BALENCIAGA 50TH COUTURE FRONT ROW & DINNER

One of the greatest virtues of the artistic experience is its ability to open up new horizons. This is why I am passionate about the great adventure of creation.
I first became interested in the artists of the late nineteenth century. I was then drawn to abstract painting, which in turn led me to postwar artists and then to the art of my time.
Since my very early acquisitions, each discovery has revealed new worlds and aesthetics, allowed me to understand what had been unfamiliar to me, and pushed back the limits I thought I should impose upon myself.

It is my keen desire to share this experience with as many people as possible. For the inaugural exhibition of the Bourse de Commerce, rather than outli- ning the scope of the collection or showcasing its flagship works, I decided to present the works that speak to my approach as a collector.

This exhibition has been conceived as a manifesto of the values I have always championed—the thirst for freedom, the rebuttal of injustice, the accep- tance of diversity—and as a testament both to qualities I consider essential—audacity, curiosity, and humility—and to questions that haunt me—impermanence, vanity, and the passage of time.
I have chosen to open the museum to the artists I appreciate, well- established ones—many of whom I have followed for years—as well as young talents. Their works move me and forcefully express the contradictions and complexities of the human condition and the world around us.

The dialogue among these artists is subtle and original and some- times driven by the same concerns regardless of their generation and their cultural roots.

The Bourse de Commerce will welcome a truly diverse audience, from those who already have a passion for art to, above all, those furthest removed from it, inviting them to question their certitudes, to liberate their imagination, to avoid taking things for granted—in other words to let themselves be moved by the works of art.

Art teaches us humility. It teaches us that the beauty of the world— with its darkness, too—is unbounded and that we have everything to gain by accep- ting the world rather than trying to dominate it.

This new museum invites us to take risks, to outstrip our own limits and open ourselves to what others have to offer; and to resist the lure of seclusion by embracing the infinite diversity of contemporary artistic creation.