This book traces and highlights through a didactic and unique perspective almost thirty years of acquisitions for the biggest contemporary art collection gathered by a bank in France.
Aurelie Deplus, who is in charge of the
artistic sponsorship of Societe Generale, describes the spirit behind its
conception: “We didn’t want an inventory, but to bring the Collection to light:
a true exhibition allowing the artworks to dialogue with each other from page
to page, as the reader goes through the book as one goes from a room to
another. Carte blanche has been given to Marguerite Pilven, a curator with a
keen eye, so that she can give her personal, captivating, and pertinent reading
of the Collection.”
According to Marguerite Pilven, a work of
art “structures the world in a different way and helps to invent it with forms
that make it closer and more visible for us. It calls upon our sensorial
intelligence by opening our senses, our perceptions and our imaginations.” This
idea of openness is a common thread throughout the Collection since its
inception, and it is one of the aspects explored in this new edition of the
catalogue. This vast overview of 600 pages leads the reader along several
trails through a large selection of singular and varied artworks.
More than 25 years of history
Since 1995, the Collection has had the time
to develop, expand, and ramify, true to its intention to strengthen social ties
by inviting art into daily life. Focusing at first on abstract art in France
and the rest of the world since 1940, it was opened to figuration by Frédéric
Oudéa in 2009, and was never limited to one medium. It features paintings,
sculptures, installations, and photographs; its 650 original works and 1,200
lithographs make for one of the largest contemporary art collections by a bank
in France. This wealth is reflected in the catalogue, just like the values
underlying the sponsorship policies of the Group and, more broadly, its
corporate culture: curiosity, openness, and eclecticism.
Thematic trails
To guide the reader, notices written in
French and English offer information and contextualisation. Art critic and
curator Marguerite Pilven was entrusted with the task of leading us through the
dense richness of the Collection. The twelve parts envisioned as just as many
common threads or thematic trails highlight the way artworks dialogue, and
provide many elements of contextualization and reflection on recent art
history. Some sections favour certain media (painting in “Rules and Freedom”,
photography in “The Lay of the Land”), but for the most part, a transversal,
open approach has been privileged. It suggests links and echoes between artists
of different backgrounds and generations, whose goals are sometimes similar,
sometimes divergent, focusing either on their process (re-contextualisation
operated by Daniel Spoerri, Bady Dalloul, and Carole Fékété in
“Rescale-Recycle”, the accent on gestures and forces in works by Takis,
Barthélémy Toguo, and Bernar Venet in “Force Fields”) or on the themes evoked,
such as the body or the city. The result makes for a wide, plural insight into
the creation of the last few decades.
Multiplying the outlooks
The Societe Generale Art Collection was
always meant to be shared: its works are part of the daily life of the
employees working in the buildings where they are displayed, they can also be
lent, presented during temporary exhibitions, guided tours open to everybody
and elaborated for different crowds, or seen online, on the website and social
media of the Collection… The catalogue belongs to the same project: whether
they are exhibited in the middle of the Societe General towers like Barry
Flanagan’s bronze elephant or reproduced in its pages, the selected artworks
are just as many occasions to train our gaze and sensitivity, and stir
reflections and imaginations.
Available on demand:
here and soon in
bookshops.