Fondation Carmignac

Financier Édouard Carmignac established the corporate collection Fondation Carmignac in 2000.[1] The collection is displayed at Carmignac Gestion's headquarters in Paris, as well as at its offices in London, Madrid, Milan, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, and Zurich.

In the 1980s, Carmignac purchased a property in Porquerolles Island with 15 hectares of land. During a construction on the Island hired Architects, GM Architectes Associés encountered struggles building on the protected land, so they created 2,000 m² (22,000 sq ft) of underground exhibition space.[2][3] The subterranean space was initially planned to open in 2014 but opened in 2018.[4]

In 2018, the opening exhibition at Fondation Carmignac focused on Carmignac’s personal collection of over 300 pop and postmodern artworks.[5]

The Carmignac corporate collection comprises over 250 works from the 20th and 21st centuries, with a focus on pop art and the German Expressionist School. The collection includes pieces by various artists, such as Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Roy Lichtenstein, Gerhard Richter, Andreas Gursky, Keith Haring, Martial Raysse, Zhang Huan, Korakrit Ayunanondchaï, Richard Prince, and Sterling Ruby.

Several commissioned works were created for Porquerolles, including Ugo Rondinone’s Four Seasons (2018), a ring of silver heads, and Olaf Breuning’s Mother Nature (2018), a large red-haired face.[6]

The Carmignac Photojournalism Award was established in 2009 and is directed by Emeric Glayse. It offers a €50,000 research grant to support the creation of an investigative photographic report on regions where fundamental rights are threatened. The winner's reportage is exhibited in a traveling exhibition and published in a monograph.[7] The 2016 Photojournalism Award retrospective at Saatchi Gallery was the most visited photojournalism exhibition.[8][9][10] Past winners include Kai Wiedenhöfer, Massimo Berruti, Robin Hammond, Davide Monteleone, Newsha Tavakolian, Christophe Gin, Narciso Contreras, Lizzie Sadin, Yuri Kozyrev, Kadir van Lohuizen, and Tommaso Protti. The 11th edition of the award is dedicated to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Foundation planned to open additional premises on the island of Porquerolles in 2016. The site was intended to be accessible to the public and to host temporary exhibitions and artworks specifically created for the museum and sculpture park. To adapt the existing Provençal country house for this purpose, architect GMAA was hired to redesign it. The foundation also hired landscape architect Louis Benech to design the gardens. The location is situated in the heart of Port-Cros National Park.