This first catalogue retraces the evolution of Van Gogh’s palette from darkness towards southern brightness, and presents some of his works alongside those of his contemporaries who had a decisive influence on him: Courbet, Pissarro, Monet and Monticelli, among others.

On the one hand, it presented ‘Colours of the North, Colours of the South’, the first of a planned series of exhibitions about Van Gogh, curated by Sjraar van Heugten, and, on the other, it featured contributions by Guillaume Bruère, Raphael Hefti, Thomas Hirschhorn, Gary Hume, Bethan Huws, Bertrand Lavier, Camille Henrot, Fritz Hauser and Elizabeth Peyton, who have been invited by Bice Curiger.

On entering, BERTRAND LAVIER’s door, displaying Vincent van Gogh’s signature, appears as an initial sign of recognition from the building of the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles. A second—RAPHAEL HEFTI ’s agglomerates of sparkling, multi-coloured glass on the translucent roof—evolves imperceptibly with the changes of daylight, playing on constantly new kaleidoscopic variations.

Exhibition Van Gogh Live, “Colors of the North, Colors of the South”, 2014. © Stefan Altenburger Photography Zürich

Exhibition Van Gogh Live, “Colors of the North, Colors of the South”, 2014. © Stefan Altenburger Photography Zürich

The major theme of this first in a series of exhibitions devoted to Van Gogh, ‘Colours of the North, Colours of the South’, retraces the evolution of his palette from darkness towards southern brightness, and presents some of his works alongside those of his contemporaries who had a decisive influence on him: Courbet, Pissarro, Monet and Monticelli, among others. This exhibition, which includes a dozen Van Gogh pieces, occupies the main hall on the first floor of the renovated building.

An important aspect of the presentation of the Van Gogh exhibition has been entrusted to the British artist GARY HUME: the choice of the colouring of the walls. As a refined colourist—a fact which his paintings amply attest—Hume thus establishes a genuine artistic dialogue with Van Gogh.

Van Gogh embodies a widespread myth of the artist, which is particularly present in popular culture. It is thus a strange twist of fate to see this supposedly solitary, misunderstood figure become a perfect example of an artist who can be “grasped by all”! Or else, in the words of Thomas Hirschhorn , the creator of an art for a “non-exclusive” public. In this respect, Van Gogh’s great popularity in Asia is highly significant: one of its main sources lies in the close study he made, at the turn of the nineteenth century, of Japanese artistic forms.

At the same time, Van Gogh personifies certain values which we still use today as markers. Hirschhorn calls them “autonomy” and “strength of transformation”. Whatever the case may be, such values are profoundly anchored in the modern conception of art.

Thomas Hirschhorn, “Indoor Van Gogh Altar”. © Stefan Altenburger Photography Zürich

Gary Hume, marbles. © Hervé Hôte

For his new, large-scale piece in Arles, THOMAS HIRSCHHORN has projected himself into a young Japanese woman of today, who is obsessively fascinated by Van Gogh. For Thomas Hirschhorn, being a “fan” is an expression of positivity, a posture of love and an absence of prejudice. It is the opposite of nihilism and negativity. But it is also an act of resistance. Because this young woman, in a world where others enthuse about brands and consumption, has chosen Vincent. And so she finds herself in a chaotic situation of seeking out his essence, which slips out of view whenever she approaches it.

Bethan Huws, “Boats” © Stefan Altenburger Photography Zürich

 “Artists interpret the world and then we interpret the artists ”, proclaims a neon by BETHAN HUWS. Though produced outside of the context of “Van Gogh Live!”, this statement seems tailor-made for Van Gogh. It describes the sort of hiatus and switching of perspective from which art draws its lasting strength. With Bethan Huws, we wonder to what extent the worlds of Vincent (as he signed his pieces in Arles) and of us, his public, have changed over the uninterrupted history of his influence. And into what conditioning we have drifted, when it comes to perceiving his oeuvre. 

