The Quasar fund was built up over twenty years by the Lesgourgues family. Why did you focus the selection of works on the 80s?
The Quasar collection was developed from 1980 to 2000. Going to Peyrehorade (storage site in the Landes, editor’s note), I had in mind that in the development of this collection, there was a framework: the will of Jean-Jacques Lesgourgues to give it a beginning and an end. This beginning is in 1980. It was a common thread. During my first meeting, we discussed those years, their context and the atmosphere that reigned. There was an extremely strong notion of freedom. The exhibition recounts this freedom and the nostalgia of this era.
What happens specifically in those years?
It’s a period of explosion at all levels: color, shape, material. There are concerns in reaction against the intellectual rigor of the 60s and 70s. The best illustration is the return to figuration with the whole Combas gang. There is then the refusal of constraints, of seriousness, of avant-garde notions, with the possibility of claiming to be free and to take pleasure. This pleasure translates into borrowings linked to the history of art, without complex: we observe replications in comics, rock or pop culture. This trend can be felt clearly and more specifically in room 3 of the exhibition.
The hanging also presents less light works…
This is the whole paradox of the 80s, which embody both a great lightness and bear witness to a society in crisis. The art of this period reflects these contradictions with things still tense, linked to formal research. There are still conceptual concerns, which we find in Room 1.
Forty years later, how do we apprehend this period?
The initial title of the exhibition evoked a day after celebrations. The work that welcomes the visitor is a table set with the feeling that there has been a shared meal. We had a good time, but it’s over. We observe these 80s from the prism of our time, with a clearly nostalgic gaze. Artists who lived through those years full force speak of a furious period. In this generation, there are radically different ways of thinking and doing that they still try to defend.
“Fans of the 80s, a look at the Quasar collection”, at the Villa Beatrix Enea, 2, rue Albert-le-Barillier in Anglet, until March 26. Phone. 05 59 58 35 60.
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