In Avignon, the treasures of the Lambert Collection tell an intimate story of contemporary art

Baptized “An intimate history of art”, the exhibition of the Collection Lambert, in Avignon, reveals more than 250 works from the donation of the gallery owner and contemporary French art dealer Yvon Lambert, including those of major artists such as as Basquiat, Cy Twombly, Donald Judd or even Miquel Barceló.

Until June 4, the Lambert Collection in Avignon is taking advantage of the first publication of his works to hang his paintings, sculptures, videos and photographs by major artists of the second half of the 20th century in its two adjacent buildings. From the American Bruce Nauman to the Swiss Thomas Hirschhorn, it is a faultless dialogue between the United States and Europe, the testimonies of a great French dealer in love with artists, and not only those he represented. in half a century of activity.

1. In Thomas Hirschhorn’s Labyrinth

Since the inauguration of the Lambert Collection in the Hôtel de Caumont in 2000, this masterful piece by Thomas Hirschhorn had not been shown. Here it is again in the introduction to the route designed by Stéphane Ibars, which brings together 250 works out of the 600 in the donation. In meters of metal chains are imprisoned works of all kinds: copies of masterpieces found at the Puces, press images, video archives… A passage that we take to “contaminate ourselves with reality and art “.

2. The CNAP, recipient and facilitator

The National Center for Plastic Arts is the recipient, for the State, of the donation made by Yvon Lambert in 2012. These are works that the dealer has exhibited and decided to keep, purchases or orders made especially for the two 18th century Avignon hotels brought together in 2015 by the architects Laurent and Cyrille Berger. For the first time, a work on the collection is published (ed. Dilecta, 440 pp., 45 euros) and serves as an argument for this very broad presentation allowing a better understanding of the choices of the gallerist and to note certain omissions (the Figuration libre, apart from Hervé di Rosa, is totally absent, few Support/Surface works…).

3. Breakups and promises

Six themes structure the itinerary of the exhibition, but the works can be read completely independently. Among the “New avant-gardes” are an acrylic on mirror by Bertrand Lavier as well as a serigraph by Barbara Kruger. In front of them, we carefully scrutinize the magnetic tape of the Lithuanian Zilvanas Kempinas, floating jerkily in the air thanks to a fan. A little further, it is a question of proving that painting is not dead. For proof: Miquel Barceló, Jean-Michel Basquiat (an entire room!), Agnes Martin, Sol LeWitt and Niele Toroni (two permanent commissions from the Lambert Collection).

4. The question of the ancient

In this section dedicated to the question of antiquity, bringing together Francesco Clemente, Cy Twombly and Anselm Kiefer, appears this huge installation by Giulio Paolini, never exhibited before. Broken plaster casts and white canvases crossed with black lines lie on the ground like a Greek or Roman ruin. Drawings of Doric columns, taken from Vitruvian-style architectural manuals, converge towards the center of the room as if a catastrophe had destroyed the perfection of the ancients.

5. A new cage for wild animals

With its canvases by Daniel Buren shattered on the wall, its vertical sculpture in galvanized steel by Donald Judd and its all-white Wall Piece by Sol LeWitt, this room serves as a setting for a small and fragile minimalist sculpture by Carl Andre. Is it a new cage aux fauves, to use the 1905 expression which described the hanging at the Salon d’Automne of paintings by Matisse, Derain and Vlaminck surrounding a small bust, designated by the critic Louis Vauxcelles as a “Donatello among the beasts”? Here, a tribute to the minimalist revolution.

6. Conclusion in the form of a question

By way of conclusion, a long line of slates by Land Artist Richard Long leads to a series of boxes (the real one, its photographic image and its definition). Boxes for transporting works of art, these objects recall Yvon Lambert’s activity as a dealer, from the opening of his first gallery in Vence in 1962 to the closing of his New York space in 2003. The conclusion, rather paradoxical for a dealer, therefore launches the postulate that the idea of ​​art and art are the same thing. To meditate.

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Lambert Collection – Museum of Contemporary Art
5 rue Violette, 84000 Avignon
Until June 4

String and harp quintet – Collection Lambert – February 10, 2017