agnès b.: fashion designer, gallerist and patron of the arts

1) What is your very first memory of art?

agnès b.: The gardens of the Palace of Versailles. I was very little, and I remember the gardens, the perspectives, the fountains, the statues… I think this may have been my first experience of an aesthetic emotion. Of course, I didn’t know it was “art”. I simply found it beautiful, immense, mysterious. I believe beauty offers comfort. And those gardens comforted me.

2) What place does art hold in your life and work today?

agnès b.: I live with artworks. They’re everywhere. And I think you can style anything: clothes, of course, but also an interior, a wall, the way works are hung… bringing things together so that, suddenly, they start speaking to one another.

That’s a little what a collection is about. But I’ve never thought of a collection as something you build methodically. I don’t have a method! I buy something because it stops me in my tracks, intrigues me, moves me, unsettles me… because I know I want to live with it.

And I’ve always wanted to show people what I love. It’s like when you love a song: you immediately want to play it for someone else. That’s why I opened the Galerie du Jour in 1984, and it’s also why La Fab. exists today: to share. The collection, the gallery, the bookshop… These are places where things circulate. I think it’s sad to keep what you love to yourself.

3) How would you describe your relationship with creativity and what guides your artistic choices?

agnès b.: It’s about elective affinities. I’m not very fond of the term “love at first sight”, which suggests something fleeting.

I’ve never bought an artwork because someone told me it was a good investment. In fact, for a long time, I mostly bought works by artists nobody wanted!

Something has to happen. Sometimes I know straight away. Sometimes I don’t even really understand why I like a work, and that’s fine. I’m a little wary of explanations that come too quickly. An artwork should be allowed to keep its secrets.

What interests me is when I sense there’s someone behind it. A sense of necessity. Someone who doesn’t do it to be fashionable, but because they have to.

4) You have long been committed to supporting artists and the contemporary art scene. What inspires you to support an artist or a project?

agnès b.: First and foremost, the artist. The person, their work, their freedom. I like artists who explore, who take risks, who don’t necessarily know exactly where they’re going. I like people who have doubts. There’s something beautiful about doubt.

And supporting an artist isn’t just about giving them money or buying a work. It can mean giving them a wall to exhibit on, giving them time, introducing their work to someone, publishing something, putting on an exhibition, or simply being there at a time when nobody else is. With the Galerie du Jour, Le Point d’Ironie, my collection and now La Fab., that’s what I’ve been trying to do for a long time: create places where things can happen.

5) Which artworks or artists are part of your life today?

agnès b.: Oh, there are so many… That’s an impossible question!

There are those who have been with me for a very long time: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Nan Goldin, Brassaï, Louise Bourgeois, Harmony Korine, Jonas Mekas… and so many others.

But the wonderful thing is that there are always new discoveries to be made. I still love being surprised. Walking into a place and seeing something I’ve never seen before. Or meeting a very young artist and thinking, “They’re really something.”

6) What are your plans or aspirations for the coming months?

agnès b.: Keep going! As my dear friend Jonas Mekas used to say: “Keep dancing, keep singing, have a good drink, and do not get too serious!”

This autumn, photography, which has always been part of my life, will be everywhere! At the agnès b. store on rue Dieu, I’ll be showing photographs I took in Moscow in 1987… I’ve never really presented them like this before. At La Fab., we’re preparing Histoires d’amour, an exhibition of photographs from my collection. At the Galerie du Jour, we’ll be showing Gérard Malanga, a friend of many years, and we’ll also be presenting Manon Lanjouère’s work at the a ppr oc he fair. These are very different stories and generations, but that’s precisely what I love about photography: there’s no single way of looking at things.

At La Fab., we’ll keep making it a lively place. Not somewhere people come to contemplate artworks in reverent silence (although they can do that too!), but somewhere they can discover an exhibition, browse a book, talk to someone, come back, bring a friend…

And then, keep looking at what young artists are doing. Above all, I don’t want to become someone who says, “Things were better before.” Before was good. Now is good too. And tomorrow, we’ll see!

Selection of artworks