2023-12-28 21:15:30
Editorial by Alexandra Schwartzbrod
Low blows, twists and turns and poisoned arrows… From Paris to Aix-en-Provence, via Puerto Rico, our investigators discovered how a world-renowned artist can disappear from the public scene.
We all know vaguely that we are very little, doomed to become ashes or dust one day or another, but this becomes obvious the moment we plunge into the twists and turns of the great matters of inheritance in the world. art world. We discover that a world-famous artist, entered into the history books, can easily disappear from the public scene because his legacy gives rise to Homeric and sterile battles or, quite simply, because the one of his heirs refuses to exhibit his works. The story of the succession of Victor Vasarely is a clear illustration of this.
Here is a man who was at the height of notoriety and success in the 70s and who is on the way to becoming today a “sub-prefecture painter”, confided the art historian Arnauld Pierre to our two investigators. By his fault (he flooded the market, lowering his rating), but above all by that of his heirs: his daughter-in-law Michèle Taburno-Vasarely, wife of his youngest son Jean-Pierre, known as Yvaral, and the latter’s son, Pierre , who runs the Vasarely Foundation by withholding paintings and multiplying legal proceedings… notably against his mother-in-law whom he accuses of plundering the treasure left by Victor.
We investigated the case, from Paris to Aix-en-Provence, via Puerto Rico (by videoconference, let’s stay sober in terms of carbon footprint) and the result is worthy of a thriller with its low blows, its twists and turns and its poisoned arrows. Reading it, one could say to oneself that ultimately it is better not to have descendants when the stakes are such, but it is enough to look at the succession of Alberto Giacometti to realize that the lure of gain can give rise to desires far beyond the family circle.
#succession #Vasarely #true #thriller #Libération