Events

Past Event

Joan Mitchell: From the Collection of the Fondation Cartier

June 25, 2024
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
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Reid Hall | 4 rue de Chevreuse 75006 Paris

This event will be held in English.

Co-sponsored by the Columbia Global Paris Center and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

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We invite you to join us for a welcome cocktail before the event, beginning at 17h30. 

A presentation of Joan Mitchell’s “Grande Vallée VI” by Senior Curator Leanne Sacramone followed by a conversation with Professors Robert E. Harrist, Jr. and Ioannis Mylonopoulos.

Chicago-born painter Joan Mitchell transformed her personal sensations and memories into lyrical abstractions that evoke distinct emotions, qualities, seasons, and times of day, deeply rooted in her sense of place. Her subjects included wind, mountains, flowers, trees, and rain, as well as the view of Lake Michigan from her childhood balcony and the expansive Parisian sky. Her large diptychs and triptychs are as much environments as they are paintings in which intimacy is felt on a mural scale. Although Mitchell was an abstractionist, at heart she was a landscape painter, influenced as much by Cézanne, Monet, and Van Gogh as she was by her American contemporaries.

The series

Unearthing the Collection: American Narratives is presented by the Columbia Global Paris Center and Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain. Join Senior Curator Leanne Sacramone and embark on a journey through the soundscapes, skyscapes, and landscapes of American artists from the collection of the Fondation Cartier.

Host

Leanne Sacramone is currently Senior Curator at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris. She joined the staff at the Fondation Cartier in 2001 and has since organized close to twenty exhibitions. She has notably contributed to making known on the French art scene the history of graffiti in Born in the Streets: Graffiti (2009), the art of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Beauté Congo-Congo Kitoko (2016) and the work of Latin American photographers in America Latina (2013). Leanne values the wide-ranging and cross-disciplinary programming of the Fondation Cartier, which has led her to collaborate with painters and sculptors, photographers, designers, comic strip artists, and thinkers. Born in Salem, Massachusetts, she has been based in Paris since 1992. She studied French Language and Literature at Smith College and Art History at the Ecole du Louvre and the Université Paris I Sorbonne.

Speakers

Robert E. Harrist, Jr. is the Jane and Leopold Swergold Professor of Chinese Art. A former Chairman of the Department of Art History and Archaeology and former Director of Art Humanities, he is the recipient of a Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award. He has published books and articles on Chinese painting, calligraphy, and gardens, as well as on topics such as replicas in Chinese art, clothing in 20th-century China, and contemporary artists such as Xu Bing. Harrist's most recent book, The Landscape of Words, which studies the role of language in shaping perceptions of the natural world, was awarded the Joseph Levenson Prize in 2010.

Ioannis Mylonopoulos was educated at the University of Athens and the Ruprecht-Karls Universität Heidelberg (Ph.D. summa cum laude 2001). Before coming to Columbia in 2008, Mylonopoulos was Research Associate at the University of Heidelberg (2001-03), Assistant Professor at the University of Vienna (2003-06), Junior Professor at the University of Erfurt (2006-08). In 2007/08, Mylonopoulos was a Fellow of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies. In 2011/12, he was a member at the School of Historical Studies of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Mylonopoulos has received fellowships and grants from the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation, the German Archaeological Society, the Ernst-Kirsten Society, the Friedrich-Naumann Foundation, the Gerda-Henkel Foundation, and the German Research Council.

Organizers

The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain is a private cultural institution whose mission is to promote all fields of contemporary artistic creation to the international public through a program of temporary exhibitions, live performances and lectures. 

The Columbia Global Paris Center addresses pressing global issues that are at the forefront of international education and research: agency and gender; climate and the environment; critical dialogues for just societies; encounters in the arts; and health and medical science.

The Paris Center is part of Columbia Global, which brings together major global initiatives from across the university to advance knowledge and foster global engagement. Its mission is to address complex global challenges through groundbreaking scholarly pursuits, leadership development, cutting-edge research, and projects that aim for social impact. Its long-term goal is to reimagine the university’s role in society as not only a nexus for learning and intellectual exploration but also as a catalyst for creativity and impact locally, regionally, and globally. Columbia Global includes eleven Global Centers, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, the Committee on Global Thought, and Columbia World Projects.

Venue

Nestled in the Montparnasse district, Reid Hall hosts several Columbia University initiatives: the Columbia Global Paris Center, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, Columbia Undergraduate Programs, M.A. in History and Literature, and the GSAPP Shape of Two Cities Program. This unique combination of resources is enhanced by our global network whose mission is to expand the University's engagement the world over through educational programs, research initiatives, regional partnerships, and public events.

The views and opinions expressed by speakers and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policies or positions of the Columbia Global Paris Center or its affiliates.