There are moments in the life of a gallery when certain encounters quietly trace lines of force—patient, silent, and decisive. Dominique & Daniel embody those rare companions in the journey for whom art is neither capital nor décor, but a way of inhabiting the world with heightened awareness: an attentiveness to fragility, a sensitivity to what connects Life and the Beyond. Great travelers and former physicians—one in general medicine, the other in palliative care—this Bordeaux-based couple carries within them, after forty-five years together, that fundamental experience of care and presence, which naturally informs their relationship with artists, artworks, objects, and the places that welcome them.
To inaugurate this new annual series of portrait exhibitions, titled In the Gaze of, dedicated to those without whom no artistic adventure in a gallery could truly flourish, it felt both right and necessary to give them a voice and to share their vision. Far from being a fixed ensemble, the D&D collection appears as a living constellation: contemporary art, sculptures of so-called “primitive” art, design, objects from ancient and universal civilizations, art books and poetry—so many fragments of knowledge, gestures, and cultures, bound together by the same openness to the world.
Preferring the term “committed art lovers” to that of “collectors,” Dominique & Daniel share an ethical stance, rejecting purely material possession in favor of a relationship of exchange—of ideas and knowledge—so as to create a space of inner hospitality, allowing into their intimacy the energies that have marked their lives and crossed their time, their territories, and their imaginations.
The exhibition brings together a fragment of the puzzle of their energies, dialogues, and curiosity that have shaped and intertwined their life paths and, in a certain way, our own. It bears witness to a relationship founded on trust, continuous exchange, and a shared way of considering relationships with artists and galleries not as a market, but as a field of experiences, responsibilities, and pleasures. Contemporary art is represented by Jean-Christian Bourcart, Pierre Buraglio, Peter Doig, Dario Escobar, Daniel Firman, Nan Goldin, Benoit Maire, Eric Poitevin, Kévin Rouillard, Pierre Savatier, and Georges-Tony Stoll; design by Élisabeth Garouste and Mattia Bonetti; and, in profound resonance, African presences that open the way to another manner of being in the world, another approach to cosmogony.
To pay tribute to Dominique and Daniel is to remind ourselves that no collection has a definitive destination: it transforms, opens up, and invents itself through contact with those who encounter it. It becomes a place in which to reflect on what connects us, what we pass on, and how the things we choose to love quietly trace the continuation of our life paths, nourishing our souls.