30 avril 2008
Carla Bruni-S. à Tunis
En châle pour visiter la mosquée de de Zitouna (photo Jacky Naegelen / Reuters)
Avec son nabot lors de leur arrivée à Tunis (photo Patrick Kovarik / Reuters)
Visitant un orphelinat (photo Patrick Kovarik / Reuters)
Toujours visitant un orphelinat de SOS Gammarth (photo Patrick Kovarik / Reuters)
A l'Hôtel de Ville de Tunis (photo Patrick Kovari / Reuters)
Bellissima au Palais de Carthage, le soir (photo Patrick Kovarik / Reuters)
25 avril 2008
La collection Pulgram-McSparran va à l'University of Michigan Museum of Art
Gustav Klimt, Woman Lying Half Draped, n.d., graphite on paper, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Gift of the Ernst Pulgram and Frances McSparran Collection, 2007/2.88
ANN ANRBOR.-Collecting great works of art on a professor’s salary may sound like a fairy tale. But Ernst Pulgram, professor of romance and classical linguistics at the University of Michigan from 1948 until his retirement in 1986, did just that, acquiring works by some of the most currently sought after artists of the twentieth-century. Together with his wife Frances McSparran, UM associate professor and chief editor of the Middle English Compendium, Pulgram built one of the most personal and exhilarating collections of Austrian and German Expressionist art to be found in private hands. Before his death in 2005, Professor Pulgram shared his longtime wish for this remarkable group of more than 40 drawings, paintings on paper, and several prints to remain at Michigan, and the Museum of Art is honored to announce this extraordinary donation by an extraordinary couple.
“It would be difficult to overstate Ernst Pulgram’s generosity, sagacity, and cultural literacy,” said UMMA Director James Steward. “He was a scholar and a gentleman in the most capacious sense. The warmth and commitment that he and Frances had and have for our University community is once again shown by their conviction that these exceptional works of art should be actively used and treasured here at Michigan. We are so grateful to him and to Frances for what is truly a priceless and transformative gift to the Museum of Art. ”
“More than anything this gift honors Ernst’s great appetite for seeing and collecting and his love of this University,” said Professor McSparran. “Michigan was Ernst’s academic home and he enjoyed a wonderful and happy scholarly life here. He felt the collection would make an important archive of materials for students and scholars and that the Museum would be enriched by it. I know it would give him enormous pleasure to know that we’ve fulfilled his vision.”
Born in Vienna in 1915, Ernst Pulgram grew up in the wake of World War I. He completed his doctorate at the University of Vienna in 1938 and shortly thereafter left Austria following the recent Nazi annexation of the country. After arriving in the U.S. in 1939, Pulgram was drafted and served in the Pacific during World War II. He subsequently earned a doctorate in comparative linguistics at Harvard on the GI Bill and began teaching at UM a couple years later.
After the war, Professor Pulgram began returning to Europe, touring extensively in his car that sailed with him across the Atlantic. He studied at the American Academy in Rome, traveled on fellowships and sabbaticals, and established lifelong friendships with artists, architects, and scholars who encouraged his interest in art and music. He started to collect in the early 1960s and was particularly drawn to the artists and imagery that reminded him of home—the post-World War I era of the Vienna Secession—and to the purity and economy of line in works on paper.
A native of Ireland, Professor McSparran arrived in the U.S. in 1968 and remembers first visiting Pulgram’s “quaint little cottage on the Huron River stuffed with art, with works hanging everywhere.” The couple reviewed catalogues and traveled a great deal together in Europe, cultivating relationships with gallerists in Salzburg, Vienna, and London.
“Ernst had a very lively mind,” said Professor McSparran. “He developed an expertise in the artists he was interested in and he bought with discrimination, taste, and focus—he had to on an academic’s salary! He bought something because he loved it when he saw it. It’s a very personal collection.”
