StoryThe Head of State cultivates a taste for contemporary art and displays a friendly relationship with the German plastic artist, of which around thirty paintings will be presented at the ephemeral Grand Palais, from December 16. The young president sees in the erudition and austerity of the septuagenarian painter an echo of his European political ambitions.
They came to be noticed. On October 20, the big names from the small art world flock to the cocktail party given by the Elysée on the occasion of the FIAC, the international contemporary art fair, which has just opened. In the ballroom of the presidential palace, museum directors looking for promotion, gallery owners, prominent artists …
Emmanuel Macron multiplies handshakes and hugs. He is all smiles in front of this small crowd which is acquired to him and which would almost make him forget the health crisis and the presidential campaign. He goes from one to the other, greets the luminaries like the young wolves, as well as the journalists. Seizing the ball, we take the opportunity to question him about his relationship with the artist Anselm Kiefer, present among the guests. Immediately, the presidential entourage will seek the plastic surgeon and offer him to join the discussion.
Dark works
In the hubbub, a bubble is created around the 43-year-old president and the 76-year-old artist. The exchange is friendly, accomplice. They talk about politics, in particular the French presidency of the European Union, which will begin in January 2022, evoke common knowledge, like the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, recently invited by Emmanuel Macron. “What, was Peter there?” Kiefer is surprised behind his thin glasses. And he hasn’t visited me? It is not possible ! “” Yes, he came to dinner, could we hear President Emmanuel Macron answer him. He took his little whiskey. There is a whole thing to do about Europe. We need to talk about it! ”
“Their glue is literature. »A counselor of the Elysée
While, around them, we discuss appointments at the head of museums or public commissions, they embark on literature. They dissert on Paul Valéry, the author of the interwar period. “He said that after the First World War Europe was lost, that it was no more than a small cape of the Asian continent”, recalls the artist. “The famous text where he says that we have seen civilizations die, a real text”, bounces Emmanuel Macron, citing The Crisis of the Spirit, from 1919. A counselor of the Elysée, slightly behind, comments on the scene: “Their glue is literature. ”
Because the two men know each other well. The president particularly appreciates the German artist, born in 1945 in the basements of a bombed-out hospital in a small town in the Black Forest and who has lived in France since 1992. He likes his giant canvases crossed by poems, which amalgamate earth, ashes, lead and dried flowers, chalk and hair, and represent dark woods and snowy plains, cosmic chaos and Nazi architecture.
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