“Le monde comme il va” at Bourse de Commerce is Jovial and Sardonic

Now on display at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris is “Le monde comme il va” (“The World as It Goes”), an assortment of darkly comedic contemporary artworks from the Pinault Collection.

Olivia Ferrucci

21 March 2024

For three years and counting, the Bourse de Commerce has hosted the art collection of François Pinault. Now, curator Jean-Marie Gallais has selected an expansive breadth of contemporary artworks from the 1980s to the present day for the gallery’s newest exhibition, “Le monde comme il va” (“The World as It Goes”).

View of the exhibition “Le monde comme il va,” at Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2024, © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier, photo by Nicolas Brasseur / Pinault Collection.

It is a collection that underscores Pinault’s profound commitment to art which engages with us all—though this is not to say this exhibition offers any sort of commentary on our times. “This exhibition is not an exercise in collectively complaining about the state of the world ‘as it is,’” Pinault clarified. “It is instead an invitation to everyone to grasp the world in which we live more fully.”

François Pinault’s Collection Invites Viewers to Live More Fully

As “Le monde comme il va” vacillates between dark, sardonic irony and uncomplicated joviality, the exhibit certainly offers viewers many chances to live more fully. Sigmar Polke’s Zirkusfiguren (Circus Figures) (2005) casts animals, clowns, and acrobats in acrylic paint. Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s Old People’s Home (2007) comprises 13 life-sized sculptures of hyper-realist, senile male figures slumped over in electric wheelchairs, each bearing a resemblance to a different dictator, philosopher, or politician—a scene equal parts absurd and chaotic.

“‘Le monde comme il va’ alludes to the tumult and turbulence of current events. Stable reference points everywhere seem to be faltering and slipping away. Babouc, the narrator of Le Monde comme il va, Voltaire’s philosophical tale from which this exhibition season takes its title, asks, ‘Inexplicable humans, how can you hold so much lowliness and grandeur, so much virtue and so much crime?’ Art and artists have long been keen observers of these paradoxical human truths, producing powerful images of this paradoxical situation that are times ironic and, at others, even violent. Bringing together works mainly from the 1980s to the present day, the exhibition reveals this heightened awareness of the present,” said Gallais in a statement.

Highlights from “Le monde come il va” at Bourse de Commerce

Pol Taburet’s Toys and a Knife (2022) is yet another dark comedy presently finding itself in the Bourse de Commerce. This painting depicts electric-colored ghosts and sex toys and knives which have eerie, sinister faces, at once calling to mind fear and fantasy, pleasure and mischief.

Viewers should also be sure not to miss the works of Marlene Dumas, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, and Wolfgang Tillmans, who are among the 31 artists whose works comprise “Le monde comme il va.” The exhibit is on display from March 20 to September 2, 2024.

Bourse de Commerce Gives Carte Blanche to Kimsooja

“What I have tried to do in this magnificent, historically laden rotunda is to emphasise its architecture by reflecting it in its entirety, so that the public may experience the space as if it were inside a sphere or a globe, where one’s body becomes a vertical axis. I invite visitors to become unwitting interpreters who might recognize their own being and their own movement as it is reflected, enveloped, and expanded within the Rotunda. All the activities they do consciously and unconsciously—gazing, breathing, walking—will comprise the spectrum and totality of To Breathe—Constellation… I also consider the mirror as an extended canvas surface. Our gaze, our breathing, walking, and standing on this mirror canvas are seen as acts of painting that question one’s identity, the self and the other, life and death, and the location of our mind-body on the edge of reality and virtuality… The dome alludes to an architectural bottari, a concept of totality I have been developing for a long time, which has inspired me to complete the other half of its structure. At the same time, when I saw this breathtaking opening into the sky framed by the historic painting, I felt an urge to bring the upper world down below my feet and reinforce its existing structural beauty,” said Kimsooja in a statement.

“Last year, Kimsooja took pride of place in the exhibition ‘Icônes’ at the Punta della Dogana in Venice. I was impressed by her ability to understand and reinterpret a historical space (specifically the ‘Torino’ at the museum in Venice), and so, I was very receptive to Emma Lavigne’s and Jean-Marie Gallais’ suggestion to invite her to the Bourse de Commerce. It was with great pleasure that I gave her carte blanche to take over the Rotunda, the display cases in the Passage surrounding it, and the lower level of the museum. I love the idea she has proposed of using the mirror to invert our perception of the Rotunda, and especially how this gives each visitor the opportunity to be more than just a spectator, to become an actor in a spatial arrangement of an almost infinite depth. The artist includes us in an incredibly stimulating conversation with a site, its history, and the genius of Tadao Ando, who provided the Bourse de Commerce with one of his great masterpieces, said Pinault in a statement.

Who is François Pinault?

François Pinault is one of the most important collectors of contemporary art in the world. The collection he has assembled over the last almost fifty years comprises more than 10,000 works ranging from the art of the 1960s to the present day. His cultural ambition is to share his passion for the art of his time with as many people as possible. He distinguishes himself for his sustainable commitment to artists and his incessant exploration of new domains of creation. Since 2006, François Pinault has focused on three cultural activities in particular: museums, a programme of exhibitions held at large, and initiatives to support artists and promote the history of modern and contemporary art. – Source

What is the Bourse de Commerce?

Drawing on the wealth and diversity of a collection of more than 10,000 works by some 350 artists, the Bourse de Commerce’s artistic and cultural programming features a regular rotation of temporary exhibitions in the museum galleries year-round, ranging from thematic exhibitions to solo shows and carte blanches. Like a central square crowned by an immense skylight, the Rotunda and the display cases that surround it host exhibitions designed specifically for these spaces within the heart of the museum. Below ground, the Studio – devoted to video and sound works, as well as the freest, most open-ended forms of art – offers viewers a moment of meditation, while the Auditorium hosts lectures, discussions, projections, concerts, and other events.

Opened to the public in 2021, the Bourse de Commerce was restored and transformed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando (TAAA – Tadao Ando Architect & Associates), the studio NeM / Niney et Marca Architectes, and the studio of Pierre-Antoine Gatier.

As in Venice at the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana, two historical buildings that were transformed to present his collection, François Pinault chose to preserve, to transform, and to enable the public to rediscover this emblematic Parisian monument. – Source