Elizabeth Peyton, Spencer (Two Palms) (detail), 2002. Modern & Contemporary Art: Evening & Day Sale London.
French collector Marcel Brient has built one of the most renowned collections of modern and contemporary art and design. Rising from humble beginnings, Brient has developed both an extraordinary eye and close relationships with pivotal artists.
It makes sense then that his vision would turn towards works by Elizabeth Peyton, an artist who reinvigorated portraiture at the turn of the 21st century. The psychologically-charged portrait from Brient's collection on offer in London this June depicts artist, musician, and former club owner Spencer Sweeney, a key figure in the late 1990s and early 2000s downtown New York scene. Sweeney is a recurring subject in Peyton’s oeuvre and a close friend of hers. Other notable depictions of Sweeney by Peyton include a coloured pencil on paper drawing, Spencer (1999), in MoMA, New York, the painting Spencer Walking (2001) in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the painting Spencer (Spencer Sweeney) (2005) in the Rubell Museum, Miami.
Here, we look back on a conversation between Cheyenne Westphal and Marcel Brient to understand how he developed such a singular perspective, and for clues as to why this work may have resonated with him so deeply.
Elizabeth Peyton, Spencer (Two Palms), 2002. Modern & Contemporary Art: Evening & Day Sale London.
Cheyenne Westphal: Marcel, you are a legendary collector and I feel very fortunate for having known you and spent time with you for the past twenty years. To me the most astonishing is that you have built your incredible collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, editions, design, books and manuscripts without great means. You talk movingly about your background in Brittany, could you expand on your beginnings?
Marcel Brient: I come, originally, from Brittany. My mother couldn’t read or write, but was courageous and honest in everything she did. She worked night and day to raise her family of seven children. My father was a stonecutter in Ile Grande, a small seaside village near Perros-Guirec in the Côtes d’Armor. I remember days fishing for clams and winkles with him, that’s how we lived. Our modest house in rue Joseph Conrad didn’t have running water or electricity, but my mother always encouraged us to work hard and she was very proud when I was placed top of my class at primary school.
CW: It was wonderful that your mother encouraged you to go to Paris before you were enlisted to take your military service, where a combination of necessity and curiosity led you to take a range of different jobs in the late 1950s.
MB: When I first arrived in Paris, I started working as a mechanical apprentice before I took up a role with the CNRS, which is the national center for scientific research. I was finding my feet in a new, exciting city, which had so much to offer, even though I didn’t have very much money at the time.
CW: Without much money, you started buying works by young artists when they were not that expensive. But you had an excellent eye, which not only led you to buy great artists, but also excellent works by them. You visited Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall when you did not speak a word of German, and yet you still recognised the brilliant talent that was emerging there in artists such as Neo Rauch. In your constant trips to America too, you were engaging with the young scene, going to studio visits and being among the first to discover the stars of tomorrow.
MB: It’s true that it cost very little to invest in young artists then. But, even so, I still found that I needed courage and patience, as does anyone who wishes to live their passion through art — it’s like waging a battle between wisdom and daring.
CW: You developed many beautiful friendships with artists over the years, particularly with Felix Gonzalez-Torres, who I know was of great importance to you.
MB: When I was a young child, I used to choose the sweet wrappers I liked, iron them, and stick them into my school notebook. A strange thing to do, perhaps! I recounted this story at the gallery Ghislaine Hussenot in Paris in the presence of Felix Gonzalez-Torres and his friend Jennifer Flay, and, to my surprise, it thrilled him. He took my hand and suggested I go and get the sweets that reminded me of my youth…so I did! When I returned, he chose a turquoise sweet from the palm of my hand. The colour of my eyes. The sweet had “Passion’ written above “Chez Lenotre, Paris.” In this gesture, my portrait was realised: 90 kg, my weight, of sweets to put wherever one desires and also — to quote Torres — in many places simultaneously. Citing Felix, one could “suck” and “swallow” me so that as I was gradually disappearing through desire, and I might also be was reborn again in an intense, personal communion. This brings to my mind the extraordinary concept of immortality and Felix’s deeply moving Perfect Lovers, two ordinary clocks hanging on the wall both showing the same time and moving in unison until one, inevitably stops, leaving the other to record the passing of time alone. Today, in Felix’s absence, which artist leads us to communion like this? Beyond history and politics, art places a new universe on our doorstep.
CW: You have one of the most important collections of contemporary design, which you display so sensitively alongside your works by modern and contemporary masters. More than decorative additions, your selections and presentation highlight how design can be elevated to the status of a work of art.
MB: Design obviously has its place in art. My clever marriage proves it to me. Marc Newson’s Lockheed Lounge is a design masterpiece.
CW: To me what is extraordinary about you is your love and passion for poetry. You often recited poems to me that have taken you further as a man, and collector, and true lover of art. The poetry of fin de siècle Symbolists Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud seems to be of particular inspiration to you, and you even hold the handwritten manuscript of Rimbaud’s Lettre du Voyant in your collection. It strikes me that both Verlaine and Rimbaud were utterly brilliant, unpredictable, and deeply committed to the search for the new in both art and life, not unlike your own, visionary approach to collecting.
MB: Arthur Rimbaud recommended “seeing beyond life.” This says it all! Such a sentiment makes me think especially of my friend, Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Rimbaud, Giacometti, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, these brilliant minds of our time paved the way.
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