Lease Art January 2021

 

This apt phrase has been circulating in recent weeks via newsletters, newspapers, networks and otherart supporters. Beyond its claim to indispensable access to culture throughart, this statement conceals and provokes reflection.

 

While it's easy to distinguish between the roles of museums andart galleries, it's clear that, for more than a century, the latter have gone beyond the commercial dimension of their activity and played a decisive role not only in supporting contemporary creation or transmitting an artisticheritage, but also in disseminating knowledge ofart and artiststo a broad public. The figure of the marchand mercier, depicted by Jean-Antoine Watteau in L'Enseigne de Gersaint (1720), is a long way off. Artexhibitions in the galleries are served by real scenography, are the subject of quality editions including critical texts, and are enriched by cultural, literary or musical events. Some exhibitions were landmark events, and the calendar invites us to recall the one presented by the Galerie Paul Guillaume from January 23 to February 15, 1918, which Apollinaire wrote: "We have just had the rarest and most unforeseen idea, that of bringing together in the same exhibition the two most famous masters, who represent the two major opposing trends in contemporaryart. Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, you guessed it. (1)

 

Galleries sometimes exhibit works from museums. While it's great to see museum exhibitions in some galleries, it's just as exciting to visit othersand try to spot theartistwhose work will one day be in a museum. And even more exciting: trying to discover the work that will one day be found ...at home.

 

Clara Pagnussatt

 

* Jean-Antoine Watteau, Study for "L'Enseigne de Gersaint" (1720), © Musée Cognacq-Jay
The painting, an oil on canvas measuring 163 x 308 cm, is in Berlin(Schloss Charlottenburg).