[EN] Ernst Beyeler: The Lord of Basel

Ernst Beyeler’s discretion is like a secret – that of a successful life, an inner balance, and also wisdom. At over eighty years old, this tireless art dealer brings the whole world to Basel, his hometown, through the ART fair, the exhibitions of his foundation, and the paintings for sale in his gallery. A true director of the canvases entrusted to him, he has the taste and knowledge of staging, a discipline he pursues intuitively like a game; methodically and rigorously, like a man who has a third eye.

Text: Christophe Mory
Photo: © Fondation Beyeler

The Exclusive Interview from Art Passions

Art Passions: What emotions should a work of art awaken in you?

Ernst Beyeler: As I have already said in another context, I must be fascinated. Necessarily, it starts with the gaze, but it marks the mind and the body, the whole body. You have to find that sensation, perhaps through a kind of instinct that is sharpened over time by looking at and scrutinizing the canvases: the harmony, the play of colors… There is also something from within that dictates and guides what one feels. The work resonates within you, and you can project yourself into it.

The reputation of the gallery and then the Beyeler Foundation comes from a requirement of quality in the works exhibited but also in their presentation. Is this a Beyeler requirement?

We must pay homage to the artists and their work by taking the utmost care in the presentation of the works. Beyond this constant concern, the staging is a passion for me. It is necessary to play with space, light, and the proximity of works with others, whether they are by the same artist or not. From the first exhibitions at the Gallery, I looked for oppositions or complements so that one painting would support another. In this way, we achieve a subordinate harmony. From these oppositions, a higher order can be born; especially when freshness remains and dominates. Thus, we witness surprising confrontations.

Does this come from science or experience?

It comes mainly from chance. Look, we are today in this room of the Gallery that I had dug a few years ago to install large formats. We are surrounded by four works hanging here while waiting: a late Monet, almost abstract (the reflection of the water lilies in the water), two Kiefer (flowers in the water) and this large Matisse. From these four pieces is born a poetry superior to each of them. The Kiefers are sold. Look closely, you will never see them in front of Matisse or next to Monet again. That is a miracle of ephemeral poetry.

It is the same for all the exhibitions, including those you set up…

At the Gallery first, then at the Foundation since 1997, I wanted to make a work of art from the works exhibited. In a museum, everything is fixed, often. Here, we are witnessing something we will never see again, which is the principle of any exhibition, but perhaps we have shown more audacity in the respect of the works and the artists themselves. In any case, this deliberate and established proximity of paintings and sculptures has not escaped Picasso, who received our catalogs and offered me to choose what I liked from his studio. At the Gallery, we can hang eighty works and nearly two hundred and fifty at the Foundation. So, it is a permanent excitement for me.

Bringing a sculpture of African art closer to a Picasso is quite coherent…

You play on the works but also on the places.

Staging is to the museum what the mise-en-scène is to the opera: one does not play against the work but in its service and one transmits to the public the maximum of clarity. Natural light is very important. Renzo Piano, the architect of the Foundation, understood this admirably. The rooms move with the light, and the works on display always reveal new bursts of light. This was very noticeable for the Calder-Miro exhibition because the mobiles oscillated gently.

And then, you like to play with the framing of doors, the nooks and windows…

Why not take advantage of it? Architecture must showcase the works. In this way, a work can be inscribed in a place for a given time. Currently at the Gallery, we are exhibiting Rothko. When you are in the second room, you see a canvas exactly framed by the door. Turn around, you see nothing, move forward! When you get closer, you discover two. The staging also conditions the rhythm of the visit, the peace that reigns there, or the emotion that will surprise you.

And then, you like to mix painting and sculpture…

When they respond to each other, yes. Primitive art has greatly inspired the moderns: Africa for Picasso and Oceania for Matisse. Bringing a sculpture of African art closer to a Picasso from 1907 is quite coherent, Picasso having discovered this major art at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris as early as 1905.

What sculpture could be placed in front of the abstraction of a Kandinsky?

We can try with Edouardo Chillida or Jacques Lipchitz or even Alexandre Calder, but it will not be very convincing, we risk making decoration – which is detrimental to the work. Kandinsky comes from European landscapes, from Murnau or France and also from North Africa. He had no contact with primitive art. We must be careful not to fall into the decorative. Even before Cubism, Picasso wanted to escape the decorative. The Impressionists had already moved away from it. But the risk of returning to it remains constant. There is always this danger that a discovery becomes decadence, that the forms become immobile and that vivacity is lost.

…You have admiration for Le Douanier Rousseau, aren’t we in the decorative there?

He painted beautiful paintings and with an obstinate and firm character, he managed to create paintings as fresh as they are strong, admired by Picasso and his circle. The originality of Le Douanier Rousseau is to have given strength and poetry by creating values with stable and solid elements. The painting that we have in the permanent collection has been isolated because it does not mix easily with others. But I do not condemn the decorative, note that. Matisse or Picasso indulged in it but always with an extraordinary spirituality.

Isn’t that what Rothko is sometimes criticized for?

His detractors say so. He himself was offended by it. He was once commissioned to make canvases for a dining room. When he realized that his work would be perceived as decoration, he was offended and interrupted the contract. This is very significant: he accepts at first, then retracts when he realizes that the gaze of others goes against his spiritual message. Because Rothko’s painting is demanding. One must let the colored planes penetrate through the eyes, the senses, the whole body. I understand that one can pass by without emotion because the mind is not suited to it. I know people who are totally impervious to this painting. And that’s normal! I do not judge them. Each artistic message is there so that one accepts it, so that it moves or leaves one indifferent. As much as for religious messages: it takes or it doesn’t. We are not going to place ourselves as judges! Rothko is the inner light that becomes matter at the very heart of color.

