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Villa Paloma (36)
Erik Bulatov, Paintings and Drawings 1966-2013
Written by Elodie Biancheri
Exhibition Views
Ed Ruscha, Drawings from the UBS Art Collection
Erik Bulatov is a central figure in contemporary Russian art. The Nouveau Musée National de Monaco is organizing a retrospective through a selection of paintings and drawings dating from 1966 to the present.
Despite of a relatively small corpus of work, Bulatov managed to get round the constraints of official Soviet art by developing a very personal style.
His paintings are mostly iconoclastic assemblies in which image and language are linked. In landscapes, portraits, cityscapes he uses both the iconography of the Soviet regime as well as more traditional representations of nature as his inspiration. The choice of colours, geometric compositions and the use of images from films, art history or advertising define Bulatov’s visual language. The typography of the words and their meanings play a crucial role in the spatial composition of his paintings, ranging from a poem by Nekrasov to more mundane words on street signs.
The issues which interest the artist have led him to explore the vocabulary in both the Russian avant-garde and more academic painting of the nineteenth century. He looks at the way the picture space works as an interface between him, his message, and the viewer.
The exhibition will be held at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco at the Villa Paloma from 28 June to 29 September 2013. It will consist of thirty large paintings and 50 drawings. First shown in Europe in 1988 at the Kunsthalle Zurich and the Centre Pompidou, Bulatov has had numerous monographic exhibitions, at the Musée Maillol, Paris (1999), the Tretyakov-Gallery, Moscow (2003 and 2006) the Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover (2006), the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2007) and MAMCO - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Geneva (2009/2010). This is a new opportunity to see the work of Bulatov on the eve of his 80th birthday.
Erik Bulatov was born in 1933 in Sverdlovsk, Russia. He lives and works in Paris.
After graduating from the Surikov Art Institute in Moscow in 1958, he began working as an illustrator of children's books in collaboration with Oleg Vassiliev. Despite the many constraints imposed by the Soviet regime, Bulatov only left Russia after the fall of the USSR.
His works have been exhibited in numerous group exhibitions dealing with Russian art of the twentieth century: OSTALGIA, New Museum, New York (2011) RUSSIA! Guggenheim Museums, New York (2005) and Bilbao (2006), Berlin-Moscow / Moscow-Berlin 1950-2000, Tretyakov-Gallery, Moscow (2003). He also participated in the 43rd Venice Biennale (1988) and the 3rd Moscow Biennale (2009).
The NMNM will as well explore links between Erik Bulatov and Ed Ruscha. To this end La Table des Matières on the ground floor of Villa Paloma will present a selection of drawings, from the UBS Art Collection, made by Ruscha between 1960 and 1970.
Selection of works shown
Exhibition views at Villa Sauber
Exhibition views at Villa Paloma
It has taken Nathalie Rosticher Giordano two years to locate and process archives in Monaco’s institutional collections and administrative archives, in the private collections of architects, promoters and other interested parties, but also in Parisian institutions.
Villa Paloma
56, boulevard du Jardin Exotique, 98000 Monaco
Until May 12, 2013
Villa Sauber
17, avenue Princesse Grace
Until January 5, 2014
Villa Sauber will be closed from June 3 to 16 for a partial renewal of the works shown MONACOPOLIS, integrating pieces from the long term deposit of the collections of Performing Arts made by the Société des Bains de Mer to the NMNM (Costumes, accessories and model set designs) on the occasion of the celebration of their 150th anniversary.
Selection of works shown
Exhibition views
Commissaires : Andrea Bellini et Dieter Schwarz
Une coproduction avec le Castello di Rivoli, Turin
Two catalogues, Houses and Frauen, with critical essays by the two curators, Andrea Bellini and Dieter Schwarz, are published by Richter & Fey and the NMNM on the occasion of the exhibitions. Houses will be available in September 2012.
OCEANOMANIA
Souvenirs of Mysterious Seas, from the expedition to the aquarium
A project by Mark Dion
April 12 - September 30, 2011
NMNM-Villa Paloma and Oceanographic Museum of Monaco
Selection of works shown
Groupe Signe 1971 - 1974, Street Art in a Museum ?
