Review of “Adventures of truth” - Painting and philosophy: a narrative

7/27/2019 Review of Adventures of truth - Painting and philosophy: a narrative

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Review ofAdventures of truth - Painting and philosophy: a narrative ( Les aventures de la vrit -

Peinture et philosophie : un rcit)at the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul de Vence, France. Curated by

Bernard-Henri Lvy. From June 29th

to November 11th, 2013.

by Joseph Nechvatal

!Concerning abstract painting, one is tempted to say () it has pure hands, but it doesnt have hands.- Gilles Deleuze,La logique de la sensation

Like philosophy, art exceeds lived experience by creating an approach to chaotic virtuality.

-Tamsin Lorraine,Irigaray and Deleuze: Experiments in Visceral Philosophy

The very idea of philosopher as art curator deeply interests me. One swiftly dreams of what Gilles Deleuze

might have done with the opportunity to curate an art exhibition at MoMA: Art and Alloverness perhaps?

Or Michel Foucault: the New Panopticons at the Centre Georges Pompidou? What would Susan Sontag or

Roland Barthes have done at the International Center of Photography or at the Tate? What could Friedrich

Nietzsche have done at the Louvre Museum? What indeed could Georges Bataille have haughtily done at

the Metropolitan Museum of Art?

To be sure we have already noticed what Jean-Franois Lyotard prepared at the Pompidou (with Thierry

Chaput): Les Immatriaux (1985), Paul Virilios curatorial forays at the Fondation Cartier pour lart

contemporain:La Vitesse (1991), Un monde rel(1999), The Desert(2000), and Unknown Quantity (2002)

and Christine Buci-Glucksmann (who advised me to see this show) has been practicing art curatorial

activities for some time now. And I have seen Alain Badiou blathering on incomprehensibly about art

numerous times. Clearly, the most audaciously successful art show I have seen by a thinker/philosopher

(yes John Cage counts here) was Rolywholyover: A Composition for Museum by John Cage at the

Guggenheim Museum in Soho (NYC) in 1994.

And one might, such as I do, curiously wonder what such a fertile opportunity would yield from some of

our current compelling contemporary philosophers given this opportunity, such as Catherine Malabou,

Jacques Ranciere, Peter Osborne, McKenzie Wark, Babette Babich, Tom Cohen, Quentin Meillassoux,

Judith Butler, Simon Critchley, Eugene Thacker, Graham Harman, Slavoj Zizek, Julia Kristeva, Adrian

Johnston, Ray Brassier and of course Arthur Danto (and many others).

Still vibrating with this fuzzy and dreamy indulgence, let us now turn to the truth of the matter. With

admirable aplomb, Bernard-Henri Lvy (considered to be one of France's most influential intellectuals


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(read pop philosopher) - if not its most innovative) has curated a sumptuous art exhibition entitled

Adventures of truth - Painting and philosophy: a narrative at Olivier Kaeppelins Maeght Foundation in

Saint-Paul-de-Vence (inaugurated in 1964 by dealer Aim Maeght). I found it artistically exciting, but I

was somewhat ambivalent, and thus disappointed from a discursive standpoint, concerning its philosophical

aspects. In this classic modernist-based exhibition, Lvy posed the question of whether and when

philosophy or painting triumph over each other, beginning with Platos banning of art from his ideal

Republic. Dip in the Braque pool, anyone? Stroll in the Mir labyrinth?

Lvy, known in France by the acronym BHL, co-founded the New Philosophers movement in France

(which broke with Marxist utopianism - see his La Barbarie Visage Humain from 1977). He has often

traveled to regions of crisis and has at times urged military intervention against human rights abuses. He

has been an unremitting supporter of military action against totalitarian regimes in Bosnia, Darfur, Libya

and, most recently, Syria. His account of the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl has been generally

proclaimed. For all that he has already earned my unruffled respect.

Lvy also exhibits considerable taste in his selection of work - both French and international, old and

contemporary - forAdventures of truth (the scare quotes seem appropriate, as you will soon read) but has

of yet not greatly interested me as a philosopher. This show of taste was conspicuously lacking in his first

foray into artistic activity as film director ofLe Jour et la Nuit(1977) - considered "the worst French film

in decades" by Cahiers du cinma and possibly the "worst film in history" by the French version of Slate

(my regrets to John Waters).

Philosophically, Lvy seems overly involved with political ethics for my taste and under engaged with

recent developments in philosophy proper, such as Speculative Realism, Speculative Materialism, Object-

oriented philosophy, Transcendental Materialism, Neo-Vitalism, Transcendental Nihilism, or

Methodological Naturalism. But I am patient with him.

For this show (and it is a show in every sense of the word), Lvy stages the (supposed) age-old skirmish

between philosophy and painting, presenting it as sometimes rivals, sometimes allies. The central idea

behind Adventures of truth was to interrogate the question of knowing how philosophy helps or hinders

painting or, by contrast, how painting prolongs, revives or silences philosophy. It concluded with the less

than earthmoving conclusion that they indeed aid each other, as I know they do. This dialectical ride only

works if we at first beat a dead horse: Plato.

