Abstract
In 1928, some young artists living in Bordeaux decided to create a local market for contemporary art, as an alternative to the Salon des Amis des Arts of their own city, on the one hand, which they considered retrograde and conservative, and to the centralized and centripetal Parisian world on the other. They joined forces to create the group of the “Artistes indépendants bordelais” (AIB) and they organized an annual exhibition in which they could sell their works, in Bordeaux. This article aims to understand the functioning of this so-called “provincial” alternative to Paris and to measure its potential success, both as a market and as an arbiter of taste. The analysis proves that the AIB exhibitions happened to be a semi-failure, since this local initiative could not detach itself from Paris. In order to gain legitimacy, the AIB invited avant-garde painters and sculptors and they left the door open to Parisian dealers and art critics but all these actors, in turn, overshadowed the artists from Bordeaux. This economic and symbolic domination stemmed from the lack of a strong artistic identity for this group, the absence of domestic galleries specializing in contemporary art and the low demographics of Bordeaux collectors.
Highlights
In 1928, some young artists living in Bordeaux decided to create a local market for contemporary art, as an alternative to the Salon des Amis des Arts of their own city, on the one hand, which they considered retrograde and conservative, and to the centralized and centripetal Parisian world on the other
In 1928, some painters and sculptors living in Bordeaux joined forces to create the group of the Artistes indépendants bordelais” (AIB), “artistes indépendants bordelais”—which could be translated by “independant artists from
The attempt at artistic decentralization and the creation of a local market ended in semi-failure
Summary
The AIB opened their first exhibition in 1928, at the “Terrasse du Jardin Public”, a former orangery located in the public garden (Figure 1). In 1927, the painter and art critic Jean-Loup Simian, along with Georges de Sonneville and some other painters, like Pierre Molinier (1900–1976) and Jac Belaubre (1906–1993), decided to create the “Société des Artistes indépendants bordelais”: their first exhibition opened its doors on October 20, 1928, at the “Terrasse du jardin public”. Independence was their watchword, claimed as a motto from their first catalogue: “there is no more beautiful word in French than independence. This stormy demonstration of independence had another purpose, that of attracting an audience of potential collectors who would buy their artworks
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