SHARING WITH ME

I enjoy conferences with Claude Rocca and «Les Chemins de l’Art» but don’t go too often as the periods or exhibitions  he presents are not always of interest to me. But we are about to have two conferences which I  booked quite a while ago. One on the Art during the second world war period and the other on Edward Hopper. This is the first major exhibition and retrospective which is travelling around Europe. Laurent and Jerome had already seen it in Madrid - I had to be patient and to see it in Paris. couple buvant 1906-07 Claude gave us an hour’s presentation with slides. We were then given «quartier libre» to visit the exhibition which is on three floors and covering his life’s work. Some 128 paintings in all from water-colours to illustrations during the period where he worked before becoming famous,  engravings and paintings. In the latter period there are so many of his paintings which are known and used for advertisement of some kind or another that I was prepared to ski

Two hours door to door and I arrived  in Roubaix at «La Piscine». I was there earlier this year to see the Duncan-Picasso («Oh What a Pleasure» - 26th April) . As for the previous visit, I arrived at midday finding a virtually empty museum - a lot of people eating in the café and a few visitors in the exhibition. This time we were allowed to take photographs which I did in a second tour around. I left three hours later. You could not move for people. Many years ago an art teacher  insisted that Chagall was only interesting in his Russian period and when he came to France, his painting became purely commercial. He lived in France between 1923 and 1939 and then again from 1948 to the end of his life, 1985.  As this is the first big retrospective of his work which I have seen in some years, I was interested to see if I could prove him wrong. I think I did. Garnier Opera   Obviously if you are referring to his illustrations for the Bible which make the Bible very readable or the

I can’t remember where I first saw Yue Minjun’s work. He’s a very discreet Chinese artist and what we were about to see was his first major retrospective in Europe of some 100 or more pantings at the Cartier Foundation. The title was YUE MINJUN - L’Ombre du Fou Rire - which if anything, intrigued me as «a shadow of tittering laughter» although not a good translation gives some idea that this could be black humor. On the Rostrum of Tiananmen, 1992 At the beginning his work has individual features but as time goes by, this disappears and all the faces start to resemble his own.  He depicts himself in improbably, impossible and even so they say, highly poetic situations. I did not see any of the latter. Many are surrealist and probably reveal dreams. Dream is perhaps not the best word for the Mao period but his earlier paintings do not escape this theme and although all the faces maybe laughing, it is very sad. The irony of such a political situation is never far from the eye. Nic