A signature component of the Pulgram-McSparran collection is work by the Austrian Expressionist artists Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. Among the other noteworthy artists represented are George Grosz, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Oskar Kokoschka, Emil Nolde, and Christian Rohlfs. As psychological documents of their time, these drawings, watercolors, and prints were considered completed works of art, not preparatory studies. The responsive properties of the media—stylus on paper or plate—allowed the artists a level of immediacy that resulted in works that are extraordinarily intimate and incisive records of a European society in decline—decadent, disenchanted, and spiritually bereft. The edgy, angular quality of line and figural distortion combined to create emotionally unsettling compositions that the Nazis branded as degenerate.
Though decidedly out of fashion when Professor Pulgram began collecting, works by Klimt and Schiele, in particular, have risen dramatically in market significance over the last decade. For instance, one 1910 Schiele drawing sold at auction for $5.7 million in February of this year. Klimt’s iconic 1907 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer was acquired for $135 million in 2006 and now hangs in New York’s Neue Galerie.
The Pulgram-McSparran collection beautifully complements UMMA’s significant holdings in European art of the period. The Museum plans two future special exhibitions that will feature the collection in its entirety—one of which will help launch the expanded Museum at its reopening in 2009, while the second will figure later in that year’s exhibition schedule. Individual works will regularly feature in the Museum’s collections galleries, subject to rigorous preservation criteria because of the fragility of many of the works. When not on view, the Pulgram-McSparran collection will be available to scholars, students, and other researchers in the Museum’s future Ernestine Winston Rubin Study Center for Works on Paper.
23 avril 2008
La Fondation Vasarely sauvée par les pouvoirs publics?
La Fondation Vasarely, le 11 mai 2005. Copyright © 2008 AFP
AIX-EN-PROVENCE (AFP) - Les pouvoirs publics ont affiché leur volonté de "tout mettre en oeuvre" pour sauver la Fondation Vasarely, mardi lors d'une réunion à la sous-préfecture, a indiqué l'administrateur provisoire de la fondation, Me Xavier Huertas.
"Il existe aujourd'hui une volonté des membres de droit et fondateurs de tout mettre en oeuvre pour bâtir l'avenir", a déclaré à l'AFP Me Huertas qui a lancé plusieurs procédures judiciaires pour récupérer les centaines d'oeuvres dont le peintre hongrois (1906-1997) avait doté la fondation.
Outre le député-maire UMP d'Aix-en-Provence, Maryse Joissains, et le maire UMP de Gordes (Vaucluse), Maurice Chabert, ont participé à cette réunion le sous-préfet Hubert Derache, la direction régionale des affaires culturelles et trois membres de la famille Vasarely --André, fils aîné du peintre, son épouse et Pierre, petit-fils et légataire du peintre.
Ils ont soutenu le renouvellement du mandat de Me Huertas, nommé en octobre pour six mois à la tête de la fondation, et se sont fixé rendez-vous dans un mois. Mme Joissains a insisté sur la nécessité d'un projet culturel alors que la ville consacre 100.000 euros par an à la fondation.
La Fondation entend faire annuler en justice un arbitrage successoral qui l'a, selon elle, dépouillée frauduleusement en 1995.
Une assignation qui sera examinée le 12 juin au TGI d'Aix concerne André Vasarely, Pierre Vasarely au titre de son père Jean-Pierre, décédé en 2002, ainsi que Michèle Taburno-Vasarely, deuxième épouse de Jean-Pierre. Cette dernière, installée à Chicago (Etats-Unis), représentait alors les intérêts des fils du peintre et a présidé la fondation en 1995-1997.
La fondation réclame la restitution des tableaux ou leur remboursement et le paiement de 5 millions d'euros de dommages-intérêts par Mme Taburno-Vasarely.
"L'arbitrage respectait les lois successorales", a déclaré à l'AFP par téléphone Mme Taburno-Vasarely qui s'est dite "pas au courant" et compte se faire représenter par son avocat.
