This great exhibition is a tour of the last years in Paris, the centre of the avant-garde, a city emptied of artists after the German occupation but, from 1944 (when the town is freed) until May 1968 of this town enjoying a creative period with so many artists and scholars travelling to Paris attracted by some cultural effervescence and a sort of freedom.
Nevertheless, there is also a sense of disenchantment as these were also the years of the Cold War, a period when thousands of immigrants and political refugees got to Paris. On the other hand, the world of the Art became little by little the Market of the Art. Too many theories related to Art so everything seemed to become complex and way too conceptual: “The Art had sunk in a sea of words” said Walter Benjamin.
In this artistic environment of some “glittering decadence” according to the writer Jean Améry, of some “retouched old age” as said by the painter Ramón Gaya, new ideas would arise along with well-known artists but nothing would be the same any more.