At age 90, collector François Pinault, founder of the Kering luxury conglomerate and the investment holding company Artémis, isn’t getting any younger. So it’s hard not to wonder how that may have factored into his latest announcement in a rare interview with Le Monde, stating he plans to mount a first permanent exhibition from his collection of over 10,000 artworks, opening in March, 2027 at one of his two Venice museums, the ornate Palazzo Grassi.
The display will feature 106 major artworks by 54 artists. Typically, the 2006-founded Palazzo Grassi hosts temporary shows, just like Pinault’s two other venues: the Bourse de Commerce in Paris, and the Punta della Dogana in Venice.
Pinault didn’t explicitly discuss his legacy, but when it comes to the stewardship of his collection, it remains unclear who will follow in his footsteps. He did say that the idea for a permanent hang has been brewing for some time, and has to do with concerns that his traditionally temporary shows don’t give a full-enough picture of his collection.
“Until now, the public has only been able to discover this story in fragments, as exhibitions came and went,” he explained. “A permanent display makes it possible to set works from different periods and generations side by side and to show how, beyond their singularity, certain questions endure.” With that in mind, he hopes to permanently showcase works that “have asserted themselves through their strength and their ability to withstand the passage of time.”
However, Pinault cautioned against assuming he was wrapping up his collecting, or that the permanent show served as his final word. “It is in no way a matter of freezing the collection or offering a definitive reading of it. Our view of art continues to evolve,” he said, referring to himself and his team of curators.
On that note, Pinault also offered a few insights into said view, which, over the years, has earned him a reputation for venturing toward challenging ultra-contemporary works. “My collection is eminently subjective and very often built on instinct, passion, or even anger in the face of the violence of the present,” he said, adding he was “sensitive to the way works of art can reveal the profound instability” of our times. However, he broadened this to include artworks that also “turn away from [the present] in an attempt to embody the invisible — that which precisely transcends reality,” added the man who reminds us that he often thinks of his modest beginnings as the son of a poor rural farmer.
Pinault is a rare top collector in France to gravitate toward artists of marginalized and non-Western backgrounds, who have been under-recognized in major museums, though he insists that when looking at an artwork, he pays no attention to “the passport or gender.”
“My interest has rather been motivated by encounters with extraordinary, almost shamanic figures, like David Hammons,” he said. “Bringing this African-American scene to light invites us to step off the well-trodden paths of Western art and take the road less traveled.”