Le Bristol loves art, and particularly masters the art of surprising us. So after exhibiting in its garden the works of two internationally renowned artists, Daniel Buren and Ugo Rondinone, in 2016 and 2017 respectively, the palace asked the gallery owner Kamel Mennour to think about a new project.

Le Bristol and Kamel Mennour Collaborate Again

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For this third collaboration, the Bristol goes even further, and gives carte blanche to Kamel Mennour to ask one of his artists to create a work specifically designed in and for the hotel.

For this first edition, Kamel Mennour therefore invites the French artist Bertrand Lavier to seize the jewel of Oetker Collection.

To understand Bertrand Lavier's project at Bristol Paris, we have to go back to the comic strip “Traits Très Abstraits”, published in 1977 in Le Journal de Mickey, which tells about the adventures of Mickey and Minnie in a mock modern art museum.

Fascinated by this imaginary, the artist began his Walt Disney Productions "work site" in 1984: he isolated the paintings and sculptures that constitute the backdrop for the narration, enlarged them to the presumed format and made them into very real art objects.

"By proceeding in this way, he operates a short-circuit in the circuit of representation, since it makes tangible what was until then only decoration and fiction", writes historian and art critic Bernard Marcadé . Little by little, certain paintings and sculptures thus come to life. The history of fictional art, as presented in comics, then arises in reality.

Today, Bertrand Lavier is transposing this approach to the Bristol, in the garden and in the living room of the magnificent Paris Suite, a superb "white canvas" of silk, woodwork and Louis XVI furniture. The artist succeeds in transfiguring this decor with elegant classicism into a real poetic, artistic and modern bubble.

The living room of the suite is transformed: as in the Disney comic book museum, the floor is dressed in a mauve carpet, the contemporary furniture stands out against the yellow and green walls and interacts with two sculptures in pop colors, canvases and photographs inspired by the Walt Disney comics. For Kamel Mennour: “the artist creates here an art capsule, a mise en abyme which brings into existence a fictional and archetypal art in reality. "

In the suite, guests are invited to a literal dive, a total immersion into the work and imagination of a world-renowned artist.

A surprising journey into fiction, which ends when we return to the reality of the other rooms in the suite, which retain their usual decor.

Echoing this unique artistic intervention in the Paris Suite, the artist is installing three large sculptures in dazzling colors in the French garden of the palace, also from the Walt Disney Productions series.

Bertrand Lavier's work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions around the world at the Center Georges Pompidou, at the Monnaie de Paris, at the Serpentine Gallery in London, at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, at the Musée of Contemporary Art in San Diego, and at the Dijon Consortium. He recently exhibited at the Couvent des Jacobins in Rennes - as part of the exhibition “Debout! »Presenting works from the François Pinault Collection -, as well as at the Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo in Japan, and at the MoMu - Middelheim Museum, Antwerp, Belgium. A solo exhibition of the artist will take place at the kamel mennour gallery (47 rue Saint-André-des-Arts, Paris 6), from April 18 to May 25, 2019.

La Suite Paris by Bertrand Lavier at Bristol Paris, from April 19, 2019, from 11 euros per night. Experience total immersion with the L'Art au Bristol offer including: at least two nights in a Paris Suite by Bertrand Lavier with American breakfast and VIP round-trip transfer, tasting in the Bristol Cave and dinner at Epicure with the artist depending on availability, as well as a private tour of the artist's exhibition at the Galerie kamel mennour.

Bertrand Lavier's sculptures are exhibited in the garden, from April 19, 2019. All the works are for sale. Contact: Kamel Mennour - galerie@kamelmennour.com