Interview

JBH: Did Warhol have an influence on you? 

PB: An influence? No. There was an exchange. We met, we liked each other, we appreciated each other. He would come to us for Easter in Marrakech. In September we would meet up in Venice. And every time I went to New York I would spend some time with him at the Factory, where we would have dinner together. He’s a man that I admired deeply. He shook up the notion of painting—not as much as Duchamp had done, but he was part of the same general movement. And then we both admired art deco. We would go antique hunting in Paris together. It was I who found Fred Hughes his Paris apartment on the Rue du Cherche-Midi, where Warhol would stay. 

JBH: You also aren’t selling your collection of first-edition books?

PB: What I’m selling is the Yves Saint Laurent–Pierre Bergé collection. My library is my own -private domain. For the moment it’s important to me to -continue my involvement in one field. 

JBH: This collection was conceived by you and Yves. How did that happen? 

PB: We conceived it together. That’s all. Later on Yves was a lot more sedentary than me. I carried on buying paintings, works of art, and he, if I may say so, had a right of inspection. We even shared a common reading of the history of art. It would never have crossed Yves’s mind to say to me, “Ah, I saw a Picasso . . .” He knew perfectly well what was interesting with Picasso, as did I. But let’s talk about that for a moment, about the couple that Yves and I were. Like all couples we went through “storms,” as the Jacques Brel song says. But if there’s one area where we never had the slightest disagreement, it was art. Never. Not once. Not about painting, not about opera, not about theater. We were always in complete communion. Of course, that’s how all of the collection came into being. 

JBH: The sale is being called the sale of the century. 

PB: That may be true—of the 20th century, I suppose. For the 21st century, we can’t know.

JBH: You have been very faithful to two Parisian art dealers: Alain Tarica for paintings and the
Kugel brothers for other works of art. 

PB: Not faithful. There’s no sentiment involved. On the occasions I went elsewhere I was disappointed. I buy 80 percent of the works from them.

JBH: But more generally you are the faithful type? 

PB: I am faithful up to the point of death. It’s the only thing I respect. I never abandon anyone. I’m not talking about sexual relations. I’m faithful in my friendship, my admiration. 

JBH: Are you moved by a sort of ideal of beauty in everyday life? 

PB: In what way do you mean? 

JBH: That even your toothbrush holder is beautiful, or that you pay a great deal of attention to what you eat, for example? 

PB: In that sense, then yes. Yes, I am.

JBH: Are you wiping the slate clean of the past? You also sold your house in Tangier and the one in Deauville?

PB: Of course not. I’ve already bought another house in Tangier and the one in Deauville has been for sale for some time. As for Yves’s apartment, it is being sold because he’s dead. But I won’t be furnishing my home from Ikea, I can promise you that much. 

JBH: Are you becoming an ascetic? 

PB: Of course not. I’m not an ascetic and please don’t use the word zen, which is so lightly bandied about these days. Being zen . . . It’s shameful to talk in such a way. I haven’t become an ascetic but I’m not going to build up another collection. I’m going to create my new environment. I already know what I want. 

JBH: Today you are involved in many different spheres of society—politics, museums, social work. Why do so much? 

PB: It’s simply a question of being in tune with my own personal choices. 

JBH: Are you nostalgic?

PB: No, I hate nostalgia. Today is always better than yesterday. 

JBH: Yet you’re a great fan of Marcel Proust. 

PB: I love Proust, but I leave him to his nostalgia. I don’t approach art the way most people do. I don’t get into Proust by imagining that I am Charlus or whoever. It’s the same thing in painting—I try to look at it objectively. There’s no pathos in that. It’s like Bach’s “Goldberg Variations.” They have to be approached with a scalpel. 

JBH: But at the end of the day you’re a cold man? 

PB: Who can get carried away . . . I hate sentiment when it’s inappropriate. I saw someone two days ago who went and saw an exhibition and came out in tears. If an exhibition drives you to tears you need to see a psychiatrist immediately. That’s what I think. And that’s despite the fact that painting is the art form I prefer above all others. 

JBH: And fashion? 

PB: I hate it. It doesn’t as such exist. Saint Laurent hated fashion. He loved style. 

JBH: In what way will Yves Saint Laurent leave his mark on history? 

PB: He had an ongoing dialogue with the time he lived in and life in the streets. He had genius. 

JBH: And you? 

PB: I won’t make a mark on history. I have some importance in the time we live in, but that’s all. 

JBH: Then what makes you want to get up in the morning? 

PB: [pauses] I don’t know exactly. There’s nothing that really motivates me anymore and demands that I get up in the morning. In the past it was Yves Saint Laurent. 

JBH: Why are you so fond of dogs? 

PB: Because they love me. But now they’ve all died, one by one. But you know loving dogs is a question of anthropomorphism. We become attached to dogs because of the feelings we project on them. 

JBH: Is freedom a fundamental element for you? 

PB: From now on I am going to have a freedom such as I’ve never known. I never abandoned Yves. I used to have lunch with him twice a week. I also saw him every Saturday. My presence beside him was even more important in his bad times. But that didn’t leave me a great deal of room in which to maneuver. Freedom is an intellectual space. But I don’t use it. 

JBH: And love? 

PB: Love is what makes me live, quite simply. It’s the only thing that makes me work. It made me become what I am today. On my own account I certainly wouldn’t have become the director of a couture house. I didn’t have sufficient admiration for fashion as such to have done so.