Vuitton plans blockbuster Paris show of MoMA works

With some 200 pieces, the exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation traces the nearly 90-year history of MoMA’s collection, from early modern art to abstract expressionism, minimalism, pop art and digital works.

“Being Modern: MoMA in Paris” will open on October 11 in the Frank Gehry-designed private gallery that was inaugurated to great fanfare in the Bois de Boulogne west of Paris in 2014.

MoMA is not the only major New York museum to lend collections to Paris this year.

The Whitney will present around 60 major pop art works for the first time in the French capital at the Maillol Museum from September 22 to January 21.

And the Metropolitan plans a retrospective honouring the portrait photographer Irving Penn at the Grand Palais from September 21 to January 29.

MoMA director Glenn Lowry welcomed the challenge of installing the exhibition in the Louis Vuitton Foundation’s gallery.

“To think about works you know very well in a completely different context, a different audience in a new space, that stimulated us,” Lowry told AFP.

“You had to play with the building,” said the show’s curator Quentin Bajac, who is head of photography at MoMA.

Among the prized works will be Cezanne’s “The Bather” and Pablo Picasso’s “Boy Leading a Horse”.

Lesser known pieces are by Cyndy Sherman, Yayoi Kusama, Sherrie Levine and Rirkrit Tiravanija.

The show will run to March 5, 2018.