SHARING WITH ME

Serpent Tree Many years ago when I began taking an interest in art, I used to confuse Niki Saint Phalle and Nicolas de Stäel. In the late 90's when I was in Basel, this was straightened out when I first visited the Foundation Jean Tinguely and discovered that that Jean and Niki were married. It would be difficult for me two confuse the two artists ever again. To the extent I might add, that I get rather tired of seeing so many of her sculptures, not to mention the copies. Figures at the seaside  1952   Nicolas de Stäel was no longer a stranger to me. I had seen quite a few of his paintings in different modern art museums around the world, and liked what I saw. There was something magic about his abstraction which I compared to boxes vividly coloured thick with oils.   A few months ago I discovered that there was a retrospective of his work in Le Havre. (After Dunkerque, Le Havre was not a favorite port on my Mother's list!). On the coast and not far

  The Fondation Cartier for Contemporary Art in Paris is having its 30th birthday. Though an offshoot of the deluxe jewellery brand, it lives in a  splendid isolation from its parent, as no artist who collaborates with the Fondation is never allowed near Cartier's product development department. The collection is impressive as today they have over 1,300 pieces - sculptors, designers, painters, musicians….you name it. It all started in the Chateau of Jouy-en-Josas which is outside of Paris in the department called the Yvelines. I clearly remember my Mother discovering it and coming home in raptures. As the transport to get there without a car is tedious, I hope she was still driving or had someone to drive her.  I had hoped to go with a very good friend who was over from Australia but difficult to believe, the foundation was closed for four days and it would happen to fall on one of the days we had planned. So today, I would walk across the Luxembourg gardens and ov

Last year I went to the EDF in August to see « Alive ». It was a fascinating experience which you may like to check out again before going on with this chapter. LOOKING AT OUR FUTURE ALIVE NEW DESIGN FRONTIERS; EDF Foundation 

The Foundation should be easy to find, but somehow they had« moved it » in the last couple of weeks, as every time I went - I couldn’t find it. Today I did. 

This time the exhibition was called « Let there be Light » presented by an agency called Vitra Design. It’s a wide panorama of over some 200 objects taking us through the history of light. I think we all take turning on a light switch as very normal today. Even changing fuses is simple. It wasn’t when I first arrived in Paris and somehow I turned the whole building into blackness. The guardian told me to never touch electricity again. I didn’t.  I don’t. We start right at the beginning of « light ». A collection of light bulbs.       Advertisements.