Untitled - Galerie Agnès Monplaisir

THE COLLECTION OF PARIS DEALER
AGNES MONPLAISIR SPANS TWO
DYNAMICALLY DIFFERENT HOMES
VILLE &
CAMPAGNE
BY NICOLAI HARTVIG
ART+AUCTION OCTOBER 2013
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FROM LEFT: AGNES MONPLASIR; DAVID ATLAN
A
Decorative objects on and around the hearth in Agnès Monplaisir’s
Paris apartment are joined by a gilded tapestry, Pueblo E, 2010, by Olga de
Amaral, and Igor Mitoraj’s sculpture Ikaria, 1987. The collector,
right, stands before Hermann Albert’s Woman and Orange Tree, 2006.
GNES MONPLAISIR, Paris-based gallerist
and collector, doesn’t mind mixing business with pleasure. “I’m a collector
of my artists, I’m very involved with my artists’ lives, their stories, their
drama, and their interests,” she says. “They are all a bit crazy, and it’s nice like
that.” That attitude makes for a collecting style that is at once analytical,
impulsive, and fiercely loyal. “I surround myself with what I love,” she says.
For Monplaisir, who runs an eponymous gallery in Saint-Germain-des-Près,
that means spreading her collection of works principally by her 10 gallery
artists throughout two homes—one city, one country—that she shares with
her husband, property developer Christian Pellerin, best known for his part
in building the French capital’s La Défense office district in the 1980s.
The city apartment, a duplex, wraps a leafy private courtyard near the Arc
de Triomphe. The maze of rooms continues to grow as the couple buys up
adjacent space, entailing construction that has irked some neighbors. “They no
longer speak to us,” says Monplaisir, only half joking.
Two of the collector’s most prominent artists are notable in the careful clutter
of works. Multiple sculptures by Igor Mitoraj—fragmented heads and bodies
forged in an ancient style—link past and present, human strength and fragility.
Light catches an intricate, gilded tapestry by 81-year-old Colombian artist Olga
de Amaral, whose latest exhibition opens October 14 at the Louise Blouin
Foundation in London. De Amaral’s work speaks directly to the South American
experience. “There is the history of the gold that is common to almost all of the
countries on that continent,” says Monplaisir. “We know the stories of the arriving
Portuguese and Spaniards. She has entirely digested these, as well as indigenous
weaving techniques, and taken all this soil and put it in the light of day.”
One encounters gape-mouthed masks by collagist Robert Courtright, an
artist Monplaisir placed in the collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre
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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: TWO IMAGES, NICOLAS BRUANT; AGNES MONPLAISIR. OPPOSITE: NICOLAS BRUANT
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Bergé. There’s a table by Bruno Romeda and Art Deco
pieces by Eugène Printz, both of whom Monplaisir
represented in Galerie Dutko, her previous gallery. A
table by Belgian designer Ado Chale offers a grouping of
Daum crystal vases. One of the most colorful works, in
the hallway, is a large photo-collage by Candida Romero
from the artist’s “Little Girls” series, which examines
identity and memory. In a small office, behind a stunning
coral-footed desk and alongside bookshelves by François
Thevenin, hangs a black-and-white portrait of the collector
herself by Jean-Baptiste Huynh. “I’m very complicated,”
she says. “What I love, in complication, is to find simplicity.”
An immense watercolor on newspaper by Bosnian artist
Safet Zec, depicts a Venetian façade that looks plasteredover and worn, yet lively. “You really feel the humidity,”
says Monplaisir of the piece, which was shown at Venice’s
Museo Correr in 2010. Its sibling, Zec’s rendering of a
Sarajevo apartment building, hangs in the country house.
Flanking the Zec piece are three late side tables by
Philippe Hiquily with fossilized coconut timber tops.
“Design is everywhere. Gagosian shows Frank Gehry….
It’s all mixed, and I think that’s very good,” says Monplaisir,
who has dealt in both domains. “Artists turn toward
textiles, furniture, light, and it enriches their discourse.”
She has custom-made tables by Jean-Pierre Pincemin,
Mitoraj, and another of her artists, Manuela Zervudachi,
who also sculpted door handles for the apartment.
“I have a lot of fun with the artists when I order a table or
a special sculpture,” she says. “It’s my ego intervening.”
In the spotless bathroom, an erect penis made of
colorful, LED-lit dots adds a touch of contemporary
audacity. The 2008 work, Vanity, is by Lille-based duo
Todd & Fitch, whom Monplaisir will show at the gallery
during fiac this month in collaboration with Brussels
gallerist Flore de Brantes. There is little, if any, conceptual
art in her collection. “Conceptual art interests me
because I’m passionate about ideas. But look at the conceptual artists who sell well—it’s all aesthetic,”
she says. “It’s beauty that makes it worth money.”
Above, Albert’s
Woman with a Red
Bow, 2001, and
an 1850 bronze by
Antoine-Louis
Barye set off a
cabinet by Hervé
van der Straeten.
At left, Mitoraj’s
Nudo, 2002, and
Terracotta for
Monumental
Tindaro, 1997, join
folk art from the
Seychelles and a
piece by French
sculptor Robert
Courturier in
front of a painting
by Jean-Pierre
Pincemin. Another
Mitoraj, the
marble Isis-Agnés,
right, was a gift
to the collector
from her husband.
