Modern art is intended only to ensure that plunge the viewer into shock

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«Contemporary art is intended only to ensure that plunge the viewer into shock"
Interview with Michel David-Vejle

Libération », 19.03.2009

The carcass of a bull, built from free from hard beetles and placed in front of a still life with a bull's carcass, written by Rembrandt: Jan Fabre at the Louvre. Calf in formalin killed: Daniel Hirst's work sold at Sotheby's auction in London for 13 million euros. Six feet chrome dog, exhibited under the shadow of "Hercules" Francois Le Muan, court painter of Louis XIV: Jeff Koons at Versailles. Pork skins with tattoos that Wim Delvua sells in Beijing as works of art (along with the animal or without - at the buyer's choice) ... Bestiary 2008 demonstrates perfectly previously unsuspected ability to push the boundaries of contemporary art acceptable farther and delshe. Top of all: selling all the same Wim Delvua for 150000 euros tattooed human skin a German collector (this time - without an animal: to hang it on your wall, will have to wait for death onogo).

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Protests against the continuous and endless searching numerous provocations. Employees of museums cussing, but to speak officially they are not eligible. In private conversation, the French minister of culture Christine Albanel has recognized that the organization of exhibitions Fabre at the Louvre and Koons in Versailles meaningless.

Major collector Michel David-Weill for the first time agreed to comment on this evolution of tastes. This respected banker prefers not to talk about his generosity to the museum and about his love for vyokomu style and creativity to the postwar Picasso. A descendant of the dynasty aesthetes and metsenov, a member of the Academy of Arts and izobrazitelnyh Board of Management of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, he was twenty years is the president of the artistic council of the state museums of France. The greater its opposition to the pursuit of bringing the viewer in the horror that has become the main purpose of modern art.

Versailles and Kunst, Fabre at the Louvre, Hirst sale ... 2008 was rich in shock events.

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It seems that everything is not going beyond the acceptable limit is denied. We need only shock effect, which is achieved by any means. Damien Hirst sold directly, without intermediaries? So what? Rubens was doing the same thing. Let's talk about the Louvre. I usually do not trust the exploitation of horror. This is - no epidermal reaction, it is necessary for the formation of his own aesthetic vision, but now people have forgotten about this need and replace the aesthetic vision reflex, mixing two very different things.

But this is not new in art: look at all these late-Gothic Crucifixion and martyrdom ...

It is true, and I do not like this. I am deeply convinced that art, which plays on terror, appears in the stylistic periods of exhaustion. Look how impoverished the tastes of our time. Even in the gastronomy are increasingly resorting to some kind of unlikely combinations, add more spice to cause concern. Sitting in the modern world of violence, we have forgotten how to see. This impoverishment of taste and the constant need to push the boundaries of acceptable are characteristic signs of "end times" - Chariot racing is not enough, you need to give nepremenneo of Christians to be eaten by lions.

But art has always been based on emotions, such as those that the viewer felt before the image of the Virgin Mary with Child in the Renaissance ...

It's completely different things! There can not speak about the horror, on the contrary, the contemplation of Madonna provoked the viewer enlightenment.

For Koons too difficult to talk about the horror ...

True, but at the same time, an exhibition of his work at Versailles, staked on the sharpness of contrasts. This was a political statement - to provide modern products in the interiors, created by the old masters, as though not enough to read one page of history after another, it is imperative to gather all the pages together. Such an approach does not lead to the study, evaluation. He looks forward to shock the audience reaction.

So, there is a whole layer display of contemporary art, which should not be displayed?

There are museums of modern art, art centers, their role - to show this art. It is very important, but do not all mixed up.

But the museums themselves in favor of more "discovery in the world »...

They are already doing it, and with great success: the Louvre, Versailles and widely attended. Perhaps it would be better if they paid more attention to educating the public, explaining the works of art which they display, instead of being carried away by the creation of shocking contrasts. In my view, wrong to put a modern installation under a glass pyramid, because this is the first that reveal a visitor, and it is a completely erroneous view that he sees in the Louvre. This installation can be a wonderful piece of art, the question is not that. Frankly, this mix of genres does not enjoy success with the public. She imposed her some kind of elite, which thus responds to the impoverishment of taste, about which we spoke. This elite finds itself today, saying: "it is necessary to keep pace with his time." But to judge art, not a proven history, it is difficult, something we like, something is not, in general, we are not sure of their reaction. And the elite asserts: "It is necessary that everyone liked it!", Thus attempting to obtain a monopoly on modern art. By the way, is symptomatic that a mixture of eras and styles, these sharp contrasts are particularly widely used in France. Americans are much less need to mix old and new art, simply because they are always much more organic perceive contemporary art. Here, in France, the impression that what they are trying to catch up.

Many say that the show Le Bren and Rembrandt, along with Jeff Koons and Fabry - a "sacrilege", but Koons and Fabre suffer from this forced Neighborhood much more than Le Bren and Rembrandt. In this approach, and the old art, and modern, as it were deprived of their autonomous values, and I think most here are shocked that it degrades mixing contemporary art - if it can not skip away from the old art, so there is nothing and the show.

But is there a risk of devaluation of old art, relegated to the level so it seemed to "interim period", which led to the creation of modern masterpieces?

Yes, indeed, this risk is. All these popytkm "wake up" the taste of anesthetized lead to a denial of the value of the most important periods in the history of art. In the field of art the concept of progress is meaningless. After the fall of the Roman Empire regression art is incredible. And what is interesting: the people who praise the contemporary art, has always stressed his love for the primitive arts. But if art is in continuous progress, that primitive art should occupy the lowest level in the hierarchy, and the place of the Greco-Roman sculpture will not be much higher ... Beauty - not a historical concept, it exists by itself.