"I realize, it's totally crazy": six Parisian museums pay tribute to the Couturier Yves Saint Laurent
Yves Saint Laurent, âgé de 26 ans, signe le 29 janvier 1962 sa première collection sous son propre nom. Il impose aussitôt un esprit mais aussi un style. À travers ses modèles, c’est toute une culture, un univers artistique qui s’exprime. L'exposition Yves Saint Laurent auxMusées, portée par la fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent, célèbre le 60e anniversaire de ce premier défilé.
Six Parisian museums - the Center Pompidou, theMuseum ofModern Art in Paris, the LouvreMuseum, theMusée d'Orsay, the Picasso -Paris NationalMuseum and the Yves Saint Laurent Paris museum - participate and highlight the dialogueBetween the fashion creations of Yves Saint Laurent and the art world.
An exciting meeting and indiscretions on the genesis of this vast slightly crazy project with two of the exhibition commissioners -Madison Cox, president of the Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent Foundation, and Stephan Janson - Fifteen days before the opening of the six exhibitions,January 29, 2022.
Franceinfo Culture: What is the genesis of this slightly crazy project?Madison Cox, president of the Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent Foundation: the idea came first because we absolutely wanted to celebrate these 60 years.It was a moment in the history of the house that had to be scored, just like the disappearance of Pierre Bergé, four years ago.It was important to be able to say that the Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent foundation existed and that we took care of this heritage.We must not forget that in 1983 in New York - for the retrospective exhibition of Yves Saint Laurent at theMetropolitanMuseum of Art -, this is the first time that the fashion of a living designer has entered a museum of beautiful-Arts and that had caused a scandal.This is where this fashion and arts, fashion and museum dialogue began.Today, in 2022, fashion has really become an art appreciated by the public, which is even thirsty by this universe.Maison Saint Laurent was exhibited during retrospectives in Beijing,Moscow, Saint Petersburg, New York...And this continues, in Tokyo where a large retrospective is, again, planned.I absolutely wanted to mark these 60 years but I told myself that there must be other means than a huge retrospective.
How did you do it?Madison Cox: by chatting withMounaMekouar (co-commissioner of the exhibition) of this relationship, of this dialogue between the designer and art, I said to myself why not make pop spaces-Up of these various universes of inspiration in permanent museum installations.I also wanted to include Stephan Janson (exhibition co-commissioner) who really has this knowledge of the work of Saint Laurent, an eye from the outside, it's always interesting.
What were the difficulties?Madison Cox: we started to discuss at the end of 2019.We had made a list of museums, places.It was very ambitious perhaps but sometimes we really have to dream and we even had the idea of doing Paris and New York.America was very important in his career, it was there that he found the first funding for his fashion house.We even started discussions with various institutions.Now I realize, it was totally crazy.I have always kept in memory this sentence of Pierre Bergé: we must transform dreams into reality.But when the world has exploded (note: with the appearance of COVVI-19), the borders were closed and all three, we said to ourselves: we absolutely have to have your feet on the ground, we goabandon New York.I remember that the director of the HarlemMuseum told me: you do not realize the importance that this has for the African-American community, Yves Saint Laurent is the first to have scrolled through women of colored.It was very moving but impossible.
How did the project set up?Madison Cox: As long as the name of Yves Saint Laurent has cited, all the institutions had a story to tell: more about rivalry between institutions but a kind of solidarity.In the midst of a containment, the institutions were closed and in addition there were museum leaders who changed, which added a certain level of complication.
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Stephan Janson, co-commissioner: this dream that is part of the world of Saint Laurent, which was extremely cultivated, allowed him to make things that made people dream...And the extraordinary thing in this project is that people, because of this cursed covid dreamed to think of the future.
Madison Cox: From the start, it was one of our principles to enhance permanent collections but it was not a question of occupying the empty space and making a temporary scenography but of emphasizing the importance of the permanent collections of theseinstitutions and create dialogues.It's pretty interesting this crossword game and even if it is complicated for us, because we are a tiny institution, it is also a new innovative way to represent Saint Laurent, to reinterpret things for a new look.
Stephan Janson: Saint Laurent, unlike many of his colleagues, knew how to digest all this vastness of appreciation of the art he had.There are certain things that have not been exposed for a long time and that will bring out reservations.
Precisely, how was the selection of pieces in the heart of the museums? Stephan Janson: we were quite stubborn, we had our ideas.When you talk about Yves Saint Laurent at the Louvre museum, all the departments can answer present and there it was a Louvre decision at the end (note: to exhibit in the gallery of Apollo).We can imagine a very baroque and romantic side of the designer, for theMusée d'Orsay it's perfect.It will be extraordinary, it is the relationship with another art, literature and proust.M.Saint Laurent made collections dedicated to Picasso so it was easy for the Picasso museum where there are few pieces but majestic.For modern art museums, like the Center Pompidou, there we did not have enough clothes.We have twenty pieces in each museum but they were eager, they wanted more. Au seul musée qui est gratuit, au musée d'ArtModerne de Paris, il y a une sélection à tomber et pour un public qui n'a peut-être pas la chance d'avoir les moyens de faire le tour de tous les musées, cela vaut le coup.
Madison Cox: We made proposals but there have been problems: brightness for example because the rooms of the Museums of Beaux Arts are not at all comply with museum spaces designed for textiles.It's 50 lux, and we couldn't do anything to hide the light.It's a constraint.
Quel choix de scénographie a été privilégié ? Stephan Janson : je n'ai jamais fait d'exposition mais il y a une chose qui m'a souvent dérangé quand je voyais les expositions consacrées à Saint Laurent, c'est que ce que j'avais vu en défilé, c'était imbattable, mais quand on recrée tout cela sur des mannequins, cela me donnait une idée de très beau mais il y manquait la vie ! Il y avait le look, il y avait une forme de respect deM.Saint Laurent and what he had wanted with the garment accompanied by the hat, the earrings, the bracelet, the rings, the gloves, the shoes and the bag.Mais moi qui ai eu la chance de voir presque tous ses défilés, je me souvenais de tout cela et je trouvais que c'était dommage.When I arrived, I said: I would like to show clothes without accessory.As I am a sewing technician, I knew that for certain dresses, we no longer saw his mastery with the amount of accessories.I pretend to show that Saint Laurent did not need artifice to be sublime.It was a bet, I'm happy because it's really incredible.For example at the Center Pompidou, there is a dress from 1965 it looks like it is made tomorrow, not even yesterday!There is no longer a period reference at once, it's just the cut, the fall, the quality and the proportions.I am sure that this exhibition, shown like this, will enormously influence the fashion to come.
