La Fab(ulous)

agnès b.’s Galerie du Jour

We are moving back (I mean forward) to the contemporary art scene this week, specifically to La Fab, Foundation agnès b. - a museum, a gallery, a bookstore. The museum is closed, of course, but the gallery is open, at least at the moment. Since last I wrote, things have gotten even dimmer in the City of Lights. Curfew is still 6:00p.m. but now stores that are 10 000 square meters and larger are closed - last time, when Bon Marché closed mid-exhibition, it was stores 20 000 square meters or more. This is not, my friends, a step in the right direction. And vaccines are nowhere to be found. So, as I say, at least for the moment, the galleries are open.

Figure 1. agnès b., wearing her classic cardigan

You know agnès b. n’est pas? (Figure 1) The e e cummings of clothes designers? I have been shopping at her boutiques for a very long time. It was my go-to shop when my daughter had something to celebrate, like getting accepted into Convent of the Sacred Heart and some years later, getting accepted into UC Berkeley. I marked the occasions with a perfect and pas trop cher cadeau from agnès b. And I appreciate that instead of matches or mints at the cash register, there are condoms. I always take one, you never know.

Agnès b was in the news recently. Since the #MeToo movement has moved from sexual harassment at the workplace (well, except for Andrew Cuomo) to incest at home (the pseudo-documentary on Woody Allen was perfectly timed) both men and women have begun sharing their stories of incest. Agnēs dealt with hers a while ago, with a film she wrote in 2003 and produced a decade later. She said it was ‘Like an exorcism (that) was screened at the Venice Film Festival…” In an interview with Le Monde in 2017, she explained it this way, “(At 11) I had breasts, long blond hair; (I was) a nymphet” And a handsome 45 year old man (an uncle) preyed upon her. (Figure 2) Her mother was flattered that this man was paying attention to her daughter, and so she did not see /did not want to see what was happening. Interesting how mothers and older women are complicit in the sexual traumas of girls from Roman Polanski to genital cutting.

Agnès b. (née Troublé - great name, right?) was born into a bourgeois Catholic family in 1941. The third of 3 daughters, after the birth of her younger brother, (four children in 5 years) her parents never shared the same bed again. Which I suppose is the best way to avoid unwanted pregnancies for the seed spilling averse crowd. She has spoken fondly of her father, calling him a kindred spirit. Her mother, not so much. For example, she insisted that her children vouvoyer her, which was apparently the done thing in conservative, especially Catholic families through the 1960s. The family lived in Versailles, 200 meters from the Chateau. The park was Agnès’ garden, where she rode her bike when she was upset, where she sought serenity.

To protect herself from further unwanted advances, Agnès became engaged at 16 and was married at 17. Pregnant at 18, the mother of twin boys at 19, she divorced her husband when she was 20. Her bourgeois family did not take her back, of course they didn’t, how embarrassing would it have been for her mother to have a despoiled young beauty around.

With only a small stipend from her ex-husband, she had to figure out how to earn a living and she did. One evening, during this period of juggling babies and bottles, Agnès showed up at a dinner party wearing flea market finds: cowboy boots, a short skirt or maybe it was a petticoat she had cut short and a military surplus jacket. She caught the eye of an another dinner guest, who just happened to be an editor for Elle magazine. Who gave Agnès a trial assignment, which she passed, which got her a job. After a while, Agnès didn’t want to write about fashion, she wanted to do it. She began to freelance for designers. When a photo of a piece she had designed was about to appear in Elle, she got a call: how did she want to be credited. She said Agnès B, figuring that since her husband was using the full name, she should go for the initial. And then she went even further when she registered the name, opting for lower case: agnès b.

A few years later, frustrated by the limitations imposed by designing for others, agnès’ new partner, (11 years her junior, with whom she was to have 2 daughters) who was apparently equal parts ethereal and entrepreneurial, suggested that they open a boutique. (Figure 3) It was 1976. They found a deserted butcher shop near Les Halles (a no-man’s land at the time) on Rue du Jour, in the shadow of St-Eustache Cathedral. The boutique was cavernous, birds flew in and out and built their nests up high using threads they scavenged from the clothes. The fashion writer Penelope Rowlands has said that the boutique reminded her of Biba, the store in London for which another photographer I have written about, Sarah Moon, created interesting images. Agnes has always hated advertising, but as I think about Sarah Moon’s work, if she and Agnes had ever connected, the photos would have been amazing. (Figure 4)