And when Bethan Huws’ glass-cases, with their “boats” made of rushes, are presented alongside Van Gogh, they may seem to some to be like cross-hatchings, lines that have become three-dimensional, or like a mischievous game that escapes from any genre: drawing or sculpture? To extend such questionings, Bethan Huws’ film ‘ Zone’ brings to mind Duchamp, for its captured shots of birds are just like “ready-mades”, presented by the artist as her interpretation of Apollinaire’s poem.

Guillaume Bruère, drawings. © Hervé Hôte

Elizabeth Peyton. © Stefan Altenburger Photography Zürich

GUILLAUME BRUERE, alias GIOM, draws, while giving this form of expression an elementary appearance. His lines are agitated, vibrant and immediate, and the intensity of his colours also gives his work its great and varied expressive power. Without sacrificing to outmoded conceptions of expressiveness, Bruère has adopted drawing as a pictorial instrument, in a quest for a communicative friction with life—and with the public.

In the paintings of ELIZABETH PEYTON, intimacy and the evocative strength of the images also play a vital role, while deploying a subtle feel for psychology and atmosphere. Our attention is mainly drawn by her humans, flowers or still-lifes. These pieces’ rather small formats bank on the fact that they can develop into the power of glistening gemstones.

Fritz Hauser, “Schraffur”, (Hachures) © Stefan Altenburger Photography Zürich

Schraffur, (‘Hatchings’) is the name that the percussionist FRITZ HAUSER has given to an important part of his work. For this exhibition, he has conceived a sound installation for the staircase of the  Fondation. Here, the hatchings have been made on the very silvery paint of the walls, with a variety of points, but also by quite literally using “scratchings” or “engravings”. The sounds and noises thus produced were recorded, then mixed, thus forming a sound installation in the stairwell. It then resonates as a sonic paraphrase of the engraving by the Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige, ‘Sudden Shower Over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake’ (which Van Gogh himself paraphrased in one of this paintings) by playing on associations with rain.

 In an interview ¹, CAMILLE HENROT  cites Van Gogh as a great source of inspiration, especially from the gestures he fixed in his paintings with their inner, physical agitation. In her ‘Dying living woman’ (2005), an adjusted “found footage”, the female character is constantly being obscured by the addition of scratches, “like a flame marking an absence”, which, in their form, also recall Van Gogh’s trees.

Camille Henrot. Ikebana. © Hervé Hôte

There remains the question as to whether there is an inner core that can be approached, a question comparable to the one raised by Camille Henrot in her Ikebana work: ‘is it possible to be a revolutionary and like flowers?’ Does this reside in the still-vibrant force of attraction and the genuine, ever-thrilling pleasure in seeing that Van Gogh communicates to us, as he put it in a letter to his brother Theo on 25 September 1888? “While autumn lasts, I won’t have enough hands, canvases or colours to paint all I see that is beautiful.”

¹ Catalogue of the Van Gogh Live! exhibition.

Catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition

Van Gogh Live!: inauguration

Click here to buy online

As every year, the Fondation’s outside spaces will be adapted to welcome our public at 7.30 PM or later, once the sun starts to set. The terraces will resound with voices, the words of Guillaume Bruère, the prose of Ben Okri and the coffee-machine noises of Die Polstergruppe. Save the date – starting 28 June!

4–10 July 2016, exhibitions open from 11 AM to 9 PM

• 28 June, 7.30 PM: Encounter with Guillaume Bruère

Patio / Admission free

Guillaume Bruère in his studio. © Photo: Anton Corbijn

Bice Curiger, artistic director of the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, and artist Guillaume Bruère (alias GIOM) met for the first time in 2012, at the Zurich Kunsthaus, in front of Vincent van Gogh’s 1889 Self-portrait with Pipe and Bandaged Ear. For GIOM, it was the start of a lasting friendship with the Fondation and the city of Arles.

In summer 2013, one year prior to the opening of the Fondation, GIOM came to Arles to present ten portraits inspired by Self-portrait with Pipe and Bandaged Ear. He also completed a large-scale colour drawing of a female model in front of the public on the city’s Place du Forum. From this live performance was born the portrait L’Arlésienne – another explicit reference to Van Gogh. In April 2014 GIOM took part in the inaugural exhibition Van Gogh Live!, at which he showed some thirty drawings. The agitated line of these works on paper expresses at once forcefulness and tentative exploration, mastery and rebellion. His next appearance in Arles was as a highly appreciated speaker at the symposium “Van Gogh–Duchamp” in January 2015.

