FONDATION LOUIS VUITTON
ESPACE LOUIS VUITTON / VENEZIA
ERNEST PIGNON-ERNEST
JE EST UN AUTRE
60th International art exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
Collateral Event

Curated by Suzanne Pagé and Hans Ulrich Obrist
Exhibition: 20 April – 24 November 2024
Monday – Sunday | 10.30 am – 7 pm.
Open on public holidays. Free entrance.
Calle del Ridotto 1353, 30124 Venice – Italy
https://en.louisvuitton.com/eng-nl/point-of-sale/italy/espace-louis-vuitton-venezia
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ERNEST PIGNON-ERNEST

JE EST UN AUTRE

20.04. – 24.11.2024

Collateral Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia

For the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, the Fondation Louis Vuitton has invited French artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest to present Je Est Un Autre, a unique exhibition conceived especially for the Espace Louis Vuitton Venezia. The exhibition is produced as part of the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s “Hors-les-murs” programme, which unfolds at the Espaces Louis Vuitton in Tokyo, Munich, Venice, Beijing, Seoul and Osaka, delivering on the Fondation’s commitment to bring international artistic projects to a broad audience.

The notion of “the foreigner” has been an inherent element in Ernest Pignon-Ernest’s work since he began his career in the 1960s. For this exhibition, his repertoire of migrants, itinerants, and poets has been enriched by the creation of two new faces, those of major poets, the Russian Anna Akhmatova and the Iranian Forough Farrokhzad, who together with Pier Paolo Pasolini, Arthur Rimbaud, Antonin Artaud, Jean Genet, among others form the heart of the exhibition.

Since the 1960s, and several decades before the emergence of the artforms now termed “street art”, Pignon-Ernest was already paving a singularly adventurous path, combining technical mastery, existential probity, and the ability to “poetically inhabit the world” – and doing so with exceptional openness. Throughout his career, he has accomplished the rare miracle of reconciling uncompromising ethical commitment with exacting, innovative artistic expression to the point that some of his works – such as the representation of those shot dead in La Commune and his vagabond Rimbaud – have been reproduced in hundreds of thousands of copies and have become icons of modern times. His image of the French 19th-century poet Arthur Rimbaud has, for example, in many cases, replaced the standard photograph that was previously used on covers of the poet’s works.

Everywhere and on every continent, including on the beach of Ostia where Pasolini was assassinated, Pignon-Ernest explores the destinies of individuals who break with convention or who are as myths to be revived. In doing so, the artist takes an unprece- dented risk each time; the very risk that haunted Rimbaud when he persisted in “finding the place and the formula”.

The artist creates his life size images in selected sites and projects in everyday environments in a meaningful way, a living human presence through a strategic combination of image and site. His work is always conceived based on the potential of its interaction with a place, whose historical, mythical, or political resonances he strives to explore. He allows traces of time to meld with his work to the point of dissolving it.

To this day, Pignon-Ernest’s Parisian studio is in La Ruche, the artists’ residency founded in the early 20th century to welcome foreign artists from around the world, including Akhmatova in 1910-1911. His oeuvre has attracted the interest of artists ranging from Francis Bacon – who began compiling a file on the artist’s work in 1976, to Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Barthélémy Toguo who has introduced his oeuvre throughout Africa through exhibitions organised by his foundation. JR, French photographer and street artist, considers Pignon-Ernest as “[his] inspiration.”

The exhibition, curated by Suzanne Pagé and Hans Ulrich Obrist, in dialogue with Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, is accompa- nied by a publication bringing together numerous reproductions, comments by the artist, “Notes for Ernest” by Dominique Gonza- lez-Foerster and a conversation between the artist, Suzanne Pagé and Hans Ulrich Obrist.

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About the artist ERNEST PIGNON-ERNEST

Ernest Pignon-Ernest (b. 1942, Nice) lives and works in Paris.

Since his first personal exhibition in 1979 at the ARC – Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Pignon-Ernest’s works have been displayed in museums and institutions including the Palais des Papes, Avignon; La Biennale di Venezia, Italy; the National Art Museum of China (Beijing); Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille; MAMAC, Nice; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany; and the Fonds H & E Leclerc, Landerneau, France. Among Pignon-Ernest’s best known urban interventions are: La Commune, Paris,1971; Maïakovski, Avignon, 1972; Rimbaud, de Paris in Charleville-Mézières, 1978; Pablo Neruda, Chili, 1980-1981; Naples, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1995; Derrière la vitre, Lyon-Paris, 1996; Antonin Artaud, Hôpital Charles Foix, Ivry-sur-Seine, 1997; Robert Desnos / Louise Lame / Gérard de Nerval, Paris, 2001-2002; Durban, Soweto, South Africa, 2001-2002; Maurice Audin, Alger, 2003; Jean Genet, Brest, 2006; Les Mystiques, Avignon, 2007; Prison Saint-Paul, Lyon, 2012; Pasolini, Rome, Matera, Ostia, 2015; Victor Segalen, Fonds H & E Leclerc pour la culture, Landerneau, 2022.

Pignon-Ernest has also created significant stage designs for theatre and ballet productions. He was officially admitted to France’s Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2021.

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Pagé, pictured inside the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Courtesy Luc Castel

About the curators Suzanne Pagé

Suzanne Pagé was Director of the ARC, the contemporary department of the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris from 1973 to 1988, before becoming the Museum Director, a position she held from 1988 to 2006. She first exhibited Ernest Pignon-Ernest in 1979. Since 2006, Suzanne Pagé has been Artistic Director of Fondation Louis Vuitton. Suzanne Pagé curated the French Pavilion at the 42nd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, in 1986 (with the artist Daniel Buren), and at the 51st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, in 2005 (with the artist Annette Messager); the French Pavilion was awarded the Golden Lion for the Best National Participation both times. She has curated numerous historical, modern, and contemporary art exhibitions at the institutions she has led and has written a significant number of books and catalogues.

Hans Ulrich Obrist lives and works in London, United Kingdom. Artistic Director of the Serpentine Gallery in London since 2006 and Senior Advisor to Luma Arles, France, since 2010, he was also a contemporary art curator at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris from 1991 to 2006. He has organized numerous exhibitions on every continent. His recent book Une vie in Progress, published by Editions Le Seuil, lists his many publications.

About the Fondation Louis Vuitton

The Fondation Louis Vuitton serves the public interest and is exclusively dedicated to contemporary art and artists, as well as 20th-century works to which their inspirations can be traced. The Collection and the exhibitions it organises seek to engage a broad public. The magnificent building created by the Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, and already recognized as an emblematic example of the 21st-century architecture, constitutes the Fondation’s seminal artistic statement. Since its opening in October 2014, the Fondation has welcomed more than 10 million visitors from France and around the world.

The Fondation Louis Vuitton commits to engage in international initiatives, both at the Fondation and in partnership with public and private institutions, including other foundations and museums such as the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg (Icons of Modern Art: The Shchukin Collection in 2016 and The Morozov Collection in 2021), the MoMA in New York (Being Modern: MoMA in Paris), and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London (The Courtauld Collection. A Vision for Impressionism) among others. The artistic direction also developed a specific “Hors-les-murs” programme taking place within the Espaces Louis Vuitton in Tokyo, Munich, Venice, Beijing, Seoul and Osaka, which are exclusively devoted to exhibitions of works from the Collection. These exhibitions are open to the public free of charge and promoted through specific cultural communication.