Groupe Signe is a group of artists created post-1968, led by the painters Claude Rosticher and Roland Marghieri and the photographers Michel Cresp and Pierre Lequien.The group identifies itself by carrying out its interventions in public places, based on themes such as advertising or the creation of more poetic worlds.
Groupe Signe fits into a dual context. The first is national, for young artistic creation wants to break free of Parisian domination by proclaiming its provincial roots, and the group is part of a real awakening on the Côte d'Azur. The second is international, for the art of the times is undergoing a fundamental transformation: situation and attitude are becoming more important than the form and the work, favouring real life experience and relations to others and soliciting the participation of all."
Past collaborators in some of the Group's events: Jean-Claude Adam, Pierre Blanc, Stanislas Estrangin, Yvette Gournet, François Gross, Patricia Heine, Michel Isnard, Robert Lepine, Serge Macaferi, Yves Popet, Jacques Riousse, Gérard Serre, Vidéo Group 6
Selection of works shown
Exhibition views
The knowledge, study, conservation, diffusion and enrichment of the cultural heritage are a National Museum's fundamental missions. The question of the cultural heritage becomes all the more crucial because it is one of the pillars of the notion of sustainable development, theme chosen for the 2011 edition of the Journée du Patrimoine in Monaco.
The collections of a Museum grow not only thanks to acquisitions but also to gifts, loans and deposits of generous patrons. Villa Paloma's Fall Programme therefore shows how cultural heritage is formed through three exhibitions and a film.
The patrons' action can also be reflected in the support given to projects destined to the public, such as the new space on the ground floor of Villa Paloma – "La Table des Matières" – imagined by designer Jonathan Olivares as a multi-purpose and progressive place, stimulating curiosity and reflection. This exhibition offers a general view of this space which will be inaugurated in January 2012.
The first and second floors welcome the collection of the earliest vintage prints of the Principality of Monaco put together by Christian Burle, recently acquired by the Prince's Palace and put at the NMNM's disposal for this show by H.S.H. The Sovereign Prince to be shown to the public for the first time.
The second floor's videoroom presents Javier Téllez's film Letter on the blind, For the use of those who see, 2007 which entered the NMNM's collection thanks to the government's support and – until 2009 – to a budget specifically dedicated to acquisitions.
The third floor, dedicated to H.R.H. The Princess of Hanover with portraits by great contemporary artists – Karl Lagerfeld, Helmut Newton, Francesco Vezzoli, Andy Warhol and Robert Wilson – tells Her privileged relationship with artistic creation and emphasizes Her generosity since most of these works have been given to the NMNM.
Exhibition views
Publication coedited by the NMNM and MACK Books
AN ARTIST'S SELECTION BY THOMAS DEMAND
The Nouveau Musée National de Monaco entrusts German artist Thomas Demand with a role of guest curator for the opening exhibition of Villa Paloma.
"Monaco! Surrealism! Nature? There's not much nature to be seen, even though the whole country of Monaco sits on a rough rock riddled by caves that were inhabited by homini grimaldi even before anyone painted animals on the walls in Lascaux. There are traffic islands, well-tended hydrocultures, and small parks, but there is nothing here that could cater to my inborn Teutonic yearning for the wild. However, there is a lifestyle that would have appealed to the Surrealists (and, in fact, did): fabulous botanical gardens, which provided the basis for the image for the show's invitation card, and, next to the Villa Paloma, an almost vacant anthropological museum that gave us the showcase for Chris Garofalo's porcelain models. So, I thought to myself, if there is any talk of nature here, it has to be of domesticated nature - that is, potted plants, gardens, theme parks and models of wild growth. Transformations, every kind of presentation, interpretation and, finally, symbolic representation." Extract from Thomas Demand's text in the publication of the exhibition.
