"In Tune with the World"

Ever since the first exhibition of emblematic works from its collection, during the 2014 inauguration of the building designed by Frank Gehry, Fondation Louis Vuitton has regularly exhibited different selections of works following the Collection’s four distinct predetermined categories: Contemplative, Expressionist, Pop, Music & Sound (2014/2016), or groups of works from specific events dedicated to China (2016) and Africa (2017).

Throughout the galleries of the Frank Gehry building, "In Tune with the World" (11th April - 27th August 2018) unveils a new selection of artists from the collection, of several different mediums, bringing together modern and contemporary works, most of which have never before been exhibited in these spaces.

More than a simple hanging of works, "In Tune with the World" is intended to be an exhibition based on a specific theme. This reflects today’s questions about man’s place in the universe and the bonds that tie him to his surrounding environment and living world, highlighting the interconnections between humans, animals, plants, and even inanimate objects.

Two complementary sequences cover the entire building. The first one offers an immersion into the world of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami (born in 1962).

Drawing on Japan's political, cultural and social history, Takashi Murakami cultivates a world apart, both dark and fabulous, which combines Kawaii aesthetics with references to his country’s traumas, such as the atomic bomb or, more recently, the tsunami. Through the multiplicity of forms and materials represented in this exhibition (such as paintings, sculpture and videos), the prolific work of Takashi Murakami gives free rein to an unbridled imagination, saturated with colours and populated by fantastic creatures, half-human-half-animal, mixing popular and scholarly cultures, Buddhist iconography and manga, tradition and modernity, West and East, ancestral techniques and advanced technology.

The second part, Man in the living universe, brings together 28 French and international artists from different generations and techniques. It extends over the other three floors of the building and the outside Grotto area.

The itinerary is structured around three complementary themes, each presented on one floor of the building: Irradiances (1st floor); Là, infiniment… [Here, infinitely...] (Ground floor); L’Homme qui chavire [The man who capsizes] (Pool level).

The title "Irradiances" refers to the light beam of Dan Flavin and brings together works in a variety of media: paintings, sculptures, videos, installations. Each work is about man’s continuous dialogue with nature, exploring how different materials and their metamorphoses can create a cosmic landscape.

Whilst the dazzling colours are rigorously structured in Lilak (1982) by Gerhard Richter, the two works in his Flow (2013) series refers to the flow of paint spread by the artist's hand and tamed by a glass panel placed on the surface acting as a mirror.

Standing apart, Animitas (2014) by Christian Boltanski consists of a real-time film using a single static shot in the Atacama Desert in Chile and a bed of flowers. The original installation consists of eight hundred small Japanese bells whose ringing evokes "the music of the stars and the voice of floating souls". For the occasion, he adds a finishing touch to this presentation with a luminous sign composed of light bulbs that form the word "After".

The next sequence is inspired by the body in all its forms, from the most tangible to the most imaginary, taking The Man who capsizes (1950-1951) by Alberto Giacometti as its starting point, around which a set of four other works by the artist is presented: Three men walking I (1948), Bust of a Man sitting (Lotar III) (1965), Tall Woman II (1960), and Woman from Venice III (1956-1957) which is exhibited for the first time. At the entrance to gallery 1, in M.2062 (Fitzcarraldo) (2014), Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster makes an appearance in the form of a hologram of the character Fitzcarraldo, the protagonist of a work of fiction by Werner Herzog.

Philippe Parreno opens and closes the sequence at the pool level with two videos: the first, The Writer (2007) - at the entrance to gallery 1 - appropriates one of the first robots created in the eighteenth century, whilst Anywhen (2017) - in Gallery 3 - films an octopus responding to its environment, accompanied by a soundtrack inspired by James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

Outside the building, Mark Leckey's giant Felix the cat (2017) is installed in the Grotto.

Giovanni Anselmo (1934, Italy), Matthew Barney (1967, United-States), Christian Boltanski (1944, France), Mark Bradford (1961, United-States), James Lee Byars (1932-1997, United-States), Maurizio Cattelan (1960, Italy), Ian Cheng (1984, United-States), Andrea Crespo (1993, United-States), Trisha Donnelly (1974 , United-States), Dan Flavin (1933-1996, United-States), Cyprien Gaillard (1980, France), Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966, Switzerland), Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (1965, France), Jacqueline Humphries (1960, United-States), Pierre Huyghe (1962, France), Yves Klein (1928-1962, France), Mark Leckey (1964, United Kingdom), Henri Matisse (1869-1954, France), François Morellet (1926-2016, France), Takashi Murakami (1962, Japan), Philippe Parreno (1964, France), Sigmar Polke (1941-2010, Germany), Gerhard Richter (1932, Germany), Bunny Rogers (1990, United-States), Wilhelm Sasnal (1972, Poland), Shimabuku (1969, Japan), Kiki Smith (1954, United-States), Adrián Villar Rojas (1980, Argentina), Anicka Yi (1971, South Korea)

Curator: Suzanne Pagé

Co-curators: Angéline Scherf, Ludovic Delalande and Claire Staebler

Artistic advisor and scenographer: Marco Palmieri