As part of its programme, MO.CO. is continuing its exploration of private collections as an essential stratum of our relationship with artists and their work. Laurent Dumas, a passionate collector and advocate of contemporary art, has been invited to present part of his collection through the enlightened eyes of curator Éric de Chassey. The exhibition reflects this shared commitment to creativity, as well as the diversity of the collection, which reflects the abundance of our artistic scene and its major historical developments.
Laurent Dumas began collecting art over twenty years ago. Over the years, he has focused increasingly on the French scene, in particular that which reflects the renewed dynamism of pictorial and plastic practices, particularly figurative ones, nurtured by several decades of conceptual art or relational aesthetics but returning to the description of the world, or rather the invention and reinvention of singular worlds.
His collection, in which monumental formats abound, is now the reference collection for anyone wishing to understand developments in French art over the last thirty years.
It provides an archaeological overview, going back to the 1960s, when art adapted to the new conditions of a society dominated by the mass media, and then to the 1980s and 1990s, when painting and sculpture were supposed to have become obsolete, but artists such as Jean-Michel Alberola, Erik Dietman, Fabrice Hyber, Annette Messager and Jean-Pierre Pincemin gave them a new lease of life, far removed from the quarrels and progressive teleologies that had dominated previous decades, But artists like Jean-Michel Alberola, Erik Dietman, Fabrice Hyber, Annette Messager and Jean-Pierre Pincemin gave them a new lease of life, far removed from the quarrels and progressive teleologies that had dominated previous decades, but also far removed from the false spontaneity that had surrounded the commercial success of international neo-expressionism. The exhibition includes major works by artists who left their mark on the first decades of the new century in France: Adel Abdessemed, Dove Allouche, Nina Childress, Hélène Delprat, Damien Deroubaix, Bruno Perramant, Georges Tony Stoll and Claire Tabouret.
The French scene showcased in this collection is not closed in on itself, as it too often seemed to be in the past. It includes foreign artists working in France, such as Ulla von Brandenburg and Thomas Hirschhorn. It is constantly being renewed thanks to the entry of young artists, for whom Laurent Dumas has always sought to acquire important groups of works very early in their careers, and whom he has chosen to support since 2014 through the creation of the Emerige Revelations Grant. Groups of works by Paul Mignard and Edgar Sarin bear witness to this visionary commitment.
The influence and dissemination of this French scene, in dialogue with international artists, are at the heart of the ambitious project undertaken by Laurent Dumas and Emerige with the opening in 2026 of the art centre at the Pointe des Arts Ile Seguin in Boulogne-Billancourt (92).
The Laurent Dumas collection has not been put together as a sampling of current events, which would give an exhaustive but summary overview. On the contrary, each of the works has been chosen in an eminently subjective way, based on a whim rather than on objective reasoning. This is why, while representative of a situation and a history, they are also entirely specific. Far from the middle ground traditionally associated with the ‘French spirit’, it emphasises humour, derision, extravagance, obsession and drift.
So many ways to renew our view of the world, both that which surrounds us and shapes us, and that which stirs us from within.
Curator: Éric de Chassey