ART+AUCTION OCTOBER 2013
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Manuela
Zervudachi’s
Lustre Déchiré,
2011, hangs in
a room featuring
Victor Gabriel
Gilbert’s painting
La halle aux
poissons, 1880, Do
König Vassilakis’s
translucent
Candelabro alto,
1988, and César’s
sculpture Centaure,
1981, while Plume,
a Jack Russell
terrier, looks on.
THE MONPLAISIR FAMILY, hailing from Saint Lucia in the
Lesser Antilles, was hardly artistic. Agnès first experienced
art at a Monet exhibition. “Seeing the way he painted
gardens, I wondered how it was all possible. It opened my
mind in a way that my parents never did,” she says.
Monplaisir opened her first gallery at 18, in an 86-squarefoot space near Place de la Bastille, where she was one of
the first to show Argentine-French designer Pablo Reinoso.
It was an early hint of an affinity with South America
that would only grow stronger. (Her current space,
on Rue Jacques Callot, was designed by Colombian-born
Juan Montoya.) Her first marriage was to the late Patrice
Carlhian, who hailed from a famous French decorator
family with a penchant for Goya, 18th-century furniture,
FROM TOP: AGNES MONPLAISIR; TWO IMAGES, NICOLAS BRUANT. OPPOSITE: NICOLAS BRUANT
On the property
of La Paillardière,
Monplaisir’s
country home
near Gien, a town
along the Loire
River in north
central France,
Mitoraj’s largescale Ikaro blu
caduto, 2013, and
Eclisse grand III,
2010, populate the
sculpture garden.
The 16,000-squarefoot house sits
on 1,000 acres.
Opposite: Hunting
trophies and
safari photographs
by Nicolas
Bruant ornament
the dining hall.
Kachina statuettes liven up a corner with their colorful
costumes. “They’re fun for us. It’s this mysterious world
and they all have personalities,” she says. Mythology
is another interest for this collector, who sees Do König
Vassilakis’s puffy bronze owl, Gufo che arriva (“Owl
Coming”), 2003, as a protective bird. Pellerin found the
home’s two ornate André-Charles Boulle cabinets—
“the most beautiful in the world,” insists Monplaisir—on
separate visits to antiquarian Kugel. “There is a synergy,”
she says of the juxtaposition of her contemporary and
modern works with her husband’s classic pieces. “It would
be impossible to live with someone who doesn’t love art.”
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and Japanese woodcuts. Her second marriage was to gallerist Jean-Jacques Dutko, and to this day, half her
collection is drawn from Galerie Dutko’s roster of artists.
THE COLLECTION CONTINUES in Monplaisir’s country
home, La Paillardière, a vast domain in the woods outside
Gien, a town on the Loire River renowned for its faience.
Deer and wild boar roam the nearly 1,000 acres, and
dirt roads lead past hunting lookouts to large ponds and
a sizable equestrian complex.
As in Paris, Monplaisir’s artists have pride of place.
There’s a travertine sculpture by Girolamo Ciulla and
another de Amaral textile piece. The works here are
nearly countless, both in the 16,000-square-foot main
house and in the estate’s other buildings. Dozens of
hunting trophies are mounted on walls or laid as rugs.
Artists from outside the Monplaisir circle are only
occasionally admitted. In the Paris living room, a large
oil on canvas by Gérard Garouste dominates one wall.
Songe d’une nuit de Sabbat, 2011, with its Hydra-like
nymphs, was a wedding gift that Pellerin bought at
the artist’s 2011 exhibition at Galerie Daniel Templon.
In the gardens of La Paillardière, French sculptor
César’s centauresque creature stands between a bandaged
Mitoraj head and a Daniel Hourdé figure being devoured
by a Pop art–like red dragon’s mouth. Just inside the
front is door a small Picasso drawing. Monplaisir has
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“I HAVE A LOT OF FUN WITH THE ARTISTS
WHEN I ORDER A SPECIAL SCULPTURE.
IT’S MY EGO INTERVENING.”
pondered buying something by Olafur Eliasson or Jaume
Plensa and is also eyeing Manolo Valdés. “I’m tempted,”
she says. “But it’s as if you have a great relationship with
someone and there is a hint of infidelity.”
Monplaisir’s interests are turning toward Brazil, where
her husband is developing a resort project. The couple
recently renovated a house near Fortaleza. “It’s paradise on
Earth,” she says, and a good jumping-off point for a visit
to Bernardo Paz’s famous Inhotim art center. She plans to
imbue the new house with the same spirit of openness
she cultivates at La Paillardière, setting up art studios for
visitors and connecting with local talent. She expects to
open a gallery in Rio within the next two or three years.
She is also organizing a group exhibition of Brazilian artists
in Paris, working with curator Camila Bechelany.
“I am a wife and mother. I’ve worked to make a living,”
says Monplaisir as she gazes across one of La Paillardière’s
ponds, where water lilies evocative of Monet seem to bring
the collector full circle. “Today I have another approach.
I’m at a crossroads, with the freedom of money and time, a
freedom that I have built and allowed myself.”