Historians’ Stories: Marie-Laure Bernadac

A discussion at the B&E Goulandris Foundation Amphitheatre

Monday, September 22, 2025 | 20.00-21.30

On the occasion of the exhibition Takis 1∞, the B&E Goulandris Foundation inaugurates a new series of discussions in its Amphitheatre, under the title Historians’ Stories. Five times a year, historians—mainly of art, but not exclusively—share their career paths with the public, through landmark exhibitions, significant publications and unique expertise, in conversation with the Foundation’s Head of Collections, Marie Koutsomallis-Moreau.

The series opens on Monday, September 22 with curator and author Marie-Laure Bernadac. At the age of 22, Bernadac became assistant to three of the most renowned Greeks in Paris’s art scene: Takis, Alexander Iolas and Iris Clert. She then went on to establish her own career as curator at the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Centre Pompidou, at the Musée Picasso, at CAPC – Museum of Contemporary Art of Bordeaux and later as Head of Contemporary Art at the Louvre Museum.

She has curated numerous exhibitions, both on Pablo Picasso (Le Dernier Picasso, 1987, Centre Pompidou | Picasso – Toros y toreros, 1993, Musée Picasso Paris & Barcelona | Picasso et les maîtres, 2008, Grand Palais) and on Louise Bourgeois (Louise Bourgeois: Pensées plumes, 1995, Centre Pompidou | Féminin/masculin, le sexe de l’art, 1995, Centre Pompidou | Louise Bourgeois, 1998, Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, as well as the final retrospective Louise Bourgeois, 2008, Centre Pompidou). She has also curated exhibitions for Anish Kapoor (1998, Bordeaux), Jenny Holzer (2001, Bordeaux), Cindy Sherman (2020, Fondation Louis Vuitton), Picasso poète (2020, Musée Picasso), and William Kentridge (LaM, Villeneuve d’Ascq, 2020).

She is the author of the first biography of Louise Bourgeois, Femme couteau (Paris, Flammarion, 2019). Most recently, in 2024, she co-curated with Bernard Marcadé the exhibition Lacan, L’exposition: quand l’artiste précède le psychanalyste, at the Centre Pompidou-Metz.