Pop goes Paris, the newly remodeled Grand Palais hosts, “Le Grand Monde d’Andy Warhol” from March 18 – June 6, 2009. The exhibition consists of almost 150 works by the artist, painted from the early 1960s onwards, revolving around key Warhol themes; Self Portraits, Screen Tests, Mao, Dollars, Disasters, and The Last Supper.

“All my portraits have to be the same size, so they’ll all fit together and make one big painting called Portraits of Society. That’s a good idea, isn’t it? Maybe the Metropolitan Museum would want it someday.”

Want them, yes, I’m sure the museum would want them indeed. The pieces in this Paris exhibition have never been brought together in a single show before. In 1979, the Whitney Museum exhibited about fifty of these paintings, but this exhibit reaches far beyond that one, grouping a prime selection of pieces to illustrate the artists love of repetition.

Not that the opening didn’t have it’s glitches, it seems that grouping this exhibition by theme has caused a bit of an “issue”. AFP reports that Pierre Bergé, who co-founded the Yves Saint Laurent Couture House with the designer in 1961, objected to the placement of 4 portraits that were put into the “glamour” section of the show and withdrew them instantly. I’ll defer to the author of the Warhol Stars site; “This is despite the fact that St. Laurent’s work was previously included in an exhibition devoted to glamour – “Glamour: Fashion, Industrial Design, Architecture” – at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2004/5.”

Sounds like a bit of a full on hissy fit, or a conflict of some sort that couldn’t be resolved. That said, all was not lost, days before the opening of the world’s first major show of portraits by Andy Warhol, wacky designer and onetime Warhol associate Jean-Charles de Castelbajac paid his own tribute to the “Pope of Pop.” Ahead of Wednesday’s launch, the French designer paraded funky dresses at Fashion Week, printed with a photo of the pop art legend and topped with a fake shock of his white moplike hair. Catch the YouTube video of Jean-Charles de Castelbajac showing these pieces and talking about Warhol; Pop Art’s Children: Fashion Star Remembers Warhol.

Le Grand Monde d’Andy Warhol
March 16, 2009 – July 15, 2009
Grand Palais, 3, avenue du Général-Eisenhower, (Google Link)
75008 Paris, Tel: +33 1 44 13 17, France

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An observant reader sent me a wonderful link to a letter from M. Bergé that appeared in Le Monde that sheds new light on M. Bergé’s decision to remove 4 portraits from the Andy Warhol Show in Paris. According to Le Monde, it was a rule, for over 40 years that Yves Saint Laurent would never show among other couturiers. Additionally, the pieces were placed into a section of the show titled GLAMOUR. Observant Reader, rightly explains that GLAMOUR is what the French call ‘la presse people’ ie TMZ, paparazzi, and so on. Bergé objected, rather understandably to the rather limited categorization of his iconic artist/partner and removed the pieces from the show. A big thank you to this reader for the heads up on this topic.

“Yves Saint Laurent est le plus grand artiste français de notre temps.” Voici ce que déclarait publiquement Andy Warhol. Revenons maintenant à l’exposition au Grand Palais. Dans des propos reproduits dans Le Monde, M. Cueff parle de torchons et de serviettes. J’affirme n’avoir jamais tenu ces propos et, si je l’avais fait, j’aurais ajouté comme le faisait Cocteau : “Nous sommes des torchons heureux de l’être.” Pendant quarante ans nous avons pris grand soin de ne jamais faire de défilé de mode avec d’autres couturiers. Cette règle, nous ne l’avons jamais violée. Donc, exposer des portraits d’Yves Saint Laurent avec des personnalités de la mode – même si certaines ont du talent – était inenvisageable.”