An explosive mix

Roberto Barni sculpture in the Villa Rothschild’s gardens

His smile is contagious. So is his untamed passion for art. For ten years now, Frédéric Ballester, 60, has been in charge of La Malmaison art centre in Cannes, and many of the town’s important cultural events are down to him.

We meet in his small office on the Croisette - with no sea view. It is a glorious mess: African death masks stand next to oriental carvings and colourful contemporary works. The shelves are jam-packed with books, and the floor is almost covered with boxes and pictures.

Ballester’s father was Catalan, his mother Swiss - clearly an explosive mix. He is in his own words lovable, friendly, open-minded and charming, but - look out! “I can’t bear it, when I’m treated like an idiot. I become very grim. I abhor airs and graces, a little modesty and humbleness is good for all of us,” explains the erudite architect.

Although he loves the order and efficiency of the Swiss, his southern temper rears its head every once in a while. Like at the vernissage of Robert Comba in Saint-Paul-de- Vence, where he got so upset that he had a heart attack.

Every year, Ballester organises three big exhibitions to run for three months in the Centre d’Art La Malmaison. “It is very limiting”, he complains. “I would like to have more retrospectives. It is so important for the French Riviera to show the synthesis of the arts of one artist. However, during the film festival we have to make room for the Société des Réalisateurs de Films. It makes me mad every year!”

Art should tell us something, deliver a message, he believes. The works of German artist Alfons Alt, for example, whose exhibition Effondrement des certitudes last November caused a stir. “He was exactly that right kind of guy we had to show in a crazy city like Cannes”, enthuses the Mal-maison director.

Frédéric Ballester is constantly searching for unusual artists whose works stimulate emotions and who we don’t see very often. This also explains the man headlining of this year’s La Malmaison summer of culture, Roberto Barni who was born 1939 in Pistoia, and has been living and working in Florence since 1977.

Until the 10th of October, he is showing large-scale oil paintings, small humorous sculptures and books without words, in front of La Malmaison as well as in the gardens of Noaille media centre, formerly Rothschild. The title of the exhibition, exclusively in Cannes, is Rien n’appartient à rien.

Describing the Italian painter and sculptor, art critic Katja Wichagen from the Raab Gallery in Berlin writes: “Through his works he looks ironically into a world that preserves its past in museums and at the same time destroys it in the present. In his sculptures stands a tree for every forest, a deer for the fauna, a person for all the people. And just like the way the earth turns, you find access to his works from every angle. There is neither top nor bottom, no wrong, only different ways of viewing.” In collaboration with the international ceramic biennial in Vallauris, the Cannes cultural season presents two other contemporary artists. Until the 26th of September, the German ceramicist Peter Thumm is exhibiting his latest artworks in Villa Domergues, and Frenchman Marc Piano will be presenting his work at Espace Miramar under the slogan Le privilège de l’invention until the 29th of August. A combined ticket for all three exhibitions costs 4.50 euros.

“If I were to start over today I would focus more on photography,” muses Ballester. “People need pictures, as most things are expressed through them.” He himself used to paint and in 1982 he had his last big exhibition, Architecture d’un condamné. Then a flood destroyed almost all his paintings which he had stored in a cellar by the sea. During the same period, his nine-year-old son Matthieu fell fatally ill.

“I’m never going to paint again”, says Frédéric Ballester fervently. “But I’m not frustrated because of that.”

When he accompanies us to the door, he asks if we want to see one of his paintings. He pulls out a large canvas from behind a cupboard. It is a masterpiece.

PH / LA