An exhibition? A Concert? Who knows what I will want to share but whatever it is, I hope you will share it with me.
A WEIRD EXPERIENCE
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The word « Carambolages » for an exhibition is surprising, to say the
least. In English we would say "multiple crash", « pileup" and refer to
a car crash. In French too I might add. I had read very little about
the exhibition in the Grand Palais and what I had read, confused me. I
was right next to the centre yesterday. The exhibition had just started
and not a soul in sight. I did know that there were 200 and more works
of art. I walked into th first very dark gallery. Came back and ask
where the documentation was. It was so dark I couldn’t see it. As there
was a free application to down-load, I did that - which took a little
time in the dark. There seemed to be parallel galleries and in the first
one, I didn’t have the foggiest what I was looking at. We were told to
use our eyes, imagination and interpretive skills. Artists think
visually and draw their references from universal art. That is a topic
of conversation l had frequently at the dinner table with my mother. In
her collage period she used to say something like this.
« I choose the pieces and the scatter them on the floor and they do the rest ».
Erro "La peinture en groyupes. Les Origines de Pollock; 1967
Certainly her work was unusual and she liked surprises. I began to see that this was what I was looking at…..something very unusual. Surprising… The presentation is arranged in a continuous sequence where each work depends on the previous one and announces the following one. Just follow the arrows. Was this to improve our knowledge of the art world? I still wasn’t too sure. There application on my iPhone gave no explanation of the works just music (and sometimes very good) for the gallery in question….1 to 27… Then I came upon this picture….stopped. Went on and came back…..so many references to so many works that l know. Did l find it entertaining or amusing to look at them?
Frustrating to be honest. It took me quite a while to figure out what l knew or what l didn’t. So we were supposed to follow the arrows, look at each painting, sculpture, africana art and then see how WE felt it related to the next piece or led us on from what we had just seen. This meant stopping at each one…that is not for me. Too linear. If someone is in front of a painting, l hop onto the next and then come back. There were no titles but at the end of each narrow gallery a video showed us what we had seen….more pictures or objects were added as we went along. Very difficult to photograph - l didn’t but l did photograph each work that interested me. There were four videos and I was pushed out of the way by some woman who was an avid spectator.
For this moving picture I might add.....it is not perhaps for young eyes!
Ambroise Crozat : La Vision de Zacharie - 1722
Zhenmu shou "monstre gardien de tombe"
Katsushika Hokusai "Le Fontôme de Kohada Koheiji" 1831-32
Joseph Deutsch, "Plateau de déjeuner solitaire" 1773
Wim Delvoye "Double Helix Crossed Crucifix" 2008
Boltanski
Katsushika Hokusai "Le Fantôme d'Oiwa-san" 1831-32
Coffret Reliquaire XVlll
Annette Messager ""'Gants-Tête" 1999
Bernard Lavier - Walt Disney
Coupe Polychrome pértiode V, 850-1000 and Ornament de danse
Hergé
Jan Fyt (reproduced work) Chien couché à la chaîne XVll°
Jean Jacque Lagrenée le Jeune : "Bold en forme de sein présumé de Marie Antoinette: 1788
Artémis deEphèse -Rome antique
Plat à godrons, XVll°
Cr^ne de cheval, Nigeria XlX° et crâne sur modelé .Vanuatu
Tirge hongroise à décor de pois, XVl°
Anorak inptiat or yup'ik Alaska - début xx°
La Grande Ourse, le Soleil et la Lune" XlX° Korean
Jean Huber, "Le Lever dit Huber Voltaire" 1772
Retable "Napoléon" XlX°
Muarizio Catalon "Good Versus the Bad" Chess game
Fritz Kahn "L'homme comme palais de l'industrie" 1926
The « Connaissance des Arts » regrouped the works in different sections. Some works were explained but certainly not the 200. Forgive me then if I just show you what stopped me in my tracks but not necessarily as a relationship to what l had seen before or what l was seeing then. The reasons why I stopped are vary varied. Also titles are hard to come by and although l have done some research, a few are missing.... Over to you to discover your references and see if you « see things » that l haven’t.
Sometimes I wonder whether an exhibition is more inspirational as a series of examples of one artist's work, or as a 'pileup' of diverse and unrelated images leaving the viewer to - as it were - fill in the blanks.
Over the years, I have gone on discovering Wifredo Lam. He has been mentioned in different Blog chapters but always within permanent collections. I have to admit today that in the early years, I took one of his paintings for a Picasso….and seeing certain paintings of his today, it didn’t really surprise me. Especially as I learnt that he knew Picasso…This though was a retrospective of his work at the Beaubourg. Wifredo Lam (1902-1982) was a precursor of a cross-cultural style of painting, infusing Western modernism with African and Caribbean symbolism. He must have been one of the very rare artists who was in contact with all the movements of his time …and all those that I follow. Cubism, surrealism, CoBrA…but he never lost sight of the world around him and took on the struggle to paint the drama of his own country, Cuba. The above photo plunges us at once into the exhibition. Was he an attractive man? I think there are later photos which make him look less brutal….but in my book,
« Splendeurs et Misères », Images of prostitution from 1850 to 1910 had to be another blockbuster. I had read a lot about it. Many of the paintings I knew, had not represented prostitutes for me, but more jaunty young ladies. I was certainly wrong. There was no queue when I arrived at opening hours at Orsay. That cannot be said for inside the exhibition nor outside when I left. The crowds were horrendous. I managed to go back and forwards from one room to another. Perhaps it was not the best way to follow such and exhibition which was after all done by themes, but at least paintings could be looked at easily or relatively so. The verb “to prostitute oneself” literally means “to display or to expose oneself publicly” so it is hardly surprising to see that the worlds of art and prostitution are somehow linked in the 19th and early 20th century imagination. The metamorphosis of the body of the prostitute – “an object of public pleasure” – into a work of art to be viewed by all was effe
After 25 years as a museum, it was time to renovate the Picasso site. The « Hotel » as we call it, has quite a history. It is probably, as Bruno Foucart wrote in 1985, (he is an art historian of 19th century architecture) “the grandest, most extraordinary, if not the most extravagant, of the Parisian houses of the 17th century”. Hotel Salé The Main stair case Another coming down "Picasso" would have liked these lights The building has seen many occupants come and go over the centuries. However, paradoxically, before the place was entrusted to the museum, it was rarely “inhabited”, but instead leased out to various private individuals, prestigious hosts and institutions. And so it became the Picasso museum. The renovations began in 2009 and quite obviously went well over budget and should have opened before the holidays started this year. The political arguments too had to be contended with not to mention the changes in Directors and the big question bei
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