Encounters

1972 Danielle Cattand

C'est avec elle que j'ai créé ces lundi musicaux de l'Athénée devenus inoubliables. [...] Son oreille était exacte, son goût, sans faille. Avec certains chanteurs, elle avait noué des complicités, des amitiés. Elle n'aimait pas les gens prudents, ceux qui évitent le danger. Elle se mettaient en danger. Certains le savaient, l'aimaient pour cela. Un an après sa mort, jour pour jour, j'ai demandé à José Van Dam de chanter dans ce théâtre de l'Athénée qui fût le nôtre un voyage d'hiver in mémoriam. L'aurait-elle aimé, celui-là, elle qui aimait tant Schubert ?
- Extraits de Les jours s'en vont je demeure de Pierre Bergé

Autoportrait, Collection Harry Lunn / Self-portrait, courtesy of Harry Lunn Collection

1973 Robert Mapplethorpe

Mapplethorpe, lorsque je l'ai connu, était loin d'être célèbre et d'avoir entrepris l'oeuvre exigeante qui allait faire de lui un artiste à part entière. Il fabriquait des bijoux en fil de fer pour gagner sa vie. Il la gagnait mal. Sa sexualité, on le devine, était débortante. Paris, à cette époque, était un lieu de fête et Robert savait y faire. Lorsque ses premières photos apparurent, personne ne comprit qu'il s'agissait de la poursuite d'une obsession. À l'égale de celle de Leni Riefenstahl à qui il faut le comparer. Elle firent scandale. Pourtant la quête du phallus poussée à ce point aurait dû en alerter plus d'un. J'ai parlé de Genet et j'ai parlé de morale. C'est bien de cela qu'il s'agit. La vulgarité est souvent bourgeoise et qui trouverait Mapplethorpe vulgaire ?
- Extraits de Les jours s'en vont je demeure de Pierre Bergé

Galerie photos (Flash Player 9 required)

1972 Danièle Cattand

I created the unforgettable Lundis Musicaux (Musical Mondays) at the Athénée Theater with her. [...]

Her ear was precise, her taste flawless. She had woven a certain complicity, friendship, with some singers. She did not like prudent people, those who avoided danger. She would place herself in danger. Some knew this and loved her for it. One year to the day after her death, I asked José Van Dam to sing Wintereise at the Athénée, in memoriam. Would she have liked it, she who so loved Schubert?
Excerpts from Les jours s'en vont je demeure by Pierre Bergé

Autoportrait, Collection Harry Lunn / Self-portrait, courtesy of Harry Lunn Collection

1973 Robert Mapplethorpe

When I met Mapplethorpe, he was far from being famous and had not yet embarked on the demanding work that would make him a true artist. He made jewelry from metal wire to earn a living. He did not ear much. His sexuality, as can be guessed, was overflowing. Paris was a party city at the time and Robert knew how to party. When his first photos appeared, no one understood that it was all about chasing an obssession.
Like Leni Riefenstahl, to whom he must be compared. She provoked scandal. And yet, the quest for the phallus, pushed to such extremes, should have been picked up by others.
I spoke of Genet and I spoke of morals. That's what it is about. Vulgarity is often bourgeois and who found Mapplethorpe to be vulgar?
- Excerpts from Les jours s'en vont je demeure by Pierre Bergé

1979 Marguerite Duras

He's basically a kind of child. Alto. Tall. A white-skinned Oranais. One day he and Pierre Bergé came into the main theater of the Rond Point during a performance of Savannah Bay. We had heard nothing, neither the door, nor their steps. Suddenly they were there, two meters from us, silent. The fear of disturbing, as always. Kings. I knew barely knew them, we had spoken a couple of times, about dresses and theater, colors, fabrics, the red corduroy of one of Madeleine's dresses. Once, he talked to me about my books. [...]
A woman. She is there. And he is here. He draws. And the woman, here she is all dressed.
- Marguerite Duras.

When I produced Le Navire Night, we really got to know each other. [...]
I admired her more than any other woman writer of our century. She had no snobbery, did not dabble in the new novel like others in the manner of nouvelle cuisine, did not cry over failed love affairs while rolling her r's with a Burgundy accent. She courageously led her literary career, knowing that she would survive the vagaries of fashion and that her work would be read alongside that of the greats.
- Excerpts from Les jours s'en vont je demeure by Pierre Bergé