by Jon Lackman | 29 April 2009 | Modern, Museums
The Taipei Times interviews Pompidou chief curator Didier Ottinger about Arcadie, his exhibition of modern art whose “main theme investigates Arcadia, a region in central Greece that has taken on mythological resonance as a utopian land of abundance. Each of the exhibitÂĦon’s 10 sub-themes addresses a detail of The Arcadian Shepherds by Renaissance painter Nicolas Poussin”:
Taipei Times: You originally developed the idea for Arcadie after the Seoul Museum of Art invited you to create an exhibit of modern art based on the Pompidou’s permanent collection.
Didier Ottinger: … It is the fruits of my reflection on modern art. We used to say that modern art starts with this famous painting by Manet, Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) … because this is the destruction of the subject in painting, the narrative and so on. And I said, “Why can’t we consider the other side, that this particular painting introduced in modern times a kind of nostalgia for what we have lost in modern times, which is contact with nature?” …
TT: Nicolas Poussin is a Renaissance painter who is generally considered by art historians to be working in a tradition different than the modern artists represented in the exhibit Arcadie … What are the differences between the pictorial experiments taking place during the Renaissance and the modernist experiments taking place during the late 19th and early 20th centuries?
DO: I think we’ve emphasized for too long that there is a big difference. I’m not sure that there is that difference. You can use different vocabulary, but in fact you are saying the same old story. And the Renaissance is not a single way of practicing painting. If you compare Poussin to Caravaggio, there is probably more difference between Poussin and Caravaggio than Poussin and Matisse, I think. It was a dramatization of history to say that modernity is the negation of the past, that it is the radical idea of innovation …
TT: What has been the response to your theory?
DO: It’s not very well known in France because the show has only been shown in Seoul and the catalogue was mostly sold in Korea.
TT: So the Taipei exhibit has not been seen at the Pompidou.
DO: No. No. No. No. No. No.
TT: Will it be seen at there?
DO: I’m not sure it would be that easy because … (we both laugh) It’s something quite experimental in a way. I don’t know.
