Page 41 - Studio International - May 1966

Jean Dewasne whole is 1·5 million new francs, ($300,000) half the transform these dreary art cemeteries into living institu-
L'incantation lyrique 1963 Düsseldorf museum budget. (In Stockholm for example, one mil- tions. The first floor of the Musée d'Art Moderne, with
Oil on canvas
11 ft 10in. x 25ft 3 in. lion dollars was given last year to the Moderna Museet.) its long series of mournfully inadequate rooms, is certainly
Only a genius could use such small sums as are available one of the ugliest spots on this earth. It is not astonishing
to improve the quality of French art collections. Bernard that so few French people go there: 154,000 visitors a
Dorival, who has been in charge of the National Museum year, of whom 80 per cent are foreigners. That is eight
since the departure of Jean Cassou, has let us know his times less than the figure for New York's Museum of
aesthetic ideas in a work entitled Contemporary French Modern Art.
Painting: he reveals himself as the ardent supporter of We must remember that museums have a creative func-
everything absolutely mediocre in modern art—and to tion. They should not only display works of art : they
this he adds an ingenuous chauvinism. Such men have should help to produce them and to form taste. Artists
neither the means nor the imagination necessary to need the inspiration of the latest works—students need
change the spirit ruling French national collections and this inspiration even more. When it becomes impossible
to see current contemporary art in France there will no
longer be artists in France. Already many artists share
their time between New York and Paris, e.g. Arman,
Raysse, Tinguely, Takis and Bury.
Nothing on the market, nothing in the museums, a total
absence of any policy to train future art-lovers in their
childhood and at last establish the direct link between
schools and artistic culture which already exists in many
countries: the position in France is not very encouraging.
The same comment applies to the private galleries;
many of the most famous have not come up with a new
idea for twenty years. Nothing but Picasso and Masson at
LOUISE LERIS ; nothing other than the Ecole de Paris, 1945,
at CARRE and the GALERIE DE FRANCE; nothing at
MAEGHT'S apart from Braque, Chagall and Calder (and of
course the fine foundation at St Paul de Vence, which still
has to prove its worth). There has been nothing very new
at JEANNE BUCHER'S since the death of the founder of the
gallery. Cordier, for his part, left Paris for New York,
followed by Lawrence a few months later. With a few
exceptions, DENISE RENE, SONNABEND, FLINKER, GALERIE J,
Marciso Debourg
Relief 1961 KERCHACHE, IRIS CLERT, etc., one cannot find that pion-
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