The Dealer

The general public´s knowledge of contemporary art is confined, by and large, to the outward manifestations that make the headlines: record-breaking auction sales, one-off exhibitions in public galleries, international art fairs, etc. It is not easy to probe the inner reality of the exceedingly closed world of the art market. Jean-Luc Léon allowed into the confidence of a leading Paris art dealer, Pierre Nahon, 59, founder in 1973 of the Galerie Beaubourg in Paris. During the eighties he became one of Europe´s leading dealers, exhibiting and representing such luminary artists as the 'New Realists' Arman and Cesar, Louis Cane, Jean-Pierre Raynaud, Dado and Pierre Klossowski as well as the Americans, Warhol, Segal, Stella and Paik. From Paris to Vence, from New York to Beirut, the director spent a year following Pierre Nahon and his wife Marianne around as they networked with artists, curators, critics, collectors and other pundits of the art world. We see them selling and buying, bargaining and charming, wining and dining and hobnobbing comfortably with people like Arman, Louis Cane, etc. in all the venues of the contemporary art scene. Throughout the film, which Jean-Luc Léon describes as a 'documentary comedy', the camera remains discreet, and therefore indiscreet. The result is an eye-opener. Wherever we go, from artist´s studio to official reception, we listen in on all the wheeling and dealing. This film was first screened by Arte in its Grand Format documentary slot on October 4th, 1996, when the Paris International Contemporary Art Fair (FIAC) was in full swing. It set the cat among the pigeons in Parisian circles and provoked an outcry on the cocktail circuit and in the media. It has even been suggested that the programme should be banned from exhibition.