I went to the collaborative curatorial exhibition Dynasty by the Palais de Tokyo and the Musée d'art Modern in Paris earlier this month.I was particularly interested in seeing, what feels like, yet another manifestation of an established art institution's lust for showing work by emerging new talents - some of whom, may or may not, be the next biggest thing and some of whom, may or may not, have anything but youth to convince you their presence in these shows is legit.
With the recent Whitney Biennale and the New Museum Triennal as American examples of this fashionable trend, I was wondering how the French version would compare, and, if, in my short review for Corduroy I clearly found the Parisian version of the concept better concocted, with my visit I also started to wonder how 'new' this thirst for young new art really was?
Obviously throughout art history young age never obstructed recognition or hype, and so clearly that isn't what is new here - there are dozens of examples of artists that were recognized, revered and admired before they hit thirty - by 27 (age of his death) Basquiat had amassed quite some fortune and been honored with numerous gallery retrospectives, by the age of 24 Picasso was selling to Leo and Gertrude Stein and throwing fancy diner parties in Montmartre, and by age 29 Michelangelo had a few exploits under his belt including two chef d'oeuvres La Pietá and David (respectively done at 24 and 29) and 4 years working for the at the Medici family (which he left at age 17).
So artists can be artists before they are older than Jesus for sure, yet has something changed in the way our institutions - these large, highly profiled centers - are portraying them? Portrayed more for their emergence and youth, as much as their art and craft? In 1953, the Guggenheim Museum held an exhibition entitled "Younger European Painters" on the then new and exciting expressionist movement, in which many were over 33 - like Pierre Soulages, 34 or William Scott, 40. Unlike Dynasty, though, it seems youth wasn't what brought these painters together but rather the unity of their aesthetic - and in a way accessorily a particularly young one at the time.
A second difference seems to be the role the institutions are starting to embrace. If Basquiat was world-renowned with gallery representation and enamored collectors by his death in 1988, it was only four years later that the first museum - the Whiteny - curated a solo exhibition of his work. Could it be, then, that today our large are institutions partake in and expose a 'selection process' that once was more hidden - with gallerists, critics, a bit of time and artistic self-doubt that led certain artists to become part of a certain canon and others not as much?
(images: All taken at Dynasty - Upper: in the Musée d'art Modern de la Ville de Paris Imaginez Maintenant by Robin Meier and Ali Momeni; Lower: in the Palais de Tokyo, a work by Julien Dubuisson entitled Visite Exterieure d'une Grotte)
