The Perrotin Gallery and 17 of its artists have donated 23 works to the Musée national d’art moderne. Among these artists are major names in the contemporary art scene such as Maurizio Cattelan, Sophie Calle, Takashi Murakami, JR, Jean-Marie Appriou and Paola Pivi.
The Centre Pompidou collection will thus be enriched by a variety of works, both in terms of materials and styles and themes addressed. Maurizio Cattelan, for example, donated Junho (2023), a hyperrealistic sculpture of a homeless man. Takashi Murakami offered two works, a painting and a sculpture, thus showing the two sides of his work. Sophie Calle, for her part, offered a framed color photograph, The masked painter and his model (2022), which plays with themes of identity and concealment.
Emmanuel Perrotin in front of the Pompidou Center.
© Tanguy Beurdeley
Courtesy Galerie Perrotin
This donation comes at a time when the Musée national d’art moderne’s acquisition budget is particularly limited, not always allowing it to keep up with developments in the art market. The donation from Emmanuel Perrotin and the artists therefore allows the museum to complete its collection with works that it might not have been able to acquire otherwise. It is also a symbolic gesture on the part of Emmanuel Perrotin, who said that he has never forgotten the support that the museum gave him when he first started out, by purchasing works by young artists that it represented.
The works donated by Perrotin and his artists will be exhibited at the Centre Pompidou from October 2024, on the fourth floor of the museum. For the artists, joining a collection as prestigious as that of the Centre Pompidou is an important recognition and offers increased visibility to a wider audience than that of galleries.
