You know, I always had this idea that France, and Paris in particular, appreciated art. After all, they've got the Louvre. Impressionism, the Grunge Movement of the late 19th Century, started there as a backlash to the overstylized manuevers of the Romantic period and the Salon that appreciated them. Van Gogh whacked off his ear in Provence. Picasso did some of his best work in France. I could go on, but I think you're getting what I'm saying: France, and again Paris in particular, has always been associated with art and the appreciation thereof in the minds of many people.

Not so anymore. Courtesy of Fausta, we have this lovely tidbit:

The French art world is reeling after this week's announcement by the billionaire businessman Francois Pinault that he is pulling the plug on what was to be a major new gallery of contemporary art in Paris.

The 69-year-old tycoon, who is a close friend of President Jacques Chirac, was planning to put on display his 2,500-strong collection of late 20th century works in a futuristic museum to be built on an island in the river Seine.

But on Monday Pinault said that he was so fed up with planning delays and other bureaucratic obstacles that he had decided to stop the whole project.

Instead, his collection - including pieces by Miro, Jackson Pollock and Jeff Koons as well as British artists Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin - will be housed in the magnificent 18th century Palazzo Grassi on the Grand Canal in Venice, which Pinault bought last month.{...}

Gallery-owner Emmanuel Perrotin said that "once again it holds up to ridicule the sluggishness of the whole French system".

"Here was someone who wanted to build a museum as big as the Pompidou centre... Seen from abroad, Paris keeps its image as a small town in the provinces."

Francois Pinault has been buying modern art for more than 30 years
Even the left-leaning Le Monde newspaper agreed: "The fiasco has sent a clear message, discouraging anyone tempted by a similar adventure.

"It underlines the supreme difficulty of launching an initiative in the field of the arts outside the path of public aid. This situation is untenable. The state cannot do everything.{...}

Fausta shows her shrewdness yet again when she says:

"I have the distinct impression that the Boulogne-Billancourt bureaucrats assumed that the Pinault project was "a done deal"(*) and that Pinault wouldn't dare locate the collection anywhere but in France.

Clearly, they were wrong."

What have we here? A France that was so unenthusiastic about the fact a private entrepreneur wanted to set up an art gallery that would be good for the economy that the entrepreneur in question became completely frustrated and set up shop in Venice. I'm not a business world junkie, by any stretch of the imagination, but even I know who Pinault is and he has a reputation as a shark. The article mentioned that he owned Gucci, and this should tell you something very important. Gucci was the subject of a hostile takeover by LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy), another French luxury goods maker a few years back. Bernard Arnault, the head of LVMH, tried for a very long period of time to get Gucci under the LVMH umbrella and ultimately failed. Pinault was the man who benefitted from Arnault's battle: he was patient and let Arnault do all the heavy lifting, then swooped in as a white knight on Gucci's behalf and snaked the company out from under his competitors nose. This shows that the man is canny and has plenty of patience. That he lost patience with the French government in all its local and national flavors should tell you something is not quite right here.

For all their moaning and whining about the assault on French culture, it doesn't even seem as if the French appreciate it enough these days.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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