The contemporary art museum making waves on a French Riviera island
A visit to the newly launched contemporary art museum, the Fondation Carmignac hidden away on the island of Porquerolles along the French Riviera, is somewhat of an odyssey, which is exactly what its founders intended. ‘It’s a kind of striptease, an invitation to shed your museum-going habits and leave them behind,’ says Charles Carmignac, director and rock musician, whose father, art collector and financer, Edouard Carmignac, acquired the 1980s Provençal-style villa and vineyard Domaine de la Courtade in 2013.
After three years of construction, the seven hectare property was transformed into a luminous 2,000 sq m exhibition space that extends 7m underground and includes a Louis Benech-designed wild ‘non-garden’ with colossal contemporary sculptures. ‘My father wanted to share his private art collection, but to get those works to “speak” to the public, we wanted them to be heard in a place that is a world apart,’ explains Charles.
After a 15-minute boat ride from Hyères, visitors walk through Porquerolles’ government-protected pine forest and enter the museum barefoot, in direct contact with the cool stone floor at the rate of 50 people every 30 minutes. The title of the inaugural show, ‘Sea of Desire’ (inspired by a billboard-size canvas by Ed Ruscha installed on the former tennis court), begins outside with a monumental bronze sea monster by Miquel Barcelo, whose 16m curved canvas of strange squid-like creatures is another highlight. The aquatic theme abounds, from the shimmering glass and water ceiling projecting ripples on the museum floor to the whooshing fountain of suspended fish by Bruce Nauman.
‘It’s really a “collection exhibition” – 70 works that follow mysterious connections and a crossover of certain themes,’ says curator Dieter Buchhart, who paired Roy Lichtenstein with two Renaissance works by Botticelli to conjure a rebellious break with the traditional representation of feminine beauty. In eight interconnected spaces that range from ‘Pop Icons Reloaded’ to ‘Fallen Angels’, major artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol and Gerhard Richter are displayed alongside powerful photojournalistic works.
The upper level, entitled ‘Brave New World Revisited’, refers to the dark prophecies in Aldous Huxley’s 1931 novel Brave New World (written in nearby Sanary-sur-Mer) and the author’s 1958 essay on how society was evolving in a similar direction. ‘The idea was to revisit the same idea, 60 years later after Huxley, to see how quickly our way of communication has changed,’ Buchhart explains. ‘You see it in a smiling face by Keith Haring, who was a precursor of the emoji culture, and in Brazilian artist Paulo Nimer Pjota’s canvas, Anti-Smiley, which represents the emptiness and loneliness of the virtual world.’
In contrast, the visit ends with an uplifting note: in Speed of Silence by French composer Michel Redolfi, visitors step onto a slab integrated with the floor. As sound seeps through the stone and vibrates throughout your body, it triggers a visual mirage of the natural splendour of the outdoor landscape, framed by the window.
INFORMATION
‘Sea of Desire’ is on view until 4 November. For more information, visit the Fondation Carmignac website
ADDRESS
Fondation Carmignac
Villa Carmignac
Porquerolles Island
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
-
A new limited-edition Rhodes piano and Gibson doubleneck guitar aim for the stars
The new Rhodes Mk8 Earth Edition piano and Gibson Jimmy Page EDS-1275 Doubleneck guitar revisit classic instruments at a price
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
The new interior design trends we spotted at Salone del Mobile 2024
These are the interior design trends to look out for in 2024 and beyond, from soft upholstery to conversation pits and low dining
By Rosa Bertoli Published
-
Tiffany & Co nods to its theatrical history with a surreal new campaign
Tiffany & Co campaign ‘With Love, Since 1837’ sees Dan Tobin Smith and set designer Rachel Thomas create an offbeat set
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Damien Hirst takes over Château La Coste
Damien Hirst’s ‘The Light That Shines’ at Château La Coste includes new and existing work, and takes over the entire 500-acre estate in Provence
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Tia-Thuy Nguyen encases Chateau La Coste oak tree in tonne of stainless steel strips
Tia-Thuy Nguyen’s ‘Flower of Life’ lives in the grounds of sculpture park and organic winery Château La Coste in France
By Harriet Quick Published
-
Paris art exhibitions: a guide to exhibitions this weekend
As Emily in Paris fever puts the city of love at the centre of the cultural map, stay-up-to-date with our guide to the best Paris art exhibitions
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Cyprien Gaillard on chaos, reorder and excavating a Paris in flux
We interviewed French artist Cyprien Gaillard ahead of his major two-part show, ‘Humpty \ Dumpty’ at Palais de Tokyo and Lafayette Anticipations (until 8 January 2023). Through abandoned clocks, love locks and asbestos, he dissects the human obsession with structural restoration
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Remembering Pierre Soulages (1919-2022), a pioneer of post-war abstraction
Pierre Soulages, the pioneering French printmaker, sculptor and ‘painter of black’, has died aged 102
By Diane Theunissen Published
-
Reclaim the Earth, urge artists at Paris’ Palais de Tokyo
We discover the group exhibition ‘Reclaim the Earth’, a wake-up call for humans to reconsider our relationship with the planet (until 4 September 2022)
By Amy Serafin Last updated
-
Jason Boyd Kinsella’s curious portraits dissect the architecture of human
Based on the Myers-Briggs personality test, Jason Boyd Kinsella’s new portrait series, on show at Perrotin in Paris, examines the building blocks of human existence
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Last updated
-
Kader Attia dissects multiculturalism, colonialism and capitalism in Doha show
Kader Attia addresses postcolonial trauma and the need for psychiatric repair in a new show, ‘On Silence', at Doha's Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art
By TF Chan Last updated