As we know, according to Plato, all artistic creation is a form of imitation. That which truly exists (in the

"world of ideas") is a type created by God; the concrete things man perceives in his existence are shadowy

representations of this ideal type. Therefore, the painter imitates an imitation, twice removed from the truth:

a simulacrum of a simulacrum.


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This exhibition, which in truth offers more in the way of hype (Can we tell truth from fiction, fact from

representation?) than in truth (but so what), develops a narrative/simulacra/journey in seven sequences:

The Fate of the shadows, Coup d'tat technique, The Royal Way, Counter-Being, Philosophy's tomb,

Revenge of Plato andPlastemes and philosophemes. If that sounds rather melodramatic; it is. However the

opportunity to see some superb work fighting it out amongst themselves in this or any context

counterbalances any top-heavy curatorial philo-concepts encountered. I drooled over many works from the

Marguerite and Aim Maeght Foundation's holdings (and the Maeght family's collection) and from many

other museum and private collections. B !ra!v!o! Monsieur Lvy.

Andy Warhol, Studies of Jackie,1964


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Bronzino,Crucifixion,1540

I savored the back and forth between ancient, modern and contemporary art: for example that between a

small Pierre Bonnard painting of a nude bathing woman (Nu somber from 1941-46) and a grand Andy

Warhols Jackie Onassis piece Studies of Jackie from 1964 on soiled paper. There were masterworks there,

such as Crucifixion from 1540 by the great Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo), Pierre Klossowskis two large

drawings, Alexej von Jawlensky (Saviours face: Dolorosa from 1920), Francis Picabia (Mlibe from

1931, for one), Cosm Tura (from Venices Museo Correr a wonderful Piet from 1460), tasty small

collages by Kurt Schwitters, a Henri Matisse drawingBndiction Baudelaire, Philippe de Champaigne

(a vanitas), Francis Bacon (Head: Man in Blue from 1961), a 1911 painting by Marcel Duchamp (Steeple-

chase), Franz Kline (Bethlehem from 1954), a painting ofSt. Veronica receiving the mark of Christs face

on her veil by an anonymous 15th-century Flemish artist, and the ultimate Sol LeWitt. These are things that

made me feel fine - art that helped me see a vibrant future. Unfortunately, I missed the Lucas Cranach


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masterpieceAdam and Eve (1526) that so inspired philosopher Georges Bataille as it had been returned (the

show was extended to November 11 th - past its original end date). Also missing from the show when I saw

it the last day of September was Jean-Michel Basquiats graffiti cross Crisis Xfrom 1982 (an image used to

promote the show).

Philippe de Champaigne,La vanit, 17th

C


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Marcel Duchamp,La piste de chevaux ou steeplechase, 1910-11


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Cosm Tura,Piet, 1460

Other rather excellent work I found there, sorrowfully cramped in the often off-kilter and overstuffed

installation, were anatomical studies by 18th

Century master Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Peter Paul

Rubens from 1606, a nice Pablo Picasso Torso de Femme, and pieces by Ren Magritte (Les vacances de

Hegel - that depicts a glass of water balancing on an umbrella from 1958), Robert Filliou, Lucio Fontana

(Concetto Spaziale, La fine di Dio from 1963), Joseph Beuys (Fettfleckdrawing from 1957), Jasper Johnss

portrait of Marcel Duchamp, Reyer Jacobsz van Blommendael, Andr Breton (Nadja ), a bevy of Dada

manifestos, the groovy Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhovens portrait of Marcel Duchamp, Fernand


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Francis Picabia,Mlibe, 1931


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Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, La fine di Dio,1963


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Ren Magritte,Les vacances de Hegel, 1959


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Yves Klein,Portrait-relief de Claude Pascal,1962

The worse part of the show was a series of short videos, directed and shot by Lvy, where we see

contemporary artists (including Marina Abramovic, Miquel Barcel, Olafur Eliasson, Alexandre Singh,

Huang Yong Ping, Jacques Monory, Anselm Kiefer, Grard Garouste, Kehinde Wiley, Maurizio Cattelan,

Zeng Fanzhi and Enrico Castellani) reading a page of philosophy (Plato, Hegel, Schelling, Heidegger etc.).

But these were placed outdoors on the terrace and could be easily avoided by looking down on the Mir

labyrinth or leaving the terrace.

Perhaps it is obvious that the playful Lvy here returns us to a (rather grand, if cheeky) formal narrative


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structure while indulging in a deeply subjective narrative. I read this philosophical fold back from post-

structural rhizomatic thinking into modernist subjectivity ground on Lvys part as refreshingly audacious.

Indeed the man has chutzpah and is unafraid of exhibiting his navet, as he flagrantly does in some of his

simplistic notes in the English exhibition guide brochure. For example: On Paul Klees Group of Masks

from 1939 he writes, Klee does not owe us truth in painting he gives it to us. Truly?

Review of “Adventures of truth” - Painting and philosophy: a narrative

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