Philippe Parreno: Marilyn

The Espace Louis Vuitton München is pleased to present Marilyn, an exhibition dedicated to French artist Philippe Parreno, pursuing the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s mission of showcasing holdings from the Collection to an international audience through the “Hors-les-murs” programme. This programme unfolds at the Espaces Louis Vuitton in Tokyo, Munich, Venice, Beijing, Seoul and Osaka.

Philippe Parreno‘s reputation has been built on the diversity of his practice which spans a vast range of media including film, sculpture, drawing and performance. Through his multidisciplinary practice, Parreno has created unexpected artworks that question the boundaries between reality and fiction, often blurring the distinction between the two. The artist invites the viewer to radically re-evaluate the nature of reality, memory, and the passage of time, elaborating universes where the aesthetics of social exchanges and situations are prioritized over the creation of art objects.

Since the 1990s, one constant and underlying thread in Parreno‘s oeuvre is his interest in the exhibition as a medium, placing its construction at the heart of his process. He vies that the exhibition is an object in its own right, an experience and format which he is constantly questioning and reinventing. Thus preferring projects to objects, Parreno began examining unique approaches to narration and representation throughout his works, conceiving his exhibitions as a scripted space where a series of events unfold. He seeks to transform the exhibition visit into a singular experience that plays with spatial and temporal boundaries and the sensory experience of the visitor. From the 2000s onwards, ghosts, ventriloquists and robots began appearing more in Parreno‘s films, posing the question of the origins of storytelling, whilst interrogating the passage of time and blurring reality and fiction. These important themes continue through Parreno‘s later works, including Marilyn (2012), a film recreating Marilyn Monroe‘s life in a phantasmagorical séance. For Parreno, the exhibition is a total work of art that offers an ongoing interdependent series of open possibilities.

For Marilyn, the Espace Louis Vuitton München invites you to experience emblematic works from the Collection by Philippe Parreno in various media. Alongside the eponymous video installation Marilyn (2012), the series of drawings In Preparation of Marilyn: “The Quasi Living” (2013) will be shown as well as the video installation The Writer (2007), and the sculpture Untitled (2010). Comprising drawings, sculpture and film, these works typify Parreno’s multidisciplinary practice through which he continues his quest to find an ultimate form of communication capable of transcending language.

About the artist
French artist Philippe Parreno was born in 1964 in Oran, Algeria. His oeuvre approaches the exhibition as a medium and is constantly questioning and reinventing its format through film, sculpture, performance, drawing and text.

He has works represented in the collections of Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Kanazawa Museum of the 21st Century, Japan; MoMA, New York; Musée d‘Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, France; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate Modern, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, US. Recently, Parreno has presented solo exhibitions at Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013–2014); Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow, Russia (2013); Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland (2012); Serpentine Gallery, London, UK (2010–2011); Centre for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York, US (2009–2010); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, lreland (2009–2010); Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland (2009).

His work has also appeared in Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin (2018); Two Automatons for One Duet, Art Institute Chicago (2018); Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2017); Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2015); Park Avenue Armory, New York (2015); Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2017); Fundaciao de Serralves, Porto (2017); Thenabo York (2015); CAC Malaga (2014); Barbican Art Gallery, London (2013); Fondation Beyeler (2012); Philadelphia Museum of Art (2012); The Serpentine Gallery, London (2010); CCA Kitakyoshu, Japan (2006); and Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2001).

Philippe Parreno currently lives and works in Paris, France.

About the Fondation Louis Vuitton
The Fondation Louis Vuitton, which was inaugurated in October 2014 in the Bois de Boulogne, gives Paris a major new cultural and artistic institution dedicated to the arts. The Fondation also embodies the commitment of LVMH—and Louis Vuitton in particular—to corporate philanthropy in support of the arts and creative endeavors. The building commissioned from the architect Frank Gehry is already recognized as an emblematic example of 21st century architecture. This new Paris monument constitutes the first artistic statement by the Fondation.

Since its inauguration, the Fondation Louis Vuitton has welcomed millions of visitors from France and the entire world, all eager to discover Frank Gehry’s building, as well as the exhibitions and events prepared by the Fondation’s teams around four themes:

The Fondation Collection, composed of works by contemporary French and international artists, as well as works from the 20th century, enabling presentations of relationships and inspirations. The Fondation also commissions works to support contemporary creation. The building designed by Frank Gehry thus welcomes works by Ellsworth Kelly, Olafur Eliasson, Adrian Villar Rojas and Katharina Grosse.

Contemporary art figures prominently in temporary exhibitions designed to resonate with displays from the permanent Collection. Since it opened, the Fondation has notably presented Contact by Olafur Eliasson, while Daniel Buren’s Observatory of Light proposed a fresh perspective of the building and the oeuvre of iconic and mysterious American artist Cindy Sherman undergoes a metamorphosis with each of her masked portraits. The works selected for this show belong to the Collection, and many loans. The Bentu exhibition offered a look at current trends in Chinese contemporary art, to which the Fondation is deeply attached, evidenced in the numerous works by Chinese artists in its permanent Collection.

Modern art, which is essential to an understanding of the foundations of contemporary art, is also featured in temporary exhibitions dedicated to 20th century modern art. The exhibition Keys to a Passion revealed the historical touchstones that shaped the Fondation’s artistic choices thanks to exceptional loans, underscoring the special ties between the Fondation Louis Vuitton and prestigious institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, MoMA and the Hermitage Museum. Icons of Modern Art. The Shchukin Collection, which opened in October 2016 and ran until March 2017, and The Morozov Collection in 2021, were truly major events.

The Fondation Louis Vuitton Auditorium is dedicated to music, dance and poetry. It also welcomes cross-disciplinary events and conferences. Since its inaugural recital on October, 24 2014 given by Lang Lang, the Auditorium has welcomed many distinguished international artists including Tedi Papavrami, Yuja Wang, Vladimir Spivakov, Steve Reich, Chick Corea and Matthias Pintscher.

Hors-les-murs—Tokyo, Munich, Venice, Beijing, Seoul and Osaka: Works from the Collection
In the year following its opening, the Fondation began engaging with audiences outside of France through its “Hors-les-murs” (“Beyond the Walls”) programme. The first chapter was an architecture exhibition dedicated to Frank Gehry, followed by exhibitions of works from the Fondation Louis Vuitton Collection.