Jean-Paul Clavry on the Louis Vuitton Foundation collection, Bernard Arnault and the development of taste

Jean-Paul Clavry is one of the key figures in the modern art market and museum activities. He rarely gives interviews. Meanwhile, it was he who came up with the idea of ​​creating the Louis Vuitton Art Foundation back in 1990, when he met Bernard Arnault (Forbes personal fortune $96,7 billion, LVMH holding). For the next 24 years, they worked together towards the goal of creating this world institution, which brought together “Icons of Modernist Art” at an exhibition in Paris. Shchukin Collection" more than 1 million 250 thousand visitors. Claverie has an unusual background: at the university he studied medicine and law, and became an adviser to the French Minister of Culture, Jacques Lang. He now heads the corporate department of LVMH, which oversees the Foundation's art collection. It was he who stood at the origins of LVMH’s modern communication strategy, which now consists of impressive artistic and cultural projects in tune with the French “savoir-faire” and the corporate motto “excellence, innovation, creativity”.

At the Pushkin Museum named after. A. S. Pushkin opens an exhibition of the collection of the Louis Vuitton Foundation, which completely occupies the building of the Gallery of European and American Art of the 65th and 22th centuries, the exhibition includes XNUMX works of art by XNUMX artists, including only the most famous names: Alberto Giacometti, Yves Klein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Christian Boltanski, Marina Abramovic, Maurizio Cattelan, Andreas Gursky and others. The works are being exhibited in Russia for the first time.

In the interview TheStatusSymbol.com Jean-Paul Clavry answered my questions about the development of taste for art, collecting and the art market.

The collection of the Louis Vuitton Foundation, like the collection of modernist art by Sergei Shchukin, shows us a very modern, even visionary taste for art. Not everyone understands contemporary art. Is it possible to develop artistic taste or are you born with it?

The first thing I would like to convey to the public in Russia is the need to go and see exhibitions and art: the Louis Vuitton Foundation and the exhibition “Shchukin. Biography of the collection." These are exceptional meetings. To develop taste you need to go to museums and exhibitions and look at art. Whether you accept it or are repulsed by it, you will have a visual experience. Your taste will evolve.

As an art consultant, what advice do you give to your clients to develop their taste and understanding of art?

Again, go to exhibitions and look at art. Strive to gain experience in communicating with objects of art, try to build an intellectual and sensory experience with them.

Fine. How then to choose a visionary artist?

The works of this master should, first of all, resonate with you, make you worry, feel something, and it doesn’t have to be a positive experience. A work of art changes you: both “rejection” (rejet - French) and “revelation” (révélation - French) are possible.

Bernard Arnault's first acquisition was a painting by Claude Monet. Now the Foundation collects art of the 20th-21st centuries. Why did you decide to focus on contemporary art, and not on old masters, for example?

There are no rules in collecting. The same collector can collect different things at different times. Of course, there is a lot of speculation and bubbles in the art market now. No item from the Foundation's collection has ever been sold. We select artists and works based on our vision. Perhaps in a few decades we will find out that we were wrong. It happens. As for the old masters: in the future everything can happen, even a look back into history to the old masters.

Who selects the items for the Foundation's collection?

We [with Bernard Arnault - approx. author] there is a general vision of the selection process. In this sense, we are looking in the same direction. In addition, Bernard Arnault and I have had a warm personal relationship for 28 years, so we understand each other very well. The final decision in choosing a work of art for the Foundation is always made by Bernard Arnault.

Exhibition of the collection of the Louis Vuitton Foundation at the Pushkin Museum. A. S. Pushkin from June 19 to September 29, 2019.

General sponsor of the exhibition Fondation Louis Vuitton.