Seules 42 oeuvres monumentales subsistent dans le bâtiment aixois de la fondation, inauguré en 1976 et inscrit à l'inventaire des monuments historiques. La partie installée à Gordes a fermé en 1996. La fondation est reconnue d'utilité publique depuis sa création en 1971.
22 avril 2008
La Baronne Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza annonce un nouveau musée au Palacio Villalon
Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza and Francisco de la Torre, Mayor of Malaga, presented today the Project for the restoration of the Palacio Villalón. Photo EFE
MALAGA-Baroness Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza and Francisco de la Torre, Mayor of Malaga, presented today the Project for the restoration of the Palacio Villalón that will house her Spanish and Andalusian collection. During the presentation of this project, the expansion and adaptation of the Palacio de Villalón, the baroness announced that the newproject will now be named Museo Coleccion de Arte Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza.
She said that she was particularly excited in showing a work by Ignacio de Zuloaga, ‘Corrida de toros en Eibar’ which she described as being ‘beautiful, important and incredible’. She said that she was pleased that her project was also saving the 16th century Villalón Palace in the city, one of three buildings which will be used as the museum, reported www.typicallyspanish.com.
17 avril 2008
Sothebys NY annonce sa vente d'Art Russe d'Avril pour 46,449,401 $
Alexander Kosolapov. Mother Russia, 1982
NEW YORK.- Sotheby’s two-day sale of Russian Art in New York totaled $46,449,401 (est. $41/57 million), with strong prices realized across the wide variety of works on offer -- 19th and 20th Century and Contemporary Russian paintings as well as a broad selection of Works of Art. Highlighting the morning session of 19th and 20th Century Paintings was Arkhip Kuindzi’s Birch Grove, which sold for $3,065,000 (est. $2/3 million), the sale’s overall top price and a record for the artist at auction. The top lot from the afternoon session dedicated to Post War and Contemporary Art was Ilya Kabakov’s Complete Album Flying Komarov Containing 32 Original Drawings, which sold for $445,000, far exceeding its estimate ($200/250,000). The Works of Art session was galvanized by an extended bidding war over a Fine and Rare Fabergé Icon of Christ Pantocrator (est. $100/150,000) which finally sold, to rousing applause, for $780,000 to a bidder on the phone.
19th and 20th Century Paintings
In addition to the record-breaking Kuindzhi, the first session also featured three masterpieces by Ivan Aivazovsky, Distributing Supplies and The Relief Ship (est. $2/3 million) which sold as a pair for $2,393,000 to fine arts agent Joseph Friedman on behalf of a private collector, and The Arrival of Columbus’ Flotilla (est. $1.25/2 million) which went for $1,665,000. Also far exceeding expectations were Vasili Dmitrievich Polenov’s The River Oyat, which soared past its high estimate of $800,000 to sell for $1,385,000, Alexei Petrovich Bogoliubov’s View of Venice, Customs House which brought $1,049,000 (est. $700/900,000) and Ivan Shishkin’s Forest Landscape which went for $847,400 (est. $600/800,000). Nicholas Roerich’s Pueblo in Santa Fe sold for $713,000 (est. $600/800,000), and each of the other eight Roerich works in the sale achieved prices far above their high estimates, most notably Ladakh (est. $15/20,000) which ultimately went for $157,000. Alexandre Iacovleff’s rediscovered masterpiece Under a Kirghiz Tent, which carried an estimate of $600/800,000, brought $713,000. Additional artist records were set for Nikolai Rachkov, Mané-Katz, Ernst von Liphart, Dmitri Nalbandian, Viktor Baturin and Feodor P. Tolstoy.
