspect of art history in recent decades that has addressed the genealogy and meaning of public sculpture, in order to create forms that are different either in configuration or content. This section – of what might now be labelled ‘alternative monuments’ or ‘counter-monuments’ – opens with Blue Obelisk by Niki de Saint Phalle (France/USA, 1930–2002; Galerie Nathalie & Georges-Philippe Vallois, Paris). The first woman artist to have introduced sculptures on this scale into the public sphere, Saint Phalle erected this shimmery, flowery obelisk, like a monument to forgotten persons, in the early 1990s. Indeed, it was one of a series of works she made as part of her early activism on behalf of AIDS suffers and prevention of the disease. In contrast, the Argentinean artist Graciela Sacco (1956–2017; Rolf Art, Buenos Aires) broke free of the tradition of erecting monuments to produce what she called ‘urban interferences’ through her photographic displays of open mouths ready to speak, without being heard.
Several works ironically reactivate motifs that have repeatedly appeared in sculpture ever since antiquity, such as the lions by Nina Beier (Denmark, 1975; Croy Nielsen, Vienna; and Standard, Oslo) – here surprisingly blown over by the wind and picked at by birds. In the installation by Ugo Schiavi (France, 1987; Double V Gallery, Paris/Marseille), like some future archaeological site, plants and nature have overwhelmed the eroded sculptures that they henceforth cover, whilst mysterious telluric forces seem to have traversed and shattered the minimalist, mineral yet geometric forms arrayed by Christoph Weber (Austria, 1974: Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris).
The ‘rest of the story’ can be potential narratives, such as the luminous poems by Robert Montgomery (Great Britain, 1972; Magda Danysz, Paris/Shanghai/London) and the painting by Roméo Mivekannin (1986; Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, Abidjan/Dakar/Paris). Mivekannin, from Benin, suggests narratives that could have been written or remain to be written; he revisits layers of memory, harking back to the Louvre, replaying the great moments of painting: here The Wedding Feast at Cana incorporates his own self-portrait like some forgotten Black figure.
Optical games and subversion of forms
Opposite Saint Phalle’s Blue Obelisk, this theme is developed around the Chromointerfering Column by Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez (1923–1919; Galeria Continua, Havana/Les Moulins, Paris/Beijing/ Rome/San Gimignano/Sao Paulo). The luminous, green column by this major figure of Op Art and the kinetic movement that emerged in the 1950s rises above a fountain, like some unstable landmark. It introduces a group of works in which perception and viewpoint are brought into play, in which materials are subverted, forms are inverted, and gravity is upended. Thus a work in plaster and mixed pigments by Stijn Ank (Belgium, 1977; Michael Janssen Gallery, Berlin) seems to extract itself from the ground. Argentinean artist Alicia Penalba (1913–1982; A&R Fleury, Paris), part of the now century-long history of abstract art, transformed the way bronze can be elevated. Meanwhile, Grazia Varisco (1937; M77, Milan), a historic member of the Italian Op Art scene, subverted notions of horizon and stability by permutating the rigid forms of her coloured metal sculpture, which can be implemented differently depending on the venue. When it comes to artists of the younger generation, Zuzanna Czebatul (Poland, 1986; Sans Titre, Paris) enlarged a round shape in a contemporary Pop manner: the apparently heavy object is in fact inflatable, like a giant pill rather than a circle of ancestral motifs. Czebatul’s work becomes a huge, subversive molecule whose energetic mutation is shared by Kim Farkas (France, 1988; Downs & Ross, New York). Of Peranakan stock, Farkas forges a contemporary, techno-organic version of ancestral rites though sculptures made from luminous resin.
