HUNTER OR HUNTED ?
Laurent reminded me that we had seen an exhibition of Claire Morgan’s work at the Conciergerie and that too is going back some years. There was, so it seems an installation of her work at the Musée de la Chasse (Hunting Museum). A museum which is certainly off my beat and yet the couple of times that I have been there, there have always been interesting things to see. So why not?
Sunday visiting and free of charge. Naturally there were a few more people than I had anticipated. Mainly families. The first security guard answered me in English when I asked him where I could find Claire Morgan. I know my accent is bad, but it’s still something which irritates me when the French try to speak to me in English. I become an awful snob and am usually able to say that I arrived in France before he or she was born….With this particular person, he was of a retirement age and wanted to talk…..not for too long, I can assure you. So, not thanks to his directions, as he had got the level mixed up - I found Claire Morgan.
Here is a little about her taken from her home page.
What surprised me most was that she had actually exhibited in the MONA, in Tasmania, where my brother and his family live. I wonder if he saw her work?
This is one installation that really makes me smile…. »The Owl and the Pussycat » - 2014
In actual fact, her work blended in very well in the museum. It was called « The Gathering Dusk » where she associated animals and geometric structures. They are made of very light materials which certainly give a spidery aspect to them. All sorts of things, even flies are hanging down or seemingly floating in the air. The animals would have been integrated even more so if there hadn’t been a notice « do not touch. Fragile ». Alas, they had been touched and damaged. I take photographs when I shouldn't and can without being caught, but this work is an ethereal beauty and quite obviously extremely fragile.
There were two other temporary exhibitions. I wandered on. Julian Salaud was born in 1977 and lives in New Orleans.
Because Salaud has a penchant for using needle and thread to create a cool effect, this time he turned it up a notch with individually coated thread to create an ambient ultraviolet atmosphere. Salaud then strategically winds thread around needles to create birds, people and other cave-dwelling creatures. Peeping through and seeing the ultra violent atmosphere is quite something,
but seeing this was not…..but I did like his deer -
if they were not all laced up
The photographer Pierre Absensur was more than surprising. I guess
hunting trophies can be considered as visible signs of power, totemic adoration, exhumation of a repressed guilt or a significant materialization of a paradisal love. Far from a supposed unilateral act, killing could be a tacit agreement between ..nature and the hunter. You can decide for yourself. Pierre was born in 1962 and lives and works in Geneva -
I have never liked hunting as I don’t feel the animal has a chance but here, somehow man becomes the hunted - and not the predator - the animal seems to have acquired another life…..
The photos were taken all over the world even as far north as Finland, and France....
There were other strange pictures or structures that caught my eye….Philippe Le Beau (Renaissance) looks so attentive toward this bird of prey….yet is he?
And different sculptures
- do I become part of it ?
And an ivory column……
A strange morning, but not an uninteresting one….
Sunday visiting and free of charge. Naturally there were a few more people than I had anticipated. Mainly families. The first security guard answered me in English when I asked him where I could find Claire Morgan. I know my accent is bad, but it’s still something which irritates me when the French try to speak to me in English. I become an awful snob and am usually able to say that I arrived in France before he or she was born….With this particular person, he was of a retirement age and wanted to talk…..not for too long, I can assure you. So, not thanks to his directions, as he had got the level mixed up - I found Claire Morgan.
Here is a little about her taken from her home page.
Claire Morgan was born in Belfast and now lives in London. Since graduating in 2003, Claire has exhibited internationally, with solo exhibitions in the UK and Europe, and museum shows in US and Australia.
After showing sculptures at Palais de Tokyo and Fiac in 2009, Claire unveiled her first solo exhibition in France. Life. Blood., at Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, received national news coverage in France, with private collectors acquiring most of the works on the opening night. Alongside suspended sculptures, this was the first time Claire exhibited the 'blood drawings' that have rapidly become her signature.
Recent exhibitions of note include Dead Or Alive, (MAD, New York), on&on, (La Casa Encendida, Madrid), Monanism, (MONA, Tasmania), and Bestes, Bestiaux, et Bestioles, where a new large-scale sculpture was commissioned by Château D'Oiron, France.
Installations and drawings are in numerous private collections in the UK, Europe and Australia, including MONA, Altana, and Guerlain.
What surprised me most was that she had actually exhibited in the MONA, in Tasmania, where my brother and his family live. I wonder if he saw her work?
This is one installation that really makes me smile…. »The Owl and the Pussycat » - 2014
In actual fact, her work blended in very well in the museum. It was called « The Gathering Dusk » where she associated animals and geometric structures. They are made of very light materials which certainly give a spidery aspect to them. All sorts of things, even flies are hanging down or seemingly floating in the air. The animals would have been integrated even more so if there hadn’t been a notice « do not touch. Fragile ». Alas, they had been touched and damaged. I take photographs when I shouldn't and can without being caught, but this work is an ethereal beauty and quite obviously extremely fragile.
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 |
 |
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There were two other temporary exhibitions. I wandered on. Julian Salaud was born in 1977 and lives in New Orleans.
Because Salaud has a penchant for using needle and thread to create a cool effect, this time he turned it up a notch with individually coated thread to create an ambient ultraviolet atmosphere. Salaud then strategically winds thread around needles to create birds, people and other cave-dwelling creatures. Peeping through and seeing the ultra violent atmosphere is quite something,
 |
but seeing this was not…..but I did like his deer -
 |
 |
if they were not all laced up
 |
 |
The photographer Pierre Absensur was more than surprising. I guess
hunting trophies can be considered as visible signs of power, totemic adoration, exhumation of a repressed guilt or a significant materialization of a paradisal love. Far from a supposed unilateral act, killing could be a tacit agreement between ..nature and the hunter. You can decide for yourself. Pierre was born in 1962 and lives and works in Geneva -
I have never liked hunting as I don’t feel the animal has a chance but here, somehow man becomes the hunted - and not the predator - the animal seems to have acquired another life…..
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 | |
 |
The photos were taken all over the world even as far north as Finland, and France....
There were other strange pictures or structures that caught my eye….Philippe Le Beau (Renaissance) looks so attentive toward this bird of prey….yet is he?
And different sculptures
 |
 |
- do I become part of it ?
And an ivory column……
A strange morning, but not an uninteresting one….
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