SHARING WITH ME

Walking up to the Place de Tertre When Pierre suggested that we went up to Montmartre to the museum, I jumped at the idea. Now I would see if Bohemia in France at the beginning of the 20th century or even the end of the 19th was as colourful as I remember from previous visits. It had been years since I had strolled through Montmartre.  A quiet cobbled tree lined street Curiously it is a very quiet quartier - outside of the tourist track. Cobbled streets go up and down and cars seem out of place. The colours of autumn were well in view. We escaped the famous Place du Tertre with its rather mediocre artists painting mediocre scenes for tourists who were not actually flocking to buy. Even so there is a charm which you cannot deny. 
 As the entrance stands today There is the Bateau Lavoir - famous as the atelier of artists such as - Picasso, Gauguin, Jacobs and the list is so long...even the old photo of their atelier showed the energy that must have been there

After Bohemia I was a little reluctant about going to see Bertrand Lavier. Some of his installations I already knew from the M.A.M.  Reading Beaux Arts Magazine, as much as the article was interesting - I was not convinced. The marvels about having an ICOM card is that if you don’t like the exhibition, you  turn around and leave. So without too much enthusiam I went off to the Beaubourg after an hour and a half of conferences on 16th/17th century sculpture at the Ecole du Louvre. In my mind as I walked from the Louvre to Beaubourg I was trying to work out what the morning had really taught me and what I had recalled or would recall. Suddenly I was there. From the 16th century to present day art can be a bit of a shock to the system but not only was it a shock, it was a very pleasant one. Bertrand Lavier certainly shakes up the most solid categories in the history of art. Crashed cars, African statues, Neons tubes looking not alike the American artist Frank Stella, P