Guerlain Opens Free Art Show in Paris as Art Basel Closes Two Days Early
Perfume house Guerlain opened its art exhibition, L'Heure des Possibles, in Paris on 20 October, but the VIP evening planned for the opening was cancelled. The same week, Art Basel in Paris, the city's major contemporary art fair, said it would close two days early as a safety precaution.
The Art Newspaper reported the changes against a backdrop of riots that have damaged luxury storefronts in the French capital. Maison Guerlain, the brand's flagship boutique, will stay open all weekend, a spokesman said.
The show is installed in the historic building at 68, avenue des Champs-Élysées, the famous shopping street in central Paris. It is scheduled to run until 15 November. Entry is free, according to Time Out Paris.
The exhibition brings together works by 33 artists. Four were commissioned specially for the show, and the rest are loans from other owners. Names on the list include Christian Boltanski, Ugo Rondinone, James Turrell and Annette Messager. Marie Bovo, Xie Lei and Valentin Fougeray are also featured.
Guerlain has put contemporary art into its boutique for the past 20 years. This year's selection was chosen in response to L'Heure Bleue, one of the brand's perfumes. Its name refers to twilight, the blue hour between day and night.
The brand has a long history on the site. Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain founded the company in 1828. The Guerlain family built its hôtel particulier, a grand private townhouse, on the same site in 1914. LVMH, the French luxury group, bought Guerlain in 1994.
Guerlain's archive holds about 25,000 works in a warehouse, many of them perfume bottle designs. One of the best known is the Bee Bottle, created in 1853 as a wedding present for Empress Eugénie de Montijo, wife of Emperor Napoleon III. Ann-Carolin Prazan, the company's director of art, culture and heritage, oversees this collection.
Guerlain is also a host partner of Art Basel Paris, so the fair's early closing and the cancelled opening evening touch both the brand's art programme and its fair partnership. For visitors, the practical news is simpler: the boutique is open this weekend, and the show is free until mid-November.