The Fondation is delighted to welcome Guillaume Bruère back to Arles on 28 June to talk about “My Van Gogh”. GIOM, for whom Van Gogh represents the “definitive artist”, will be talking about the Dutch master’s oeuvre and the role that Vincent plays in his own work as an artist.

About the artist

Guillaume Bruère, alias GIOM (born 1976 in Châtellerault, France) is a painter, draughtsman, sculptor and performer. He lives and works in Berlin. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in
Nantes and subsequently at the École Supérieure de l’Image in Poitiers, since when he has exhibited in numerous institutions, notably at the Château de Chambord in France, the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, the MARTa Herford Museum and Galerie der Stadt Backnang in Germany, and with Nahmad Contemporary in New York.

Fragile and impulsive, colourful and liberated, his oeuvre carries with it a dazzling energy. GIOM regularly installs himself in museums in order to reinterpret major works of art directly in front of the original. Colour, the practice of collage, the search for expressivity – all these elements combine to create a unique universe in GIOM’s revisitings of canvases by earlier masters, as well as in the live public performances in which the artist demonstrates, to the point of exhaustion, the physical energy that informs his work. More recently, the theatre, dance scenes and a camp for refugees have provided the settings within which he has captured reality in his striking portraits.

• 8 July, 7.30 PM: “Starry night with Ben Okri and Vincent van Gogh”

Patio / Admission free— Reading in English

The Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles will be hosting an event that brings together the writings of Ben Okri and the presence of Vincent van Gogh. Ben Okri will be celebrating, in poetry and prose, the spirit of art and the magic of painting. The evening will be devoted to discussions and readings about art, politics, contemplation, African artistic traditions and Vincent van Gogh. Ben Okri will share his fascination for the work of the great artist as well as read from his poems and his novels on art and artists, In Arcadia, Dangerous Love and Starbook.

About the artist

© The Independent

Born in 1959, Ben Okri is a Nigerian poet and novelist. After spending his early childhood in England, he moved with his family back to Nigeria. At the end of the 1970s he returned to the UK to study comparative literature at the University of Essex. He today lives and works in London. His works have been translated into more than twenty languages, and his passion for poetry goes hand in hand with his social and political engagement. Having experienced the civil war in his country at first hand, Ben Okri has never ceased to denounce the corruption and military power that hold sway there.

After publishing his acclaimed first novel, Flowers and Shadows, Ben Okri achieved international recognition in 1991, when he won the Booker Prize with his novel The Famished Road. He is also the author of Astonishing the Gods (1995) and Tales of Freedom (2010). To date he has published ten novels, three books of short stories, two collections of essays and three volumes of poems, the most recent being Wild (2012).

In tandem with literature, Ben Okri also pursues an artistic career and was in fact a painter before devoting himself to poetry. His deep-rooted connection with the realm of the visual arts finds expression in his writings. Two of his novels are about artists, including Starbook (2007), which tells
the tale of a prince and a maiden belonging to an artistic tribal community. Many of his poems are about painting and its makers. His latest novel is The Age of Magic (2014).

• 11 & 12 July, 9 PM: Die Polstergruppe, with Stephan Eicher, Simon Baumann, Adrian Iten, Rainier Lericolais, Martin Gallop and Stefan Lakatos 

Terrace / € 25, tickets available via our website only from 20 June 2016, subject to availability: http://www.eticket-fvvga.com

© Martin Suter

“Harmony, melodious sounds and the well-being of our highly esteemed public have been our priority since 2012!”. Stephan Eicher, Simon Baumann, Adrian Iten, Rainier Lericolais, Martin Gallop and Stefan Lakatos invite you to join them on 11 and 12 July 2016 on the terrace of the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles.

