No shoes please, we're French: The seaside gallery celebrating Pop Art — and you have to look round barefoot
Amy Serafin journeys to Villa Carmignac on the Île de Porquerolles for their 'Sea, Pop & Sun' exhibition.
Summer has arrived on the French Mediterranean, where the magical light, emerald waters and idyllic landscapes have always attracted countless artists, and an increasing number of private art foundations. One recent addition to the scene is Villa Carmignac, on l'île de Porquerolles, which recently welcomed the season with an exhibition titled ‘Sea, Pop & Sun’, celebrating Pop Art from the 1960s to today.
A short ferry ride from the mainland, Porquerolles is a world away from the glitz of the Riviera. Seven kilometres wide by three kilometres long, it's a bubble of sun and serenity, though forts scattered around the island attest to historic invasions by everyone from pirates, to the British navy. In 1912, the Belgian entrepreneur François-Joseph Fournier, who made a fortune mining gold and silver in Mexico, bought the island as a wedding gift for his wife. He turned it into an agricultural community, building a church and school, planting fruit trees and vineyards.
Porquerolles is the largest and most westerly of the Îles d'Hyères.
The French State purchased most of the island from Fournier's descendants in 1971, and since 1985 it has had protected status as part of the Port-Cros National Park. A few hundred residents live full-time in the port village, and only 6,000 visitors a day are permitted on island in the high season. Most of the terrain is wild, home to an amazing diversity of flora and fauna. Car-free aside from service vehicles, it is a paradise for hikers and cyclists, with 54 kilometers of marked dirt-and-gravel trails. The air is scented with pine and eucalyptus, and punctuated by the sounds of birds, from the coo of mourning doves to the squawk of wild pheasants. (When the temperatures rise, these will be joined by the constant buzz of cicadas.) Rugged cliffs offer jaw-dropping views in all directions. Many people come just for the beaches, including one, Plage Notre Dame, named the most beautiful in Europe, its limpid waters sparkling like a jewel.
In the 1980s, the architect Henri Vidal transformed a Porquerolles farmhouse into a family villa with vineyards. The following decade, Edouard Carmignac, a French investment banker, attended Vidal's daughter's wedding and was smitten by the site. In 2013, he bought it as a place to share his impressive art collection.
Edouard Carmignac bought Villa Carmignac in 2013 to share his own impressive art collection, and exhibitions. He has amassed the largest private collection of Roy Lichtenstein works in France.
‘People thought he was crazy,’ says Edouard's son Charles, who now runs the Carmignac Foundation. Since the Villa was in a national park, its exterior could not be touched. Transporting artworks across the water was sure to be a headache. The locals were afraid a museum would change the nature of their beloved island. Undeterred, Carmignac built an exhibition space underground, with large white rooms and natural light through a transparent, water-filled ceiling. He involved the locals from the start, granting them free entrance and invitations to exhibition openings.
The Villa Carmignac is not just a museum, it's an experience. Only 50 visitors are permitted every half-hour, to ensure intimacy with the artworks, and they walk the cool stone floors barefoot. Outside, contemporary sculptures are scattered throughout a 15-hectare garden with Italian stone pines, olive trees, shrubland, prairie and forest.
‘The interactions with art here are different than in a city,’ says Charles. ‘You don't come between two business meetings — you have to spend a day, take a boat, it's a whole thing. The fact that it's a voyage allows you to mentally prepare. Taking the boat cleanses your spirit in a way.’
Martin Parr is an English documentary photographer and photojournalist. This photograph, taken in Nice, France, was part of his 'Life's a Beach' photography project.
Curated by Anna Karina Hofbauer and Dieter Buchhart, ‘Sea, Pop & Sun’ features more than 80 artworks from a number of different collections, including that of Edouard. The financier was highly influenced by his time in New York in the 1980s; he was a frequent visitor to Warhol's Factory and had his portrait painted by Jean-Michel Basquiat. Along with important pieces by Basquiat, Warhol and Haring, he owns the largest private collection of Roy Lichtenstein in France.
The exhibition's name references a song, Sea, Sex & Sun, by the ultimate French libertine, Serge Gainsbourg. Dieter Buchhart says the show's underlying theme is freedom in all its forms. ‘In Pop Art, this means individual freedom, but also self-experimentation. Whether in the US, the counterculture Summer of Love, or the European movement of 1968, it points to a fundamental shift in the concept of freedom.’ Though Pop Art was dominated by men, the curators took care to highlight female artists, such as Evelyne Axell and Marjorie Strider, whose racy works proclaimed their sexual independence.
Summer motifs run throughout the show: beaches and swimming pools, surfboards and sailboats, palm trees and kissing couples. The colours are vibrant, the vibe joyous — though if you scratch beneath the shiny surface, Pop Art can also be dark.
Derrick Adams' 'Floater 104' is a comment on segregation in the USA.
Songs from the era are piped in to match each room's contents. The Kinks' Waterloo Sunset accompanies four Warhol prints of the setting sun in different pastel shades. The Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds accompanies a cluster of Niki de Saint Phalle's dancing Nana balloons, hanging from the ceiling. They exemplify the democratisation of consumer culture, and are also conveniently for sale in the museum shop.
The California Dreamin’ room evokes the allure of the American West. One painting, Lost in Hollywood, is a depiction of two lonely palm trees by the contemporary Danish artist Kasper Sonne, who created it as a comment on displacement after learning that palms are not native to California — just one more myth in the land of make-believe.
Dwayne Hanson's hyperrealistic surfer boy is freedom incarnate, shown in a room with Lichtenstein's reclining Mermaid and a 2020 painting by Derrick Adams of three black people relaxing in a swimming pool — a pointed reference to the history of segregation in America, where not everyone is afforded the same access to leisure.
János Kender, Harry Shunk, 'Yayoi Kusama happening', unidentified beach, New York, 1968.
French contemporary artist Théo Mercier created a sand sculpture in situ, a mutant assemblage of shells, sea creatures and industrial waste. It occupies the Villa's centre space, under the water ceiling, sunlight pouring through and shimmering against the artwork. This sculpture will last only as long as the exhibition, then the sand will be carted off to one of Porquerolles’ beaches.
The visit winds up in the garden, in the sun. A strong and very personal painting by the young British artist Marcus Cope contrasts the innocence of childhood with the shadowy menace of the adult world. Nearby, Tracey Emin's plaintive yellow neon sign reads ‘I Followed You To The Sun’.
A reflective bronze ball by Sherrie Levine, Beach Ball after Lichtenstein, sits on a pedestal surrounded by windows, literally drawing us in, says curator Anna Karina Hofbauer. ‘You, the visitor, become part of the work and part of the surroundings of the exhibition, then suddenly you see the reflection of nature outside’ — the myriad greens, the dazzling blue sky, the turquoise sea. If the experience of seeing art changes with the context, this one is difficult to beat.
‘Sea, Pop & Sun’ runs until November 1, 2026. Visit the Fondation Carmignac and official Île de Porquerolles websites for more information.
