SHARING WITH ME

My Mother was not a name dropper. She just took it for granted that when speaking about someone, you would know the person in question. I know this infuriated a lot of her friends around the world when she wrote to them or even talking to them in person.  I tried to keep up when I came to live in France. It wasn’t always easy. Even more so as my Australian upbringing had not taking into account film makers, painters, photographers, philosophers, psychiatrists - I could really call this Mother’s 4 P’s. For me Hans Richter was a painter. Not one that overwhelmed me and yet the name seemed to ring a bell. I went off to the Beaubourg in Metz to discover why. Beaubourg Metz Looking down from the 3rd gallery This exhibition traces more than a half century of Hans Richter’s life  using film as a catalyst. I had read about this before going to Metz but it wasn’t until I began visiting the exhibition that the puzzle fell into place.

So now we are back at the beginning. However, I do suggest for those who may have not read chapters 1 on "Like Winning the Lottery" and 2," In Between Two Worlds,"  do so as it certainly indicates the diversity of the two exhibitions and now Serge Poliokoff . And perhaps read my chapter on Serge Poliakoff of the 14th October.  It's the second part . http://discovmaggsie.blogspot.com/2013/10/dreams-as-centuries-go-and-music-to-come.html I don’t really think that I can add too much to what I have already written. However, I will try. Here he is though in his studio in 1963 The first exhibition was of water colours. Now «  The Dream of Forms, the viewing itinerary » . Over 70 paintings. The title left me a little perplexed and then of course I understood that we would be tracing his different periods from 1946 through to 1969. There were ten but I am not going to give descriptives of each one. 

Why do I like Serge Poliakoff so much? His geometric forms are

Working backwards as I am and that’s exactly what the exhibition of Zeng Fanzhi did too. A reverse order presentation of some 40 paintings and a couple of sculptures spanning the period from 2013 back to 1990.Not too many have titles. You may remember that when I was in China, one of the centres told me that a Chinese artist had to be known overseas before he was recognized in China. This apparently was not the case with Fanzhi. He was born in Wuhan (1964) which is in China’s Hubei province. In art school he was influenced by both Western and Chinese contemporary art although I am not sure how he could have access to Western art in the early 90’s. After all, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, were student-led popular demonstrations in Beijing which took place in the spring and received broad support from city residents, exposing deep splits within China's political leadership. The protests were forcibly suppressed by hardline leaders who ordered the military to enforce martia

Poster for Zeng Fanzhi Which of course I never will, never have and will never do. It just felt that way yesterday. Before going to see Tom Hanks in « Captain Philips » late afternoon, I went to the MAM (Museum of Modern Art) at the opening time in the morning. It is unusual for me to go to an exhibition at the weekend. I don’t have to and it leaves the doors open for all those working people. There were few people there and I had come to see the Serge Poliakoff ( had seen his water colours in October - Serge Poliokoff - Maillol , ) and a new Chinese artist for me Zeng Fanzhi. The Advertising poster fascinated me. Someone asked me recently. «  Is Picasso really your favorite artist? » I didn’t need to think too long. « I don’t have a preferred artist. There are artistic tendencies  which interest me more » Artists who have a wide range in their pallet, fascinate me - perhaps more - they surprise me. Picasso never ceases to surprise me. Serge Poliakoff fascinates me……he