Post War and Contemporary Art
The first New York session dedicated to Post War and Contemporary Russian Art saw many works demanding strong prices. Early in the sale, Oscar Rabin’s City with Moon (Socialist City) sold for $337,000 (est. $120/160,000), setting a new record for the artist at auction. Komar and Melamid’s triptych Composition with Missiles (Landscape Inspired by Rothko) brought $289,000 (est. $120/150,000) and Evgeny Rukhin’s Da Nyet went for $265,000 (est. $60/80,000) also establishing a record for the artist at auction. Both of Semen Faibisovich’s photographs brought prices well over their estimates when Therein Lies the Question sold for $193,000 and On the Platform from the Cycle Moscow Commuter Train achieved $169,000 (both est. $100/120,000). In addition to those mentioned above, records were also set for Leonid Sokov (for a painting), Tatiana Nazarenko, Elena Keller, Anatoly Kaplan, Rikhard Vasmi, Igor Chelkovski and Alla Esipovich.
Works of Art
Concluding the two-day sale, the Works of Art section showcased a vibrant and growing interest in icons and bronzes. Every one of the 32 icons on offer sold, with 26 going for well over their high estimates. Immediately following the top-selling Fabergé Christ Pantocrator that led the session, Olga Nicholaevna: A Gilded Silver and Enamel Icon Triptych with Imperial connections brought $409,000 (est. $100/150). Many icons brought final prices that were many multiples of the high estimate, such as an Icon of the Vladimir Mother of God (est. $9/12,000) that sold for $157,000 and Nicholas II: A Russian Icon of the Savior (est. $40/60,000) which went for $193,000. Leading the bronzes near the close of the sale was Matvei Chizhov’s Frolicsome Girl (est. $20/30,000) that brought an astounding $385,000.
Sotheby’s next sales of Russian Art will be held in London in June. The evening sale on June 9th will include important works by Natalia Goncharova, Konstantin Korovin and Zinaida Serebriakova, among others. The sale of Russian Works of Art and Fabergé on June 12th will feature an important jeweled badge of the Imperial Order of St Andrew, decoratively set with approximately 43 carats of diamonds.
AES+F, Last Riot, Panorama #4, AES+F 67 x 100 in.
le directeur financier du Musée Guggenheim de Bilbao accusé de détournements
A very strange photograph in the world of art. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao has dismissed and taken to court its former Chief Financial Officer, Roberto Cearsolo Barretxea, due to an embezzelment of approximately US $ 800,000 from two companies that belong to the museum. The head of the museum, Juan Ignacio Vidarte, appears in this image with other heads of the cultural institution. Photo: EFE
BILBAO.-Spain's Guggenheim Museum says it has fired its chief financial officer for allegedly embezzling some US$800,000. The popular modern art museum said in a statement that the problems came to light at the beginning of April during an internal audit.
Roberto Cearsolo Barrenetxea has confessed to the embezzlement and returned 287,000 euros to the museum, Guggenheim Bilbao director Juan Ignacio Vidarte said.
The museum has made a formal complaint to a Bilbao court accusing Cearsolo of accounting irregularities found in the books of two funds set up in the 1990s to finance the museum's activities.
Officials said Mr Barrenetxea had confessed to transferring a total of 487,000 euros ($776,000; £394,000) from companies linked to the museum into his personal account since 1998. To be more precise, ge attached a spreadsheet with all his withdrawals which started in 1998. In total, Cearsolo disposed of money 23 times.
The revelation has prompted the museum to undergo an extensive audit of its finances, though officials described the situation as an "isolated case."
The accused had been working for 16 years at the museum. He worked there when the museum was still a project in 1992.