The concept of the exhibition refers to Magritte's short-lived magazine, La Carte d'après Nature. From 1952 on, and for only fourteen issues, he encompasses poetry,illustrations, short stories and other contributions, and sends them out as postcards.In a similar way, the artist Thomas Demand has selected artworks for the exhibitionwhich are interconnected in a poetic, associative and elegant manner from artistswho all have their lines of thinking about Nature and her representations.Two ideas dictated the combination of the works by the selected artists: forms of atamed nature and the abrupt dialect of Surrealism fashioned by Magritte, which subsequentlybecame a source of inspiration. Just as Magritte himself always relatedworks to virulent ideas of diverse origins, works of a wider generational span havebeen included in Demand's selection which includes amongst others Kudjoe Affutu,Saâdane Afif, Becky Beasley, Martin Boyce, Tacita Dean, Thomas Demand, ChrisGarofalo, Luigi Ghirri, Rodney Graham, Henrik Håkansson, Anne Holtrop,August Kotzsch, René Magritte, Robert Mallet-Stevens, Jan and Joël Martel and Ger VanElk.
This exhibition is organized with the support of the René Magritte Foundation - Brussels.
* La carte d'après Nature, based on an original concept by René Magritte (1952) ©Charly Herscovici - Bruxelles.
Exhibition Views
The Nouveau Musée National de Monaco presents its latest exhibition, LE SILENCE Une fiction which will be held at Villa Paloma, NMNM. The work of 25 artists will invite the visitor, via a fictional approach, to reconsider the trace that our civilisation will leave behind. The curator, Simone Menegoi, states that this exhibition offers a "fantastic account, a form of narrative décor which tells the story of a planet that has become uninhabitable for reasons unknown..."
From 2nd February until 3rd April 2012, LE SILENCE Une fiction will gather a corpus of contemporary works, ranging from Arman's Accumulations to Hiroshi Sugimoto's photographs, which present the visitor with a world that is both strange and familiar. The effect is one of a reversal of history; as if the works displayed, artefacts of our contemporary era, were being observed through the eyes of an archaeologist or anthropologist from the future.
Part scientific experiment, part fictional narrative, the exhibition invites the visitor to use his imagination and depict a story. A substantial part of the exhibition consists of photographs and videos set against each other within the traditional landscape genre, yet seen from a particular perspective: the aesthetics of the contemporary Sublime, drawing on the spectacle of environmental disasters and economic collapse. Another prominent group of works is comprised of sculptures and assemblages from artists, active since the 1960's, who use every day and waste material to create. Work by American artist Michael E. Smith, whose sculptures are made from waste collected in his home town, the urban desert of Detroit, completes the exhibition as 'fossils' of our consumer society.
With this exhibition, the NMNM continues its tradition of supporting exploratory missions, a project heartily endorsed by the Principality. The Nouveau Musée National de Monaco thereby supported Adrien Missika's expedition across the Karakum desert to Darvaza, in Turkmenistan. A work entitled Darvaza, created especially for this exhibition, is projected into the narrative journey. In the same vein, the museum also enabled the curators Simone Menegoi and Cristiano Raimondi, along with art critic Chris Sharp, to explore the American town of Detroit. During this trip they met the artist Michael E. Smith and found inspiration for this exhibition.
LE SILENCE Une fiction at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco is curated by Simone Menegoi and co-curated by Cristiano Raimondi (NMNM). A short story by Chris Sharp, accompanies the fictional drive of the exhibition.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication of around 250 pages from the NMNM, edited by Mack Books and distributed worldwide. This bilingual publication includes critical texts (one of them written by Marc Augé) and Chris Sharp's novella.
During the opening of the exhibition, Italian artist Linda Fregni Nagler gave a performance : Things that Death Cannot Destroy(Part 5 – The Silence), 2012
List of Artists
Dove AlloucheVladimir Arkhipov
Arman
Bartolomeo Bimbi
Maurice Blaussyld
Michel Blazy
Karl Blossfeldt
Brassaï
Peter Buggenhout
Carlos Casas
Romeo Castellucci
Lourdes Castro
Tony Cragg
Daniel Gustav Cramer
Geert Goiris
Jochen Lempert
Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre
Adrien Missika
Linda Fregni Nagler
Walter Pichler
Rudolf Polanszky
Pierre Savatier
Erin Shirreff
Michael E. Smith
Daniel Spoerri
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Curators' biographies
Villa Paloma