Though the space was huge, it was never cluttered. agnès didn’t fill her boutique like H & M and Target do. She left it mostly empty, like Armani does. I took a graduate Marketing course once at the Wharton School. The professor explained that the number of clothes in a store window is is function of price. The cheaper the clothes, the more clothes there are crammed into the window. The more expensive the clothes, the fewer in the window. Agnès’ clothes might not have been Armani Privé expensive, but the way she presented them, suggested they were. And yet, agnès’ first collection was riffs on workmen’s clothes - what painters wore, what plasterers wore, what waiters wore - overalls, loose pants, short jackets. But not white. In the white butcher’s shop turned boutique, the clothes were dyed pink and red and pale blue. According to Laura Jacobs, agnès’ boutique was subtly political, she made workers’ clothes for everyone. Hers was “fashion with a democratic accent.” J.J. Buck, the former editor in chief of French Vogue calls agnès’ designs a “radical socialist thing, It’s never about showing off. It’s just about having proper clothes that make you look good.”

Agnès herself has said, ”I have no desire to dress an elite… Clothes aren't everything. When they become too important, when they hide the person wearing them, then I don't like them…. I don't like fashion. I like the people and the clothes.… And I have always wanted to make long-lasting clothes, … which can be kept for twenty years. I look for comfort, harmony, things that go together easily and make it possible to compose a myriad of outfits.”

Emilia Petrarca recently wrote about agnès b.’s snap cardigan (Figure 5, Figure 6) which she designed in 1979, which is still going strong. Petrarca calls it a “uniquely French combination of bohemian ease and bourgeois austerity, a Chanel jacket meets a Champion hoodie meets a baby onesie”. Agnès explained how she came to design the cardigan, “I had long, curly hair, so I thought it would be nice to not take [my sweatshirt] off over my head,” So she cut the front down the middle and pulled it off. And she began sketching, giving it roomy sleeves, “to be able to raise your arms and kiss someone.” The snaps were inspired by the statues of 18th century kings and queens that she knew from her bike rides through the gardens of Versailles. (Figure 7) Agnès buys French fabrics whenever she can so the cardigans are “made of a sturdy cotton fleece from Troyes, France.” According to Petrarca, they “tend to get better with age like a fine, machine-washable wine.” Doesn’t it make you want to put your snap cardigan on RIGHT NOW?

Figure 6. Charlotte Gainsborough in Snap Cardigan (with Mom Jane Birkin)

In 1984, she opened the Galerie du Jour, (Figure 8) next to the boutique, on rue du Jour, to showcase the work of artists she admired and to sell books published by Christian Bourgois, her first husband, the source of the ‘b.’ In her name.

Figure 9. J’aime les Graffitis, agnès b.

Agnès says that it wasn’t easy to start an art gallery in France because the French don’t like people doing different things, it goes against their ‘stay in your own lane’ mentality. But she tread lightly, persisted and specialized in two categories - photography and graffiti - thereby avoiding any whiff of elitism. “I have always loved graffiti,” agnès has said, “In New York, in the late 1970s, early 1980s, I became passionate about those who invaded the city and the subway. From the opening of the gallery in ’84, I tried to show what street art meant to me, the works that were pasted on the large advertising panels of the metro. I like to show in the gallery what's going on “outside”, (on the streets) highlighting what I think is important.” (Figure 9)

From the beginning, everything in the gallery was for sale. The idea was, still is, to showcase contemporary and historical works, original creations, multiples and editions, especially pieces by young contemporary designers. Dispersed throughout and also for sale, are vintage pieces of furniture agnès picked up here and there. Agnès conceived of her gallery as a way to support young creators, present different art forms and attract new audiences. She follows her instincts and buys what she likes. She has become a mentor to young photographers, advising them, buying them, exhibiting them. Agnès’ flea market aesthetic, on display at that dinner party so many years ago, is still alive and well at her Galerie du Jour.