Le Guggenheim Museum à Bilbao MADRID (AFP) - Le musée Guggenheim de Bilbao (nord de l'Espagne) a annoncé mercredi le dépôt d'une plainte contre son directeur financier, Roberto Cearsolo Barrenetxea, accusé d'avoir détourné pour son compte près d'un demi-million d'euros des caisses de deux sociétés commerciales liées au musée. Le célèbre musée explique avoir déposé une plainte mercredi devant le tribunal de Bilbao "pour irrégularités financières et comptables" contre celui qui était son directeur administratif et financier depuis 1997. Une mesure de licenciement a été prise dès mardi à l'encontre de M. Cearsolo Barrenetxea, ajoute le Guggenheim, qui précise qu'à aucun moment la fondation qui gère le musée n'a été "affectée" par ces détournements. L'ex-directeur financier a avoué par écrit avoir détourné "pour son propre compte depuis 1998 diverses sommes d'argent" des comptes de deux sociétés du musée, "pour un montant total de 486.979,38 euros", explique le musée dans un communiqué. Ces montants ont été en partie remboursés par M. Cearsolo Barrenetxea qui a joint aux confessions écrites transmises par son avocat, un chèque d'un montant de 251.900 euros pour "rembourser une partie des sommes" détournées. L'argent avait été puisé sur les comptes de deux sociétés liées au musée: l'une constituée en 1992 pour gérer la construction du bâtiment et l'autre créée en 1995 pour acquérir et gérer les oeuvres d'art de sa collection permanente. "Aucun des faits dénoncés n'affecte les comptes du musée Guggenheim Bilbao, soumis annuellement à un audit externe", tient à souligner le musée qui ajoute vouloir "aller jusqu'au bout de sa démarche pour établir les faits" et "agir dans la plus grande transparence". Les faits ont été découverts début avril à la suite d'une demande de la Cour des comptes du Pays Basque, alors que M. Cearsolo Barrenetxea était en congé maladie. Le Guggenheim de Bilbao, inauguré en octobre 1997, est consacré à l'art moderne et contemporain. Il est surtout célèbre pour son architecture futuriste, signé par l'Américain Frank O. Gehry. Depuis son ouverture, il s'est imposé comme halte obligée pour de nombreux étrangers visitant l'Espagne, accueillant en moyenne un million de visiteurs par an, dont plus de 60% d'étrangers. Copyright © 2008 AFP
09 avril 2008
Lancement de la semaine d'enchères au Vienna Dorotheum de maîtres anciens et peintures 19ème
Guido Reni. "St Magdalene".
VIENNA.-Devine, delicate, and devoted ladies are trumps at this year's first auction week, certainly in terms of subject matter. Filled with energy, the Dorotheum embarks on its 301st year which brings a number of new developments to the seasoned schedule of its four annual auction weeks. For the first time, Old Masters and 19th Century Painting will be presented as part of the Dorotheum Vienna's first auction week from the 15th to the 18th April 2008. Silver, Furniture, Sculpture, as well as Glass & Porcelain are gathered into a single auction of "Antiques", with Jewellery once again bringing the event to its close. At the second auction week in May, incidentally, the successful design category will come up for auction together with modern and contemporary art, another first.
Old Masters never fail to live up to their reputation as 'golden oldies'. After Guido Cagnacci's „Lucretia“ caused an international stir with its sale for € 1,4 million Euro, the 15th April 2008 will see a Magdalene and a Rebecca contest the top billing. Only recently entered into the painter's catalogue of works, "St Magdalene" is recognised as a true masterpiece by Guido Reni. After its discovery in a European private collection not long ago, renowned Reni experts have acknowledged the painting to be an original work by this artist and have welcomed it as a valuable addition to the œuvre of the famous Bologna painter. The idealised painting reminiscent of the style of Raphael is expected to fetch between 250.000 and 300.000 Euro.
Tiepolo's modello of „Rebecca at the Well" represents another high point of Italian painting (€ 145.000 – 165.000) whereas a capriccio with a view of the Coliseum and the Arch of Constantine promises to be of particular interest to collectors. The latter offers a perfect prospect of Rome's famous architecture by the hand of Giovanni Paolo Panini (€ 140.000 – 170.000). Among the Dutch masters Arnold Boonen contributes a „Portrait of a Flower Painter“ while Jacob Marrell, who died in Frankfurt in 1675, offers a brilliantly executed and very decorative "Still Life of Flowers, with melons, reptiles, and a parrot". This excellently preserved painting of nearly square format comes from a Viennese private collection (€ 80.000 – 120.000). Van Goyen, Paul Troger, and Francois Edouard Picot – with an erotically charged „Cupid and Psyche“ – are just some of the other artists featured at this top Dorotheum auction.
