Special envoy to Nice
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Nice in bloom, evidence, pleonasm or discovery?
The three respond with a certain serenity to this 5th Biennale des arts de Nice, which puts flowers on its summer program in its 12 museums.
After "A summer for Matisse" (2013), "La promenade des Anglais" (2015), "School(s) of Nice" (2017), and "L'Odyssée du cinema" (2019), this edition - initially planned in 2021 and postponed to 2022 because of the health crisis - puts the institutions of Nice in the spotlight with fresh inventiveness and frank originality.
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It comes at the right time at a time when nature is taken seriously, as evidenced by the "Vegetal" exhibition at the Beaux-arts de Paris or the Utopia festival" in Lille 3000. "Nice, queen of flowers" to pose the subject at the Masséna Museum, "Baroque Flowers" to recall the ornamental beauty of the past at the Palais Lascaris, "The Male Flowers" to deviate from the codes established at the International Museum of Naïve Art-Anatole Jakovsky, "Flos vitae" to see differently botany at the Nice-Cimiez Archeology Museum, “Power Flower” in 42 artists to underline that the question is topical.
At Tate Britain in London, dozens of Turner sketchbooks dating from the mid-1830s show the old town of Nice, its port and its surroundings, thus illustrating the extent to which our city exerted an early and never-failing fascination on artists from all over the world
Christian Estrosi, Mayor of Nice
Wanted by Christian Estrosi, mayor of Nice, this Biennial of the arts cheerfully unites natural, artistic and archival heritage and contemporary art.
"In this respect, the exhibition at the Matisse museum
,
'Matisse Hockney, a paradise found', constitutes a sort of summary of the objectives of this event, which is to weave, for a wide audience, the network of links which unite heritage and creation as well as knowledge of the past and confidence in the future”
, analyzes former Minister of Culture Jean-Jacques Aillagon, its general commissioner.
“At Tate Britain, London, dozens of Turner sketchbooks from the mid-1830s show the old town of Nice, its port and its surroundings, illustrating how our city exerted an early and never-failing fascination. on artists from all over the world”
, recalls the mayor, proud of this British invasion through the centuries in this seaside resort long synonymous with rural life, lemons and citrons.
With painter David Hockney at Matisse and photography star Nick Knight at the Musée de la photographie Charles Nègre with his 42
Roses from My Garden
, collected and explained like never before, Nice definitely deserves the title of “promenade des Anglais” (its incredible architectural history is told at the Masséna Museum).
Unreal gallery from nature
Up there on the hill, a stone's throw from the master's residence, at Regina, the Villa des Arènes, which became the Matisse Museum in 1963, is the star of this 5th Biennale of the Arts.
Two masters face each other.
Just after the new showcase of
Fleurs et fruits
and its 700 kg door closed by special locks, the large cut-out gouache where the light wanders to isolate a motif, which was presented to the public on April 8 (the Louis Vuitton Foundation shows how Hantaï also comes
from Matisse's
Paper Cutouts ).
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In opening, water.
Le grand
Plongeoir avec ombre (Paper Pool 13)
from 1978 by David Hockney neighbors
La Vague, Nice
, ca.
1952, gouache papers cut out by Henri Matisse (51.5 × 160 cm) and clearly highlights this cordial understanding between the two painters.
Very close to the ceramic version of
La Piscine
by Henri Matisse.
But it is his twenty
Fresh Flowers
, made on iPad between January 30 and April 21, 2021 by the English painter in his refuge in Normandy, which make the poster.
“Hockney paints portraits of flowers like Matisse”
, summarizes Claudine Grammont, director of the museum and curator of this joyful exhibition.
Fresh Flowers
, made on iPad, in 2021, by painter David Hockney.
© David Hockney
It was at his invitation that the man from Yorkshire, the painter of eternal spring (85 years old on July 9!) opened his studio in Normandy, his archives in Los Angeles and his lively mind to the public in Nice.
Hockney first bought a stock of rather kitsch sculpted frames, painted the bouquets of cut flowers brought by his right-hand man, Jean-Pierre Gonçalves de Lima, to fit into these frames, worked as always on depths and transparencies.
He even chose the gray blue of the picture rails to create this unreal gallery from nature.
Happy to have tamed this great fierce, Claudine Grammont invited him to dialogue with the collections of the Matisse Museum (Hockney made a series of 16 paintings in reference to
La Danse
).
“At Matisse, the body is implicitly in the painting
,” she says.
Hockney thinks about the image and the mechanism of perception, does not make a difference between interior and exterior, often puts himself in the picture.
Kinship or inheritance is obvious.
"Power Flower"
Right next door, the Nice-Cimiez Archeology Museum surveys, thanks to the collections of the Nice Museum, the secrets of botany told with passion and clarity by its young director, Olivier Gerriet, in dynamic videos (
Flos Vitae
).
They highlight the exceptional richness of the flora of the Alpes-Maritimes, from the fossils born of its geomorphological history to the watercolors of botanists, from the monstrous XXL-size models of the petals, pistils and other reproductive systems, to the maps which show in red the surface where there are still some species threatened by man, his wild flower picking or his agriculture.
Roses from My Garden, by photographer Nick Knight.
Nick Knight
At 109, a former slaughterhouse that has become an art centre, the 42 artists of “Power Flower” defend their vision of committed art.
Photomontages of a garbage city that devours the forest, by the Brazilian artist Caio Reisewitz (seen at Bendana Pinel), to
Nature Rugs
by the Italian artist Piero Gilardi, 79 (seen at Michel Rein).
The color, the energy of rebellion, the strength of youth, the new blood, make this “Power Flower” an antidote to ugliness and sadness.
Like the delicate sculptures of Zimbabwean Moffat Takadiwa, 39, delicate and giant flowers… in green toothbrushes, black computer keys and the milky white of hundreds of plastic labels (seen at Sémiose).
Pure metamorphosis of art.
The Nice Arts Biennale, “Flowers!”
, 12 exhibitions until 31 December.
biennalearts2022.nice.fr.
Catalogs:
Nice queen of flowers
at the Masséna Museum, curated by Jean-Jacques Aillagon (Lienart, €35) and
Hockney Matisse, a paradise found
, curated by Claudine Grammont (In Fine, €35).
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