Tie2.lt\/Christies.com<\/p>\n
It is a rare 18-year-old who spends their first pay cheque on a print by the early modern Japanese painter Tsuguharu Foujita, but then, few people are like Alain Mallart. The French financier describes himself as \u2018a mischievous and atypical lover of life\u2019. It is a quality he shares with his wife, the vivacious Danute, a former actor from Lithuania, whom he met in Paris. \u2018We are complete opposites,\u2019 says Danute, \u2018but what brought us together was a love of opera, literature and curiosity.\u2019<\/p>\n
Over the past 30 years, the couple have created a masterful collection of modern and contemporary art and design \u2014 one that draws its inspiration from a variety of sources, ranging from the operas of Wagner and Monteverdi to long summer nights on the Baltic coast. It is a surprising meeting of minds between two people who began life in very different circumstances: Alain in Paris, where he took refuge from his lonely childhood in the city\u2019s art museums; and Danute in Cold War Lithuania, who discovered a love of photography and Constructivism while studying music at the Moscow Conservatory.<\/p>\n
The Mallarts\u2019 collection is situated across three residences, in Brussels, Paris and Vilnius. Each is distinctive and in tune with its surroundings: the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris, the grounds of La Cambre Abbey in Brussels, and the extraordinary biodiversity of Vilnius, one of Europe\u2019s greenest cities. Danute says there was no specific strategy regarding the placement of artworks. \u2018I love it when a work comes into the house and finds its place between periods and objects,\u2019 she says. \u2018That is what I call rhythm.<\/p>\n
On 17 October 2024, art and objects from all three residences will be offered in Collection Danute et Alain Mallart: Bruxelles \u2014 Paris \u2014 Vilnius at Christie\u2019s in Paris. Leading the sale will be the Marlene Dumas painting Feathered Stola<\/em>, dating from 2000, part of her \u2018Strippinggirls\u2019 series based on photographs of sex workers in Amsterdam. \u2018It says it all,\u2019 says Danute of the image. \u2018She\u2019s seductive, perverse, strong and innocent.\u2019<\/p>\n Other works offered include a Georg Baselitz cowboy; monumental textured paintings by Anselm Kiefer; a vivid copper tableau by Robert Rauschenberg; and an Infinity nets<\/em> canvas by Yayoi Kusama. There are sculptures by Erwin Wurm, Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley; and furniture by the aristocracy of 20th-century design, namely Eug\u00e8ne Printz and Jean-Michel Frank. The Mallarts also have a fine collection of highly inventive objects by Andr\u00e9 Dubreuil \u2014 a designer whose bold adventures in metal and glass were never made for practicality, but fantasy. He once said that his furniture should set the eye \u2018off on a voyage of discovery\u2019<\/p>\n It all adds up to a collection as striking, romantic and ambitious as its owners. Alain says his approach to buying art mirrors the way he runs his businesses: \u2018Like a conductor looking for the right soloists, seeking out the best harmonies.\u2019 Danute agrees, saying that there are \u2018two rhythms and a shared rhythm\u2019.<\/p>\n The couple\u2019s friend, the collector Daniel Lebard, says that it represents \u2018a daring review of modern and contemporary art\u2019, combining Danute\u2019s \u2018powerful passions\u2019 with Alain\u2019s \u2018radical originality\u2019 to create something with a \u2018resolutely heroic spirit\u2019.<\/p>\n The light-filled Paris residence is carefully arranged with works by contemporary artists championed by the Mallarts, and takes its lead from Kapoor\u2019s declaration that \u2018the work doesn\u2019t exist without the viewer, without somebody looking at it\u2019. Paintings by Kiefer, Takashi Murakami and Martial Raysse are combined with sculptures by Jason Martin, Richard Deacon and Berlinde de Bruyckere to create theatrical environments.<\/p>\n Painted in 1999, Murakami\u2019s DOB Jump<\/em> is an early portrayal of the artist\u2019s well-known character Mr. DOB, an alter ego who has appeared in various forms throughout the artist\u2019s career. (The character\u2019s name derives from a nonsensical Japanese phrase, \u2018dobojite dobojite oshamanbe<\/em>\u2019, which might be translated as, \u2018Why? Why? Why?\u2019) Here, Mr. DOB hovers against a vibrant cherry-red background trailing a zigzag of white spray.<\/p>\n Pop artist Martial Raysse is famed for playful images that fuse popular culture and geometric shapes into near-sculptural assemblages. \u2018I am a painter who uses modern techniques to express a modern world,\u2019 he says. La France orange<\/em> (1963) features a black-and-white photocopied portrait of the artist\u2019s wife, France, sprayed green. France was born on Bastille Day and named after her country. The joyful artwork was previously owned by Georges Pompidou, president of France between 1969 and 1974, and became a popular symbol of 1960s Paris.<\/p>\n The warm interior of the Mallarts\u2019 home in Brussels echoes the city\u2019s Art Nouveau heritage. It is decorated with obelisks of patinated metal, spidery lamps, and tables in pale oak, designed by the greats of European design: Jean Chauvin, Albert Cheuret, Printz, Frank and Diego Giacometti. Interspersed with these much-loved objects are artworks by Kiefer, Mimmo Paladino and the pioneering conceptual artist John Baldessari.<\/p>\n Baldessari once said, \u2018It fascinates me how I can manipulate the truth so easily by the way I juxtapose opposites or crop the image or take it out of context.\u2019 His 2007 work Arms & legs (Specif. Elbows & Knees), Etc. (Part One): Elbow, Leg (with Swing)<\/em> is part of a vibrant series of collages that reconfigured the human form<\/p>\n The monochrome palette of the Mallarts\u2019 modernist home in the Lithuanian capital is disrupted by unruly elements, from geometric silver sculptures to splashes of unexpected colour. Among the former is a piece by the Campana brothers \u2014 known for reinventing everyday materials to create vibrant, offbeat designs \u2014 called the \u2018Fata Morgana\u2019 mirror. The stainless-steel creation fractures light to throw radiant shapes across the minimalist interior.<\/p>\n Among the other highlights from the Vilnius residence is a mixed-media work from 1986 by the German post-war experimental artist Sigmar Polke, and a monumental canvas, An evening with Pam Partizan<\/em>, painted in 1989 by his contemporary, A.R. Penck, whose unmistakable visual language here takes the form of a symbolically loaded whirlpool of figures and signs against a dark backdrop.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tie2.lt\/Christies.com It is a rare 18-year-old who spends their first pay cheque on a print by the early modern Japanese painter Tsuguharu Foujita, but then, few people are like Alain Mallart. The French financier describes himself as \u2018a mischievous and atypical lover of life\u2019. It is a quality he shares with his wife, the vivacious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":98888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nParis<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Brussels<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Vilnius<\/strong><\/h2>\n