The auction of 19th Century Paintings on 16th April 2008 is also completely enthralled by impressive ladies, first and foremost in the form of a masterly portrait of the actress Alice Regnault, which radiates passion and vivacity. It is said that its creator, the Italian-born, London- and Paris trained painter Giovanni Boldini (Ferrara 1845 – 1931), was forced to hide the painting from Regnault's jealous lover, Alexandre Dumas Fils, in his studio. In terms of style, the 1884 portrait provides a perfect example of Boldini's nervous, sketch-like manner, in many ways anticipating the art of the 20th century. In 1933, Time Magazine once referred to this painter, who was also a friend of John Singer Sargent and Degas, as the „Master of Swish“ (€ 300.000 – 400.000).
Unexcelled in their elegance, two black dressed ladies stimulate our imagination in Vittorio Corcos' „Conversation in the Jardin du Luxembourg“ (€ 120.000 – 180.000), as does the Roman Campagna with the Via Appia, in Oswald Achenbach's illustrious 1892 painting (€ 70.000 – 90.000). Additional highlights include works by Gavril Pavlovich Kondratenko, Frans Mortelmans, as well as paintings by Friedrich Gauermann, Eugen Jettel, Olga Wisinger-Florian or Marie Egner. Egner's vividly coloured "Still Life with Buttercups" delicately captures the beginnings of spring (€ 60.000 – 80.000).
The following day of the auction week, the 17th April 2008 is dedicated to Antiques. The Furniture category, for example, features an impressive Russian Empire seat set upholstered in red velvet (€ 50.000 – 60.000) or a museum quality salon- or music table from around 1880/90, attributed to Theophil von Hansen (€ 16.000 – 20.000). A two-tiered 'wedding' wardrobe from Sweden dated 1628 is covered with numerous scenes carved in the round (€ 20.000 – 25.000). The Silver selection, meanwhile, is literally crowned by a Victorian ornamental centrepiece from London, surrounded by three graces (€ 20.000 – 28.000). The Sculptures originate in the 12th to 18th century and feature a particularly noteworthy and enchantingly fragmented "Enthroned Virgin" by Andrea Riccio. The 110 cm tall terracotta sculpture dates to approximately 1500 and is expected to fetch between 60.000 and 80.000 Euro. A graceful limestone figure of St John of about 1400 is shown wearing his typical garment of skins and has been valued at 7.000 to 9.000 Euro. A second St John, from Lower Austria around 1150, is depicted in the form of a sandstone relief (€ 8.000 – 9.500). „It’s teatime“ seems to be the guiding principle of the Porcelain selection with a number of rare early teapots by Du Paquier and Böttger (€ 38.000 – 50.000 resp. € 20.000 – 30.000). The Du Paquier teapot is decorated with an abundance of birds and insects in a garden landscape with Chinese scenes. In the Glass category, collectors can look forward to beakers by Mohn, Mildner or Kothgasser, with one Johann Joseph Mildner beaker bearing a monogram and the dedication: „Ich achte Freundschaft hoch, und bin dem sehr verbunden, der das bekannte Land der Freundschaft hat erfunden“ ("I hold friendship in high esteem and am indebted to him who once discovered the familiar land of friendship", € 6.000 – 9.000).
Giovanni Boldini. "Portrait of Alice Regnault".
06 avril 2008
The Feigenbaum Hall of Innovation au Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Mass.
The 3,000-square-foot exhibition space in Berkshire County’s oldest museum is explicitly devoted to local innovators.
