HELL OR HEAVEN ?

Earlier in the week I went to an exhibition of photography-montage-collage by Joel-Peter Witkin. The title was «Enfer ou Ciel» or «Hell or Heaven».  The last way I would describe myself is as  puritanical but seeing deformed bodies, mass of flesh and female or males changed physically into the opposite sex - and naked - doesn’t shock me it just leaves me cold. A good friend asked me «but why Bacon and Picasso then ?» This is painting and not changed form through montage. Even if Witkin’s references are Renaissance and many of the photo-montages recognizable in terms of where they came from - somehow that irritated me even more...I came out with a nasty taste in my mouth and walked across the Palais Royal where of course there is the Daniel Buren installation.

In 1986 Buren  created a 3,000 m² sculpture in the great Palais Royal with «public money» -  Called «Les Deux Plateaux  but more commonly referred to as the "Colonnes de Buren" ("Buren's Columns"), this provoked an intense debate over the integration of contemporary art and historic buildings not to mention the use of tax payer’s money. Today it is part of the landscape. Children play hop-scotch or other games: people sit on the columns and contemplate on what art is all about (I’m saying that)....and the tourists seem to enjoy it immensely. The art purists are still up in arms....but you can surely guess how I feel about it. 




On the left

And on the right



Off to the Beaubourg in Metz tomorrow to see an exhibition called «1917» - for the moment I will say no more. 


Commentaires

Enregistrer un commentaire

Posts les plus consultés de ce blog

CONFLICTS AND ENCOUNTERS OF MULTIPLE HISTORIES

Image
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,
Lire la suite

MY BELOVED PICASSO -I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS -

Image
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
Lire la suite

THE CHOICE OF ONE OF THE RICHEST WOMEN IN THE WORLD

Image
The exhibition season is very full between January and the French holiday period. I make less and less effort to go and see the « block-busters » and there are some museums which are not easy to get around. The Jacquemart André is one of them. The rooms are so small and when a couple of groups move in, it is virtually impossible to see a picture or move at all. Still I was interested to go and see the Alicia Koplowitz collection. Now I come to think of it, there have been quite a few private collections shown to the public since the end of last year.  Naturally I knew nothing about this woman.  Alicia Koplowitz is very well known in her home country, Spain. Thanks to her company, the Capital Omega Group  a comprehensive financial services company , she has become an important collect er Alicia is is a Spanish business magnate. When her father died, she and her sister inherited Construcciones y Contratas, S.A. (CYCSA), a company founded by her father. She  sold her part of the comp
Lire la suite