Friday, May 1, 2009

Edito Vicious Vitamins # 1


Everything started in 1987. I was nine years old and I was living in L’Etrat, a small village not too far from Saint-Etienne, an industrial town located more or less in the middle of France (a little bit more east than west, at the north of the south half…). In 1987 was opened the Museum of Modern Art of Saint-Etienne. It was kind of an exciting news for everyone to see this massive black construction on the edge of the highway finally opened to the public. I was at primary school and of course was brought there every year by my teachers and my parents. That’s how I discovered art and the first artist I learnt about was Fernand Leger. I actually thought he was also from Saint-Etienne because his paintings were about working class people and Saint-Etienne was a very industrial city until the eighties.

Then I moved to Paris at the age of 13 and probably because I was a lonely teenager I visited everything I possibly could. I even seriously considered buying a Nan Goldin picture which at this time was offered for 3,000 French Francs (about 450 euro)!!! That was at the FIAC which was at this time on the site of the Musee du Quai Branly; but that was more than half my saving so I didn’t buy it.

I don’t know why I keep on looking at art. Maybe am I desperately running after the same feeling I experienced the day I discovered Fernand Leger in Saint-Etienne? What I know is that Leger challenged the traditions. He invented his world that he offered to everyone looking at his works. I liked Fernand Leger for the vivid colors and funny shapes (some years later some teachers told me to call that cubism, orphism or tubism). I was nine and I found it fun!





Since then, I’ve been looking for the same fun. Why should art be boring and pretentious? Art should not be boring and pretentious and that’s why Vicious Vitamins is here. Art is made of energies, the energies of artists, gallerists, collectors, art fairs crews and thousands of people enthusiast about art... That’s what we’d like to present in this magazine. Welcome!

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