The hall was created with a $1.2 million donation from Armand and Donald Feigenbaum, brothers who have international reputations for their business philosophy of “total quality management.”
Different sections have titles like “Overcoming Obstacles,” “Unexpected Outcomes” and “Innovation Process.”
“When I began to visit the museum more than 25 years ago,” writes Edward Rothstein in The New York Times, “I felt as if I were venturing into an enormous attic in which a wealthy collector was showing off his treasures.”
Exotic fish are part of the coral reef exhibit in the aquarium at the Berkshire Museum.
An Egyptian mummy named Pahat dates back to 330 BC. The museum has about 30,000 objects, only a fraction of which are on display.
“The natural history display cases,” writes Mr. Rothstein, “which will remain for at least a few years, are so quaintly old-fashioned that they have more impact than the more discursive and graphic displays dating from the last renovation.”
A taxidermy exhibit features local wetland birds.
Herman Melville's quill pen and walking stick are on display in the section called “Overcoming Obstacles.” Melville wrote “Moby-Dick” not far from the institution.
Photos: Nancy Palmieri for The New York Times
Lire l'article "Attic-Like Museum’s New Annex of Ideas" de EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
03 avril 2008
Villa Médicis : Benamou retire sa candidature!
C'est la honte! PARIS (AFP) - L'ex-conseiller culturel du président de la République Georges-Marc Benamou annonce qu'il n'est plus candidat au poste de directeur de la Villa Médicis, dans une interview au Nouvel Observateur à paraître jeudi.
"A tout bien réfléchir, j'ai décidé de me retirer", affirme M. Benamou. Sa nomination annoncée mais jamais officialisée à la tête de la prestigieuse institution avait provoqué un tollé dans le monde de la culture.
Lire la suite http://fr.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080402/tcu-politique-culture-medias-italie-lead-7b903d2.html
Les pistes de Christine Albanel pour relancer le marché de l’art
La France, qui se trouvait en troisième position sur le marché de l’art mondial, est désormais dépassée par la Chine. Hier, Christine Albanel a rendu public un rapport sur une relance de la place parisienne rendu par Martin Béthenod, président de la Foire internationale d’art contemporain (Fiac).
La plus novatrice consiste à accorder un prêt sans intérêt à l’achat d’une première œuvre. Elle s’inspire du succès d’un programme lancé en 2004 au Royaume-Uni. Néanmoins, l’Etat n’apportera aucune aide. Ce serait aux banques de jouer les mécènes. Corollaire : alors qu’en Grande Bretagne ces prêts ne vont qu’à des œuvres de faible valeur (moins de 3 000 euros), le plafond serait plus élevé, ouvrant aux banquiers une clientèle plus intéressante… Mais aucune démarche ne semble avoir été faite pour sonder leur enthousiasme. Le gouvernement s’est aussi engagé à ouvrir le mécénat, très en retard par rapport à celui pratiqué par les Allemands, les Britanniques ou les Américains. Il prévoit d’ouvrir aux professions libérales en entreprises individuelles le dispositif permettant de déduire l’achat d’œuvres d’artistes vivants du bénéfice imposable. Le plafond, peu attractif (0,5 % du chiffre d’affaires), sera relevé. Avec l’application de la directive européenne sur les services, la France va aussi alléger les contraintes pesant sur les sociétés de ventes aux enchères. Elles pourront proposer à leurs clients un minimum financier garanti avant une vente, ou céder des œuvres de gré à gré. Des procédés utilisés ailleurs, mais interdits à Paris. De plus, sans pour autant annoncer de mesures concrètes la ministre s’est dite favorable à une extension du mécénat d’entreprise aux particuliers, pour les dons aux musées de «trésors nationaux». Elle a promis de négocier avec Bruxelles les taxes et charges pesant sur le marché français, avec comme objectif une harmonisation avec Londres.
Lire la suite de l'article de Vincent Noce http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/economie_terre/319088.FR.php (photo AFP)