By Bechtler Staff

The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art hosted a lecture December 1, 2010 by Laurent Le Bon, a leading authority on modern and contemporary art who is considered one of the major forces in the art world today. Le Bon spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of more than 200 people in the Wells Fargo Auditorium (located in the lower level of the Knight Theater, adjacent to the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art).

Le Bon serves as Director of the Centre Pompidou-Metz, the new satellite museum of the renowned Centre Pompidou in Paris. Located in Metz (in France’s northeastern Lorraine region), the Centre Pompidou is the official home of France’s national collection of modern art. The history and mission of the Pompidou-Metz parallels the Bechtler. Both opened this year. Both are in cities not considered art centers. Both are housed in architecturally significant buildings. And both possess a similar mission: to get art to the people and prove that art belongs to everyone.

Le Bon, 41, has been described as the “young Turk” of the French art scene. He’s considered by many to be a rising star among curators worldwide and, as the Director of the Centre Pompidou-Metz, is on his way to changing the face of European cultural institutions.

Le Bon’s lecture focused on the Pompidou-Metz’s inaugural exhibition, Masterpieces? (a show curated by Le Bon which considers the notion of the masterpiece through 780 works of art) as well as the ultramodern architecture of the museum building.

While in Charlotte, Le Bon, along with Bechtler President and CEO John Boyer, toured the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, the Levine Museum of the New South and the Mint Museum Uptown.