March 08, 2009

A Chinese antique collector said he was the mystery person behind the winning bids at a Paris auction for two relics originally looted from Beijing, but declared he would not pay for them.

The sensational announcement was the latest twist to a 150-year-old drama over the bronze rabbit and rat heads, which British and French forces stole from China’s imperial Summer Palace towards the end of the Second Opium War.

The bronzes, part of the art collection of late French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge, sold for 15.7 million euros (20.3 million dollars) each at the Christie’s auction in Paris last week.

Authorities in Beijing had repeatedly called for the sale not go ahead, and that the relics be returned to China.

Cai Mingchao, a well-known antique collector, identified himself as the mystery bidder in a statement released by the National Treasures Fund, which is dedicated to retrieving Chinese relics from abroad.

“I believe that any Chinese person would stand up at this time... I am making an effort to fulfil my own responsibilities,” Cai said.

Berge, Saint Laurent’s longtime partner, said he was sure China had deliberately sabotaged the sale and added he would keep the pieces if Cai doesn’t pay up. “I will keep them at home. That’s where they were, that’s where they’ll return and we will continue to live together, them and me,” he told French radio.

Berge had previously offered to hand over the bronzes in return for “China to give human rights, liberty to Tibet and to welcome the Dalai Lama.” A spokeswoman for Christie’s in London declined to comment.

After the sale, China reacted furiously, with authorities warning Christie’s it would face reprisals such as tougher checks on its Chinese operations.

The State Administration of Cultural Heritage said last week the auction had “harmed the cultural rights and hurt the feelings of China’s people. (The administration) resolutely opposes and condemns all auctions of artefacts illegally taken abroad. Christie’s must take responsibility for the consequences created by this auction,” it said.

The bronzes were once part of a fountain that displayed the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. — AFP

 

Paris steps into Andy Warhol’s ‘Wide world’

By Carole Landry
 

Paris is tipping its hat to pop art legend Andy Warhol, whose portraits of movie stars, world leaders, soup cans and other American icons made him one of the most emulated artists of his time.

‘Warhol’s wide world’, an exhibition opening at the Grand Palais this month is already shaping up as one of the year’s top art happenings, with some of the 150 works coming out of private collections for the first time.

It also marks the first time that a French museum showcases Warhol since his death in 1987, bringing a French perspective to the works of the quintessential American artist, said curator Alain Cueff.

Credited with single-handedly reviving portrait art, Warhol made his mark by using Polaroid snapshots, news photos and photo booth prints — sometimes hundreds of them — and reproducing them on silkscreen prints.

He used repetition as social commentary on mass culture and consumption, showing art as a product.

The Paris show opening March 18 features dozens of commissioned portraits of famous and not-so-famous people he produced from 1967 until his death.

An eclectic mix of film and rock stars — Elvis, Debby Harry, Brigitte Bardot and Sylvester Stallone — are shown alongside fashion designers like Giorgio Armani with piercing blue eyes and artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat posing as Michelangelo’s David.

The exhibition is scheduled to run until July 13. — AFP

 

Picasso vs. past masters at London exhibition
 

An exhibition showing how Pablo Picasso pitched himself against great European painters like Goya, Delacroix and Poussin has opened in London following a blockbuster run in Paris.

‘Picasso and the Masters’ at the National Gallery shows how the Spaniard, often described as the greatest artist of the 20th century, borrowed from, subverted and competed with past masters.

Among the most memorable pieces is Picasso’s ‘Reclining nude playing with a cat’, a lascivious, teasing figure dangling an object for a cat which echoes Edouard Manet’s ‘Olympia’, which caused scandal when unveiled in 1863 because of its depiction of a prostitute.

The show also features Picasso’s “variations”. These explicitly embrace the past by reworking paintings including Eugene Delacroix’s ‘Women of Algiers’, Manet’s ‘Luncheon on the grass’ and Nicolas Poussin’s ‘The Sabine women’.

“He was never interested in just honouring these painters by painting pictures like them,” said the show’s co-curator Christopher Riopelle.

“He wanted to learn what their secrets were, he wanted to, as it were, suck the life out of them for his own purposes.

“His relationship to the painting of the past was always a competitive one.” Riopelle added that Picasso used to project slides of the original paintings on the wall of his studio so he could refer to them as he worked.

The London show, which runs to June 7, is a version of the exhibition which ran at the Grand Palais in Paris to critical acclaim and popular success and closed earlier this month. — AFP