Colour is king at NGV exhibition Pierre Bonnard – designed by India Mahdavi
The world’s most in-demand designer has leant her eye to the work of one of post-impressionism’s most important figures – Pierre Bonnard – at a new exhibition in Melbourne.
India Mahdavi has a message for cultural institutions across the world: colour cannot hurt you.
“I think people always are scared of colours. Frightened,” she said. “In museums and galleries, there seems to be some idea that great works of art should be displayed against a neutral background. They should be stuck on a beige wall. Why?”
The revered French-Iranian architect and designer on Thursday answered that question in her own way as Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria opened its colour-filled major winter exhibition, Pierre Bonnard – Designed by India Mahdavi.
The show, which had been due to open in 2020 but was delayed by Covid, features more than 100 pieces by the 20th-century French post-impressionist Bonnard and some of his contemporaries. Works on paper, photographs, paintings and film are complemented by an “interior landscape” created by the 61-year-old Mahdavi, arguably the world’s most in-demand designer who in global cultural circles is known as the “reigning queen of colour”.
While St Kilda Rd might seem a world away from the Paris-based Mahdavi’s showrooms and studio on the exclusive Rue Las Cases, the designer said she felt right at home among Bonnard’s works. “I know the light in his paintings. I understand it,” Mahdavi said. “It’s really beautiful. Those are the colours of the south of France, where I spent six years of my life.”
The scenic element of the exhibition is no simple matter of colour matching walls to art works. The design includes bespoke furniture, architectural installations, and complicated large-scale replications of tiny patterns in Bonnard’s work.
“What I have tried to do is put Bonnard’s work back into context,” Mahdavi said. “In the artist’s days, homes were very ornately decorated. And so I wanted to dig into his paintings and find something interesting to bring to life.”
Bonnard was born in 1867 and died in 1947. He hit his peak at the still point between Impressionism and Modernism, and has for a century been celebrated for his use of vibrant colour and depiction of light. Mahdavi has, among many other things, designed famous restaurants, including London’s Sketch (reportedly the world’s most shared restaurant on Instagram) and the famous Laduree restaurant, in three locations: Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Geneva (each has a palette inspired by Marie Antoinette). She also has collaborated with luxury fashion houses such as Louis Vuitton.
The designer tracked her love of colour to a childhood interest in Disney films and the vibrant palette of her childhood lunchbox, packed by her Persian father and English-Egyptian mother.
But her interest in colour goes deeper. It’s also informed by synaesthesia, an associative sensory phenomenon. The artist said she could hear some sounds as colours.
Earlier this year, she was given the honour of redesigning six rooms inside Rome’s 16th century Villa Medici, invigorating the mannerist property with colourful furniture and contemporary design.
Mahdavi said it was important her involvement in the NGV exhibition remain respectful of Bonnard’s intentions. “I did not want to overtake the work,” she said. “This is a conversation.’
NGV director Tony Ellwood said the exhibition represented a rare opportunity to experience the work of one of the 20th century’s most important artists through the eyes of one of contemporary design’s true visionaries.
“Both the artist and the designer are celebrated for their ingenious use of colour, which made them a natural and authentic pairing,” he said.
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