Occupying a garden
Who occupies a garden – its regular users or its statues? The people who pass through it or the plants which grow there? This last theme concerns all who inhabit the garden, like trees and flowers, from habitual strollers to people just crossing it. Although flowers and plants are already present in the works by Saint Phalle and Schiavi, a ground sculpture of grasses by Nigerian artist Otobong Nkanga (1974; In Situ Fabienne Leclerc, Paris) forms words that ask to be read. French architect Odile Decq (France, 1955; Philippe Gravier, Paris) welcomes beholders into her pavilion in order to begin a dialogue with plants – what they tell us about ourselves and what we can do for them. Michael Dean (Great Britain, 1978; Mendes Wood DM, Brussels/Sao Paulo/New York) prompts us to wander in search of his metallic figures, like a treasure hunt on the cold yet lively trail of a party. Who else will we run into? A whole cast of characters, among whom we make our own way across the garden, composing our own story: totemic faces by Franz West (Austria, 1947–2012; David Zwirner, New York/London/Hong Kong/Paris); fantastic figures of musicians by Mexican artist Raúl de Nieves (1983; Moran Moran, New York; Company Gallery, New York; Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris); hybrid creatures in bronze by Tal R (Denmark, 1967; Anton Kern Gallery, New York); and an alter-ego stroller taking a picture of an unknown scene with his smartphone, rendered statuesque by Judith Hopf (Germany, 1969; Deborah Schamoni, Munich).
It should be noted that the roughly twenty chosen artists, ten of whom are women, hail from four continents (Africa, North America, South America and Europe) and are represented by galleries also present on various continents (Africa, Asia, North America, South America and Europe).
At the musée Delacroix
Afro-American sculptor Thaddeus Mosley (1926; Karma, New York) glorifies the power of wood. He has been working in wood for over half a century in an industrial workshop in Pittsburgh. He begins each sculpture with a tree felled by the city’s Forestry Division. Using a mallet and chisel, he transforms the reclaimed wood into a sculpture, giving it new life by carving striking biomorphic shapes in a process he compares to jazz improvisation. His handiwork is visible on every surface. Mosley’s work relates not only to the history of modern organic sculpture by the likes of Constantin Brancusi and Isamu Noguchi, but also to the historic arts of western and central Africa. In recent years he has begun to work in bronze, which enables him to situate his large sculptures outdoors. His recent works, varying in size from tiny to very large, can be seen inside the Musée Delacroix as well as in the museum’s garden. Painter Sam Gilliam (1933–2022) described Mosley as ’a jazz critic, post-man, father, keeper of trees anywhere – old trees, round trees, big trees, heavy trees.’
ARTISTS ON SHOW AT THE TUILERIES GARDEN AND MUSÉE DELACROIX
Tuileries garden
Stijn Ank (Belgium, 1977) represented by the Michael Janssen Gallery (Berlin)
Nina Beier (Denmark, 1975) represented by Croy Nielsen (Vienna) and Standard Oslo (Oslo)
Carlos Cruz-Diez (Venezuela, 1923–2019) represented by Galeria Continua (Havana/Les Moulins/Paris/Beijing/Rome/San Gimignano/Sao Paulo)
Zuzanna Czebatul (Poland, 1986) represented by Sans Titre (Paris)
Michael Dean (Great Britain, 1978) represented by Mendes Wood DM (Brussels/Sao Paulo/New York)
Odile Decq (France, 1955) represented by Philippe Gravier (Paris)
Raúl de Nieves (Mexico, 1983) represented by Morán Morán (New York), Company Gallery (New York) and Fitzpatrick Gallery (Paris)
Kim Farkas (France, 1988) represented by Downs & Ross (New York)
Judith Hopf (Germany, 1969) represented by Deborah Schamoni (Munich)
Roméo Mivekannin (Benin, 1986) represented by Galerie Cécile Fakhoury (Abidjan/Dakar/Paris)
Robert Montgomery (Great Britain, 1972) represented by Magda Danysz (Paris)
Otobong Nkanga (Nigeria, 1974) represented by In Situ Fabienne Leclerc (Paris).
Alicia Penalba (Argentina, 1913–1982) represented by A&R Fleury (Paris)
Graciela Sacco (Argentina, 1956–2017) represented by Rolf Art (Buenos Aires)
Niki de Saint Phalle (France/USA, 1930–2002) represented by Galerie Nathalie & Georges-Philippe Vallois (Paris)
Ugo Schiavi (France, 1987) represented by Double V Gallery (Paris, Marseille)
Tal R (Denmark, 1967) represented by Anton Kern Gallery (New York)
Grazia Varisco (Italy, 1937) represented by M77 (Milan)
Christoph Weber (Austria, 1974) represented by Galerie Jocelyn Wolff (Paris)
Franz West (Austria, 1947–2012) represented by David Zwirner (New York/Hong Kong/London/Paris)
Musée Delacroix
Thaddeus Mosley (USA, 1926) represented by Karma (New York)
