The New Social Environment#133

Laurence des Cars with Helen Lee and Joachim Pissarro

Friday, September 18, 2020

1 p.m. Eastern / 10 a.m. Pacific

President and CEO of the Musée d’Orsay and Musée de l’Orangerie Laurence des Cars will be in conversation with Rail board member Helen Lee and Rail Consulting Editor Joachim Pissarro. We’ll conclude with a poetry reading from Isa Guzman.

In this talk

Laurence des Cars

Laurence des Cars (born in 1966) general heritage curator, was appointed President of the Public Establishment of the Musée d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie in March 2017 by the President of the French Republic, at the proposal of the Minister of Culture.From 1994 to 2007, Laurence des Cars was a curator at the musée d’Orsay, then from 2007 to 2014, she was Scientific Director of Agence France-Muséums, the French operator in charge of developing the Louvre Abu Dhabi. In January 2014, Laurence des Cars was appointed Director of the Musée de l’Orangerie.

A specialist in 19th and early 20th century art, Laurence des Cars curated many exhibitions including Édouard Vuillard (Washington, National Gallery of Art; Montreal, Museum of Fine Arts; Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, London, Royal Academy of Art, 2003-2004); Gustave Courbet (Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Montpellier; Musée Fabre, 2007-2008); Jean-Léon Gérôme (Los Angeles, Getty Museum; Paris, Musée d’Orsay; Madrid, Museo Thyssen, 2010-2011); Louvre Abu Dhabi. Birth of a Museum (Paris, Musée du Louvre; Abu Dhabi, Saadiyat Al Manarat, 2014); Sade. Attacking the Sun (Paris, Musée d’Orsay, 2014-2015); Apollinaire. The Eyes of the Poet (Paris, Musée de l’Orangerie, 2016). Laurence des Cars is a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, Chevalier of the National Order of Merit and Officer of Arts and Letters.

Helen Lee

Helen Lee has had many roles in the art world, including collector, academic, art advisor, art book editor, and auction house specialist. She has worked at Christie’s, Harry N. Abrams Publishing, the Robert Miller Gallery, and for James Wolfensohn, among others. Her passion for the arts derives from her belief that art and culture provide vital means of communication across cultural and political divides. Helen is an advisor to the Milken Institute for its art and culture programming. She is the Chairman of the American Foundation for the Courtauld Institute of Art, where she completed her post-graduate studies after earning a BA from Harvard. Helen is also a board member of the Rail.

In the Rail: Helen Lee

Joachim Pissarro

Joachim Pissarro is the Bershad Professor of Art History and Director of the Hunter College Galleries, Hunter College, CUNY/City University of New York. He was a Curator at MoMA’s Department of Painting and Sculpture. His recent curatorial projects include Alberto Giacometti | Yves Klein: In Search of the Absolute at Gagosian Gallery London (2016); Pissarro à Eragny at the Musée du Luxembourg (2017); Olga Picasso, Musée National Picasso, Paris (2017), Museo Picasso, Málaga (2019), and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow (2019). His latest book Aesthetics of the Margins / The Margins of Aesthetics: Wild Art Explained (2018, Penn State University Press) is co-authored with David Carrier, following Wild Art (Phaidon, 2016). Joachim is also a Consulting Editor of the Brooklyn Rail.

In the Rail: Joachim Pissarro

More on Joachim Pissarro

The Rail has a tradition of ending our conversations with a poetry reading, and we’re fortunate to have Isa Guzman reading.

Isa Guzman

Isa Guzman is a poet from Los Sures, Brooklyn. Dedicating their work to the hardship, traumas, and political struggle within the Boricua Diaspora, Isa has published in magazines and anthologies, and lead The Titere Poets Collective and La Cocina Workshop!