Munch’s «Scream» to Paris

«Keys to a Passion» is an exhibition in Paris, in which French and international art audience may experience Edvard Munch and other modern art’s highlights.

After thirteen years in construction, the Louis Vuitton art and cultural center in Paris opened October last year.

The foundation will now present a number of modern art’s touchstones. Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” is one of the famous works, on loan from the Munch Museum in Oslo, while Matisse’s “Dance,” not seen in Paris for 15 years, is on loan from the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Léger’s “Three Women” is borrowed from the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

It is not often the Munch Museum lends out “The Scream” (1910), but Director Stein Olav Henrichsen justifies it the following way, “Edvard Munch’s The Scream has an indisputable position in the international history of art. The work is considered one of the most important contributions in the transition from the figurative to the modernist idiom, and in particular expressionism as a genre constituted a crucial role in the development of modern painting.”

The basis for the grand exhibition aims in fact to show some of modern art’s world names that radically changed the history of art and artistic expression. Other names in the world elite to be displayed by the private museum in Paris are Alberto Giacometti, Piet Mondrian and Mark Rothko, to name a few.

“The foundation indeed aims to be contemporary,” Ms. Pagé, a former director of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris, said. “But it doesn’t want to ignore the history of art, as it is seen in these major works of the 20th century, which continue to be a vital reference for artists today.”

The Munch Museum is experiencing a large influx of art institutions and museums that want to showcase Munch’s works. Munch’s “Scream” is one of the world’s most famous artworks, and perhaps one of the most commented in all possible formats and contexts, as well as one of the most sought.

Ms. Pagé said she hopes that The Keys to a Passion will let the public see that the Louis Vuitton foundation is more than a showcase for contemporary art but also a place to learn about the historic figures inspiring art today. “Both are important,” she said. “You have to be very curious about what’s happening everywhere around the world, whether it’s in Sharjah or New York or Paris.”

The exhibition will run from March 19 through June 28.

Related articles:
Munch through new eyes
The Munch Trail