The dome of Paris’s historic Bourse de Commerce sits above a new gallery space designed by Tadao Ando for the Pinault Collection.Maxime Tétard Courtesy of the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection./Courtesy of manufacturer
The worlds of art and commerce have, perhaps, never been cosier, so it’s appropriate that Paris’s newest art museum will inhabit the city’s former commodities exchange. The cultural destination, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, opens this June and will be an impressive showcase for contemporary work from the private collection of French billionaire and supercollector, François Pinault.
Pinault is the founder of Kering, the international luxury group that owns megawatt brands such as Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga. In 2003, he left management of the glitzy conglomerate to his son, François-Henri Pinault, and pursued art collecting full-time. Since he started collecting in the 1980s, Pinault has amassed 5,000 works by contemporary artists. The exact list of artists that will hang at the Bourse has yet to be revealed but Pinault’s proclivities for pieces by the likes of Cindy Sherman, Cy Twombly and Sigmar Polke hint at the mix.
With US$170-million invested in the redevelopment, the Bourse is certainly Pinault’s most ambitious project yet. After a failed attempt to develop a museum on the outskirts of Paris in the early 2000s, Pinault opened two galleries in Venice, Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana, to house temporary exhibitions. But neither boasts the gravitas of the Bourse, a 130-year-old space in the heart of the city’s Les Halles neighbourhood, currently being transformed by Japanese architect, Tadao Ando. The building’s exterior and its landmarked façade, skylights and frescoes will be restored to their original condition, while the interior will be reimagined into circular galleries that mimic the shape of the building. In the centre, an open hall will allow for a view of the 100-foot-high dome and showcase large-scale works.
The cultural destination, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, opens this June and will be an impressive showcase for contemporary work.Patrick Tourneboeuf/Courtesy of manufacturer
In a city that already houses so many of art’s greatest treasures in government-funded institutions such as the Louvre, Centre Pompidou and the Musée d’Orsay, many in the art world have noted that the Bourse represents a larger shift toward private collections becoming important to the public consumption of artwork. In the past few years, the biggest art openings in both size and buzz factor have been tied to wealthy connoisseurs. In 2015, collectors Eli and Edythe Broad transformed the landscape of downtown Los Angeles with the Broad, a sprawling gallery featuring one of Yayoi Kusama’s famed infinity rooms. This past December, Don and Mera Rubell moved their ever-expanding collection into the Rubell Museum, a new 100,000 square foot location in Miami’s Allapattah neighbourhood.
In Paris, Pinault’s main competition is LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault, who opened the Frank Gehry-designed Fondation Louis Vuitton in the Bois de Boulogne in 2014. Pinault has downplayed any rivalry in interviews, however, and Paris has already established that it has more than enough room for another gallery.
For more information, visit boursedecommerce.fr.
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