Figure 10. La Fab, Place Jean-Michel Basquiat, 13eme, Paris

The Galerie du Jour kept its name but moved from the rue du Jour to the rue de Quimcampoix in the Marais in 1998. A decade later, agnès and her team began looking for another site for her gallery. She wanted to find a spot that was neither too big nor too arrogant, where she could share her collection without imposing it. They focused their search in the northern part of the City. They wanted something edgy, near St. Denis. But all the buildings they saw required too much renovation. When they learned about a building in the 13th, just down the street from the Bibliotheque National, they decided they could make it work. (Figure 10) Jean Nouvel’s twin towers, a few blocks away, are scheduled for completion by the end this year.(Figure 11) Their bizarre upper profile reminds me of Frank Gehry’s twin buildings in Prague, albeit on steroids, dubbed ‘Fred and Ginger.’ (Figure 12) Nouvel’s buildings are enormous by comparison. One wall will be vegetation, like his Musee Quai Branley which will add warmth, perhaps even charm to its monumental scale.

La Fab (Figure 13) now occupies the bottom two floors of a mixed-use building which includes 75 public housing units and a creche. The address is Place Jean-Michel Basquiat, which is as it should be since agnès knew Basquiat back in the day, they even had a thing going. The architects who designed the building designed La Fab’s interior. (Figure 14) As agnès observed, “Taking possession of a place takes time, it's animalistic, you have to get in there, pitch your tent, make it your own.”

The exhibition I saw in the gallery was on the work of seven American photographers. For those of you in Paris, the exhibition is on until April 3.

Figure 15. Marianne Faithful as Lilith, Kenneth Anger

Figure 15. Sampson de Trier as Lord Shiva, Kenneth Anger

One of the seven was Kenneth Anger. Agnès b remembers when she first met him. “it was in 1960, when Christian Bourgois, my husband at the time, published Hollywood Babylone (by Anger) and I had the chance to meet him at the Café de Flore, All dressed in black leather ... legendary pants and biker jacket, black hair … Like Christian, he called me ‘lamb’” (as her mother had called her before him, lamb in French is agneau, not so far from Agnès). She held an exhibition of his work in 1997 and another in 2012 which focused on the artist's major works, Hollywood Babylon and the Magick Lantern film cycle. On exhibit now are enlarged photograms of Anais Nin as Astarte, Claude Revenant as Arlequin, Marianne Faithful as Lilith, and Sampson de Trier as Lord Shiva (Figure 15)

Figure 16. This Side of Paradise, Carolyn Kennedy, Jonas Mekas

Another artist whose work is on display is Jonas Mekas who agnès first exhibited in 1999. Then and now, the exhibition is of photograms, taken from the 16mm film This Side of Paradise, Fragments of an Unfinished Biography, These are rare and personal images of Jacqueline Kennedy and her children on holiday in Montauk with their aunt Lee Radziwill and her children, their cousins, all of whom Jonas taught how to handle a camera. (Figure 16, Figure 17) On exhibit with the photograms is a handwritten letter from Jacqueline Kennedy to Jonas Mekas thanking him (Figure 18). The images themselves are light hearted yet one is reminded that of them all, only Carolyn survives. Photographs of agnès and Mekas together over the years. (Figure 19) are a celebration of their long friendship.

Figure 19. Photograph of Agnes b and Jonas Mekas

Dash Snow is also here. (Figure 20). Snow’s images speak for himself as well as his, the post 9/11, generation. A member of the wealthy art collecting Menil family, he died of a drug overdose in 2009 at the age of 27. The New York Times obituary called him a’ downtown Baudelaire’. The Guardian’s described him as an edgy young artist comparable to Jean-Michel Basquiat. Both emerged out of the graffiti subculture and both died at the same age, of the same thing.

Finally, there is the work of photographer, Olivia Bee. (Figure 21) Although agnès did not write the following lines about Olivia Bee, her comments show how closely her design and collecting aesthetic and philosophy align. “In my collection there’s a lot of photography of young people, I love people at the time they are making themselves, becoming themselves. There is something respectful when the photographer takes a picture of someone who is not exactly in the frame.” (Figure 22) For agnès, this is a key difference between photography as an art and advertising photography. That is one of the reasons agnès has never advertised. Agnès’ comment is actually a wonderful metaphor for her clothes, too, which respect the people who wear them—people who live in their clothes but are not constrained by them, who indeed, live outside the frame.

Figure 22. Boy jumping over fence, Olivia Bee

Oh one last thing, don’t rush over to La Fab for condoms. There is, I was told, a ‘rupture en stock’ they’re all out - kind of like the vaccine situation - just can’t seem to get any protection in Paris these days !

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