Francois-Henri Pinault, head of luxury goods conglomerate Kering, owns perhaps the most important private collections of contemporary art today. While much of his collection is on public display in Venice’s Palazzo Grassi (which he owns), the ArtLovers exhibition, on display until September 7 at the Grimaldi Forum, brings some of the most inspiring pieces to Monaco. Curated by the Palazzo Grimaldi’s Martin Bethenod, ArtLovers ties together works by 33 artists from disparate parts of the globe working on a range of different media, including video, painting and sculpture. More than a third of the works have never been displayed as part of the Pinault Collection before. Some works, such as Takashi Murakami’s polyptych 727-272 (The Emergence of God at the Reversal of Fate) – were specifically commissioned for display at the Palazzo Grassi.
Visitors to the exhibition are greeted on the Grimaldi Forum’s esplanade by a giant skull constructed from stainless steel utensils - “Mind Shut Down” by Indian artist Subhod Gupta. Inside, more famous names and artworks: Jeff Koons’s “Hanging Heart” and Piotr Uklanski’s multi-media “Untitled (Dancing Nazis)” among them. The exhibition was inaugurated by Prince Albert II of Monaco – other featured artists include Urs Fischer, Damien Hirst, Marlene Dumas and Bertrand Lavier.