You are one of the founders of ART, the international fair of contemporary art in Basel. This annual event is now a must for the art market, for gallery owners, collectors, and artists. How do you feel about the evolution of art?

We cannot say that quality is not present, but I still have the impression that it is becoming scarce. It seems that great classical art is becoming scarce at a rapid pace. Everything is becoming rare like the old masters… So, we console ourselves with young artists who are victims of the speed of events and production. We have the feeling of too much because there are too many bad things, hurried works, too fast, without maturity. As soon as we find quality, the too much fades away and the best reigns to give the new direction. Among the young, the decorative tends to dominate, and we get lost in it. For it is obvious that the decorative pleases or seduces. But it does not last…

You have never been a discoverer of artists. Yet, today, you find some for the Art for Tropical Forests Foundation. What is your selection criterion?

Art for Tropical Forests is a beautiful adventure born from an exhibition by Christo at the time of the opening of the Foundation. He had wrapped the trees in the garden and made an exhibition of them under the name « the magic of trees. » From the funds he had drawn from it, he had the possibility of making donations to the WWF and other associations marked by the urgency of saving the planet. We created Art for Tropical Forests to ask artists to join us against the deforestation of the Amazon. We know that 4.5 million km2 have been destroyed while the forest represents one of the lungs of the earth. Art owes a lot to nature. It is perhaps time for art to give back to it a little, don’t you think? It is in the tropical forest that nature is still intact and where the need is greatest. So, we collect funds from the sale of works of art, museum admissions, and other actions. With this money, we hinder the destruction of wooded areas and meadows; a way to sustainably preserve the living environment of indigenous populations, local fauna, and flora. The choice of artists comes from a shared conviction.

(Caption under photo of Christo’s Wrapped Trees exhibit) In the background: Exhibition: Wrapped Trees, 1998-99. Drawing: Christo. Fondation Beyeler.

(Caption under photo of Alexander Calder sculpture) Page on the right: The Three, 1966. Alexander Calder. Painted steel, aluminum. Fondation Beyeler.

« Freshness never goes out of style. It goes towards the future. » – Ernst Beyeler

Isn’t this a drift of art towards politics?

« Art is a harmony parallel to nature, » said Paul Cézanne who, in terms of art, reinvented everything, not to say « re-enchanted. » As men of art, we have a duty to our source. We have been able to buy thousands of hectares that will not be destroyed. It is a matter of primitive beauty and the balance of our planet. You know, when I see visitors leaving the Foundation, all delighted with what they have seen, I tell myself that if we manage with the maximum of this minimum to sensitize beings, on the one hand, to prevent destruction, on the other hand, we will have done our duty; that of seeking to preserve the source of inspiration. And perhaps to avoid the slow descent towards a world where art would no longer exist, that of a dehumanized humanity, of a denatured nature. As long as we believe in it, we will want it and then, perhaps, we will have succeeded, to some extent, in transmitting what inspired us and which has succeeded so well. What? Beauty? No. Harmony? No. Freshness? Maybe.

What moves you…

…in an object?

Its simplicity.

…in a painting?

The intensity of the forms, the colors, the message. The structure provokes the being. In Picasso, one will find a maximum of riches in a single painting. It’s unique.

…in a sculpture?

First of all, the form and then the space it provokes. The more space it creates around it, the more moving it is. In each sculpture, there is a soul. It is this that one seeks, otherwise it is just decorative.

…in architecture?

The form in general, the final result whose proportions give a beautiful appearance. Also, the treatment of light; how it plays with the materials to always renew the gaze. Finally, the insertion into the landscape. Renzo Piano avoided making a decoration at the Foundation. It is the marriage of ancestral stone and nature that will probably never go out of style.

…in a book?

The facts. Here we say the « Tatsachenberichte. » What is based on reality.

…in music?

That it transports me to another plane through fantasy and harmony.

…in a cooked dish?

Everything that leaves the original flavors. I like the taste of things. Similarly for wine, I like to feel the taste of the grape and not the years and excessive fermentation.

…in a landscape?

It needs water and especially the greenery that rises in the mountain that ends in the snows. Not far from here, we see the green lines and in the background the Alps like a distant apparition. That’s the maximum.

If you had to choose a work…

…in painting?

Picasso, Guernica.

…in sculpture?

Picasso, always, the Mandolin from 1931, the first one which is now at MoMA.

…in music?

Bach, the Brandenburg Concertos and Mahler, the Symphonies.

…in architecture?

A Greek temple, that of Segesta in Sicily.

…in literature?

Tolstoy but also the letters to Theo by Vincent Van Gogh.

In a Few Words

Milestones

• 1921: Born in Basel.
• 1943: Joins the Schloss bookstore with Oskar Schloss.
• 1945: Buys Oskar Schloss’s bookstore.
• 1947: First exhibition: Japanese prints.
• 1953: Shocked upon seeing Guernica exhibited in Milan.
• 1954: Meets Pablo Picasso in Mougins. First Picasso exhibition.
• 1959: Meets David Thompson who sells him one hundred works by Paul Klee.
• 1960: David Thompson sells him his entire collection (340 pieces) after the 90 works by Giacometti.
• 1971: February 15: Meeting of Picasso in Mougins with William Rubin.
• 1985: Knight of Arts and Letters.
• 1987: Exhibition of the entire collection at the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid. Ernst Beyeler becomes Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Basel.
• 1988: Knight of the Legion of Honor.
• 1997: Inauguration of the Beyeler Foundation in Riehen.
• 2003: Publication of The Passion of Art (Gallimard editions).