“IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE”

PARIS (AFP) — Yves Saint Laurent's partner Pierre Berge has removed four Andy Warhol portraits of the fashion designer from a major Paris exhibition on the US pop art giant only days before the launch of a show.Berge told AFP on Friday that he had asked for the series of 1974 works to be removed from a section of the show featuring other Warhol portraits of designers, such as Giorgio Armani or Sonia Rykiel, under the title "glamour"."I don't think Yves Saint Laurent comes under the category of 'glamour'", Berge said."Warhol's Wide World", opening at the Grand Palais on March 18, is shaping up as one of the year's top art happenings, with some of the 150 works coming out of private collections, such as Berge's, for the first time.
"I told the curator I did not see things this way, either he changed Saint Laurent's place or I would withdraw the paintings. Apparently this was not possible for one reason or another and so I withdrew the four works," Berge added.
Berge said the YSL portraits instead could have been hung in a section titled "artists"."I don't deny he was a designer, that was how he described himself, but I think he was more than that."Alain Cueff, curator of the show which claims to be the first Warhol portrait exhibition, told AFP that "I regret these portraits will not be on show for the public."