It ends up being used to the ferret running everywhere. Nicolas Party is not staying present this spring at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts alone, which has opened its doors to him to act as he pleases. The Vaudois also finds himself at the Poldi Pezzoli in Milan, a heritage museum considering collaborations with contemporary artists since 2011. He probably occupies less space here than in Canada. But we must admit that his company is remarkable. The large salon which receives works by Sandro Botticelli, Piero della Francesca, Antonello de Messine, Andrea Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini, Cosme Tura and so on. Who says better ?

Between Mantegna and Botticelli

Carte blanche was used by the artist to create here five triptychs rounded at the top. They play on the veil-unveiled, insofar as the side flaps open and close. As often, the 42-year-old from Lausanne creates fake marbles for the non-figurative parts. The latter, which relate to the end of the Middle Ages, take on the icon with their stasis and their synthesis. It is a real dialogue with the pictorial environment. The artist considers paying a more special tribute to two works from the collection, formed in the 19th century by Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli and continued to the present day. They are the “Saint Jerome” and the “Saint Paul” by Bartolomeo Montagna, a little-known Vicentine (in other words Vicenza) artist from the beginning of the 16th century. The party was especially struck by the energy emanating from the drapes of fabric covering the characters. “They become as expressive as the faces are here.”

Another room contains another triptych, this one colossal, by Nicolas Party. It is no less than four meters wide. The work suddenly takes on the dimensions of an iconostasis, insofar as it divides the room like a wall. The painting is not executed in dry pastel, the material most used by the artist. The Poldi Pezzoli can thus compare a portrait of a man by the Venetian Rosalba Carriera, who made colored powder sticks fashionable throughout Europe at the beginning of the 18th century.

ECAL slapped

The hanging is being sold as an event by the Poldi Pezzoli, which landed “Nicolas Party’s first exhibition in Italy.” The thing must appear as an additional revenge for the artist, whose career at ECAL Lausanne was jeered by his teachers. At each museum exhibition, at each record auction in the USA or through the prestigious Hauser & Wirth gallery, the ECAL takes a slap in the face. If this continues, the latter will end up looking like a “punching bag”!

Practice

“Nicolas Party, Triptych”, Museo Poldi Pezzoli, 12, via Manzoni, Milan, until June 27. Such. 0039 02 794 889, website www.museopoldipezzoli.it Open every day, except Tuesday, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. No need to book.

Published: 05.28.2022, 8:49 p.m.

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