His activity as curator taught him caution

He tell little and used sparingly the first person singular. Eric de Chassey, accustomed to inquire about other ground interviews as art critic, will have to get used to arouse the curiosity (healthy). Installed at the top of Mount Pincian Hill in Rome, the Director of the Academy of France is placed under the eye of the French cultural microcosm, which, for the time being, given its indulgence. An accolade surprising both the appointment of his predecessor, Frédéric Mitterrand, was polémique. No storm also mobilize the no, Eric de Chassey is an undeniable and unavoidable figure of abstract art and contemporary American painting.

A reputation for intransigence

Some are in realized their costs. A Museum of the North wanted to organize a snap on Matisse without involving this renowned intellectual uncompromising, even authoritarian, before surrender and offer him the Commissioner of the exhibition. Address this peintre without using the views of the University he devoted his DEA, doctorate and several books would have been incongruous. So, Professor of history of contemporary arts, far in position at Tours, is not part in specialist of the slopers of colors. He has written on the fauves, spent a few articles Georges Braque and André Derain, but is not the Apostle of a current. His freedom is precisely to deal with various artists, no connections between them. Forty-three years, the researcher fears to be locking in a universe; to open up to other modes of expression, he has recently studied the history of the photo.

In 2006, a book was born out of his thoughts, "Platitudes, a history of flat photography", published by Gallimard, a hard work to the limit of the philosophical exercise. The 12November does not intended for all audiences, he claims the right to produce a "difficult" to "hyperspécialistes prose." Except when he signed in journals. If it was long resident critic "Gallery" and "The eye", his contributions in "Art press" and "Knowledge of the arts" became scarce. His activity as curator taught him caution. To not be vitriolé by critics, better is worth to be discreet.

This bulimic, written quickly with "a disconcerting ease", on the other hand has conferences. Whatever the audience, he speaks without trac or calculation. "Fame doesn't interest me", he says, persuasive, "only having my freedom". His meeting with Frédéric Mitterrand, to nominate his own successor in Rome - an unprecedented situation - is not made in a pince-fesses. It took place in April, on the Board of the villa Medici, which the art historian was a member.

The "shock" of the MoMA

The two men will not review until the breakfast aoûtien intended to evoke the promotion of the University. Apart from their attraction for art, they resemble little. Eric de Chassey has no taste for politics or celebrities, and had to first and last name. Born in the United States, educated in France, he is upset at seventeen with a visit to MoMA, New York, where he discovered Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman. This "shock" trace its path to the forgotten art such as Jean-Pierre Pincemin, Eugène Leroy, Alex Katz and Arshile Gorky, which the oeoeuvres live in his bibliography and its interior. Along the way, quelques artists have become friends. Galant, for offending anyone, it does include any name.