
Paris.
My blog is, once agaain getting very wordy! I think I need to summarise Paris using mostly image. I will try. No promises!
Pompidou.

We are poor but we are under 26. We can get in here for free, but not to the main exhibitions. We decided that we had seen enough crazy Kandinsky jazz paintings to last us a few years, and that although we would have liked to have seen Calder sculpture, it was far too crowded to shell out ten euro for. But there was a mini Calder exhib, for free.
Alexander Calder
A fantastic one too. And an amazing video. 'Cirque de Calder' It is a beautiful (quick think of a new word for beautiful...) no mesmorizing in fact, quaint, amazing. Handmade toys, really cleverly made. Funny too. Watch the video. Click the image.
Alexander Calder
A fantastic one too. And an amazing video. 'Cirque de Calder' It is a beautiful (quick think of a new word for beautiful...) no mesmorizing in fact, quaint, amazing. Handmade toys, really cleverly made. Funny too. Watch the video. Click the image.



George Grosz

The piece I am looking for here is entitled Batiment III. I cannot find it!!! But it was an amzingly simple slender sort of peice, diagonal accross a page a line made of neat collage. REally clean to look at. I have found another montage of his I enjoy though.

Actually I have liked the work of this man for a long long time now. Many of times I have been in museums and looked upon his work with a smile before realising that it is his. This one again a montage Olly and Dolly Sisters. I admire its clean simplicity as oppose to other montages that appear (although still nice) messy and mixed. I mostly like the messy ones when they include type.

Sophie Calle's Phone Box.


Andy Warhol Looks a Scream...
I think we were both a little disappointed with this one. Wait it was good though! It really was. It was sort of chronological, really in depth, well curated, well set out, but I think we were mostly disappointed that it was only his portraits. It was sort of busy but I had seen worse (NY MoMa Dali exhibition, finally some art that Andrew might actually like and here we are stuck in the middle of a crowded room unable to get anywhere near the art.) I am interested in Warhols obsession with perfection up the image, no sorry icon of celebrity in the later works. Mostly I am interested in his early work, the mass repetition, the 'factory line'. The giving of something that is readily available on mass. The imperfections in the screens (no two alike) etc. But mostly mostly most of all I am interested in the death images. (I am not morbid!) How the images are really quite shocking but, the colours, the repetition is desensitizing us, made to look deeper, over and over again, really look at it. Desensitize is a shocking phenomena. This wasn't there. One electric chair was, as part of the last supper series. Still nice though. And no floating pillows, they were hung high above our heads, not moving! Oh well. Back to the Warhol exhib. I cannot find the image I wanted find, we were not allowed to take photographs, and it is nowhere on the internet. It was of the Artist Jean Michel Basquait (Obviously Warhol and Basquait had a pretty famous relationship anyway so to type the two names into google hoping to find this image is impossible!) Full body (rare for Warhol) real stunning, reminiscent of Da Vinci, all cut up (or different body part images taken separately) Montaged, a jigsaw almost. Screened together on one canvas but so you could tell that it was a montage. Anyway If you find or know of anywhere I can source this image, please let me know.
The Gatecrashers (Hype Syndicate) - David 'The Soft'

We went to an exhibition opening as it is the only thing to do when you are in Paris. Red wine flew. To be honest, and don't try to pretend this isn't true, the main reason to go to an opening of any kind is because of the free alcohol! Mostly the art is bad and you need the alcohol to bullshit your way through. But every now and then you go to an exhibition that is actually worth seeing. That is a bonus. This was such an occasion!
It was in the back of an art book shop, good start. It took us a few minutes to find clean cups. The artist was the loudest, cockiest and most drunk. It was experimental photography using Argentinian development techniques. They were really really good. They baffled every one. How had he done this? We settled on a masking technique in the dark room. Then the pictures appeared to be back lit but weren't. How? We don't know. It must be something in the ink. There was interstin g use of white space in the middle of the images. Like it was sheilding something. Drawing you in, making you curious. I would imagine that with out he lighting the images would have kept us far less entertained, but then that is part of a good show, the set up, the lights, the mood. It really was good. I cannpt remember his name but if you can speak French it translates to 'The Soft', David 'The Soft' (Le something or other.) UPDATE LeDoux
I am now considering a degree show involving a tower of books and light boxes. I'm positive it will not be allowed. Nor could I make that many books! I am also considering taking up Souvenir shopping as a hobby. To seek out the ultimate souvenir emporium. It's probably in London somewhere.

So much for not being so wordy...
1 comment:
David LeDoux!!
And you know i'd actually forgotten that we kind of got to know each other with the band-attempt thing! How did i forget that!?
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