1) What if Die Polstergruppe was a town?
It would be La Chaux-de-Fonds rebuilt in Central Africa – at 4° 15’ 6’’ S, 15° 15’ 11’’ E, to be precise.

2) What if Die Polstergruppe was a chord?
It would be A minor.

3) What if Die Polstergruppe was paying homage?
It would be a homage to Vincent; we would play in mono.

4) How should you listen to Die Polstergruppe?
Preferably at sunset, reclining on a deckchair salvaged from the wreck of the Titanic, after a good dinner at which you’ve skipped dessert and coffee. Die Polstergruppe will take care of that…

5) What if Die Polstergruppe had an artistic priority?
Our motto: ruthlessly harmonious!

6) What would be the perfect place to spend an evening in company with Die Polstergruppe?
It would be a terrace still lusciously warm from the fierce Arles sun, on which we would be comfortably installed (a Polstergruppe is a three-piece upholstery suite) as night falls, sipping an expresso to stimulate the mind and sooth the stresses of the day… while the musicians follow a score specially created for this shared moment.

7) What do I need to create my own Polstergruppe?
52 kilos of sandalwood, 25 litres of velvet, a few colour plates from a forgotten herbal, some horsehair and cat gut, a professional coffee machine with 4 pistons… and some friends.

As a prelude to the Fondation’s official opening in spring 2014, Van Gogh live! was the point of departure for a series of unique dialogues between contemporary art and the painting of Vincent van Gogh. For this first edition, a number of internationally renowned artists had been invited to produce unusual images and performances, as living manifestations of the artistic heritage bequeathed by the Dutch master.

The artist and draughtsman GRRRR (Ingo Giezendanner) explored the town on foot, at the end of which he will transcribe his visual impressions into a vast, panoramic drawing on the palissade currently situated outside the entrance to the Fondation’s future home.

Portraits by Guillaume Bruère and famous couples by Elizabeth Peyton are posted at unexpected points around the town, stopping passers-by in their tracks with their intense intimacy at the heart of the public space.

Paul McCarthy’s video Painter is a satirical parody of the myth of the artist, and questions the hallowed status of the figure of the painter in the history of art.

Bruère will also be delivering a unique performance exploring the genre of the self-portrait.

The Norwegian singer Nils Bech and musician Julian Skar will present an intimate live concert for passers-by in the Jardin d’été.

Elizabeth Peyton

Street posters in the centre of Arles

28 June – 14 July

GIOM

Live painting – Place du Forum, Hôtel Nord-Pinus terrace
1st July – 7pm

Outdoor poster exhibition
Rue Tour de Fabre
28 June–31 August

GRRRR

XXL Drawing: Live!
35 rue du Docteur Fanton
30 June–8 July

Paul McCarthy

Video screenings Painter, 1995
4 July – 22h – 68 rue Chartrouse
13 July – 22h – 32 rue de la Liberté

Nils Bech & Julian Skar

Live Concert
Jardin d’été – Boulevard des Lices
9 July – 7.30pm

With support of Music Norway

Perceived as an antidote to expressivity, Conceptual art for a long time relegated excessive subjectivity to the inferior status of artistic sub-genre. It is only recently that emotion and immediacy have gained fresh currency within the practice of contemporary artists.

Are the names of Van Gogh and Duchamp synonyms for “hot” and “cold”? One standing for existential agitation, the other for intellectual sovereignty? One for popular (accessible), the other for sophisticated (elitist)? One for “painting”, the other for “anti-painting”? One for pictorial spaces saturated with energy, the other for fetishized objects manipulated with ironic detachment?

The symposium, which being held in French with simultaneous English translation, proposed a programme of short presentations and lively discussions in which a distinguished panel of cultural historians, sociologists and contemporary artists exchange their views on “Van Gogh – Duchamp: oil and water?”.

Speakers:

Mark Alizart, Nicolas Bourriaud, Guillaume Bruère, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Andrea Büttner, Isabelle Cornaro, Cécile Debray, Nathalie Heinich, Bethan Huws, Jean de Loisy, Bernard Marcadé, Piper Marshall, François Piron, Ralph Rugoff and Francesco Stocchi

Download the programme here