SHARING WITH ME

Before I leave for New York, I would just like to show you some installations that I discovered at the College des Bernadins. I have showed you this before (25th May 2012, Michel Blazy and Foam) and as I was on my way home from a disappointing exhibition at the Louvre on Mexican 15th and 16th century art I decided to pop into the College. In all cultures, the tree symbolises life, its force, longevity, beauty and fertility. It accompanies our imagination. It symbolises man himself. This installation was called «The Tree of Life». I would think that the artists who were represented here questioned their life style and the sense of life. Every time I have a chance to hug a tree - I do so. It wasn’t possible here but the set up in the nave was bark - what sounds could you make from it? Running fingers up and down? The children there - and they were very young - were enjoying every squeak. A teacher asked me to join in. I didn’t but I should have.... So just a few pictures of how some arti

Early in 2005, when I came back after work to see my Mother at dinner time, in the afternoon she had been to the Cartier Foundation to see Ron Mueck. She handed me a post card and said "What do you think?" I gasped In Bed 2005   «But it’s François.....» a departed friend. It couldn’t be true...... In Bed 2005 I rushed off to see Ron Mueck the following weekend. Mueck was born in Melbourne in 1958 to parents of German origin. His hobby became his career. He was already 38 when a replica of his father’s naked body propelled him into the world of contemporary art. Mueck’s exhibitions are few and far between. The documentary I saw this time showed  how meticulous he is not to mention his hyperrealism and precision. All his sculptures have a sense of reality that is often moving or even disturbing. Every time I have seen his work be it at the Venise Biennale, in Australia or here in Paris, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all if one of them, any of them, had opened

I am so lucky to live in the heart of Paris. I may be wandering down the rue Monge not really knowing where I am going or what I am going to do....or on the other hand, I make a change of plans because I suddenly think of something I would like to see. So much is in within walking distance and at this time of the year, Paris thinks about putting on her Springtime clothing and we can take off our heavy coats. 
 There was another gallery which I wanted to go to and bingo it was closed as a new set-up was underway. Off to Beaubourg. I wanted to see Sotto and there were two other major exhibitions I could take in at the same time. Alina Szapocznikow, whom of course I knew nothing about and Eileen Gray whom I did but as her interior decoration has never really turned me on, there was not reason to go and see her work. For me it would seem, as there were many visitors at her exhibition. There is nothing I can saw about it. Eileen Gray is Irish, considered to be an iconic interior designe

  Jan Fabre was a discovery by accident. I knew nothing about him. At the Beaux-Art in Brussels years ago there was a very large sparkling green statue standing in the main gallery. Magnetic, hypnotic, enticing you to come closer and then to my horror, I discovered that the whole statue was made of beetles. Insects of any kind and I do not have a good relationship. I backed off at once and yet somehow the statue was compelling.  Heaven of Delight A few years later - the same effect - this but then I knew who he was and could look at the work at a distance. It is the  decoration of the ceiling of the Royal Palace in Brussels Heaven of Delight (made out of one million six hundred thousand jewel-scarab wing cases) is widely praised. . Jan Fabre Perhaps it was the exhibition that he had of his work at the Louvre in 2008 which made me think he was worthwhile looking at as the statues were placed in between the Flemish painters. This time he seemed to go furth

Thank goodness I missed that train a month ago. Perhaps I did it on purpose too as there was an exhibition that I thought I would be seeing in Brussels and discovered the night before I left - last week - that it didn’t open until the day after my intended visit. I booked again. There is now a day trip to Brussels which price wise makes it more interesting than going to a restaurant for dinner in Paris. 
My plan for the day was very crowded - five exhibitions. I did not do the five. But I DID stay with my beloved Kandinsky for over two From my point of view, Wassily Kandinsky is one of the most influential painters of the 20th century. Picasso is obviously on the same level and the two of them I cross oceons to look at. This artist of Russian origin, who first becomes a naturalised German, then a Frenchman, is an extremely multifaceted genius. As the founding father of abstract art, his style changes as he  travels from Munich to Paris with stops in Moscow and Berlin, from expressi