Introduction
Jean Pigozzi (born 1952) is a businessman, art collector, philanthropist and photographer. He was born in Paris as the son of Henri Pigozzi, founder of the French car maker Simca. Pigozzi studied in Paris and at Harvard University before working for the Gaumont Film Company and 20th Century Fox.
Design
In 2007, Pigozzi created a men’s clothing and accessories line called LimoLand with the intention of designing clothing for those who “Live to Create”. He is also the creative director of the brand.
Collecting
Pigozzi has over the last twenty years assembled the world’s largest collection of contemporary African art. The Contemporary African Art Collection is based in Geneva, and was presented at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, at the National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C., at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, at the Pinacoteca Giovanni and Marella Agnelli in Turin, Italy, and the Tate Modern in London. He also started the JaPigozzi Collection of contemporary Japanese art by young Japanese artists.
Philanthropy
In 1996 Pigozzi started buying land in and around Bahia Honda in Panama for conservation, and also created The Liquid Jungle Lab (LJL). LJL was founded to bring high-technology to ecological research and conservation with the following partners: The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, The Royal Botanical Society in Madrid and Yale School of Forestry. Its goal is to create, on the Isla Canales de Tierra, a field station for Marine and Botanical research.
Photography
Pigozzi had an exhibition of his journal photographs in 1974 at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. His photographs were shown in the exhibition Pigozzi and the Paparazzi at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin. His show "Johnny Stop" opened in November 2010 at the Gagosian Gallery in New York City.
His photo book, Catalogue Déraisonné, was published in 2010.
In April 2016 his photo book Pool Party was published by Rizzoli. The accompanying photo show at the Gagosian Gallery in New York also opened in April.
Exhibitions
- 1974: Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris
- 1980: Light Gallery, New York
- 1991: A Short Visit to Planet Earth, Gagosian Gallery, New York
- 2008: Pigozzi and the Paparazzi, Helmut Newton Foundation, Berlin
- 2010: Rencontres d'Arles festival, France
- 2010: Johnny Stop! Gagosian Gallery, New York
- 2010: Johnny Stop! Colette, Paris
- 2010: Clic Gallery, St. Barths
- 2011: Pigozzi, STOP ! You're too close, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow
- 2012: Johnny Stop! SEM-ART Gallery, Monaco
- 2012: Unseen International Art Fair, Galerie Alex Daniels-REFLEX, Amsterdam
- 2013: Johnny's Diary - Photographies de Jean Pigozzi, Galerie du Jour, Agnesb, Paris
- 2013: Photographs featured in a film short directed by Brett Ratner for Vanity Fair’s 100th Anniversary.
- 2014: My World, Jean Pigozzi, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing
- 2016: Pool Party, Jean Pigozzi, Gagosian Gallery, New York City
Television Show
- 2014: "My Friends call Me Johnny," an interview program, debuted September 3, 2014 on Esquire Network.