The Gallery THADDAEUS ROPAC , which I have already visited with Laurent and Jerome , is really off putting. It’s on the outskirts of Paris but at least 20 minutes walk from the Metro. Apart from one sign, there is nothing else to indicate how to find it. I would be quite lost without my friends. You really have to want to see the exhibition - and we did. Antony Gormley which I had recently seen in the Marais with Michel
(A BLISSFUL DAY OF DISCOVERIES ). But these huge pieces would be difficult to house in a Parisian Gallery.
The first exhibition space is occupied by the work « Hole », a four-metre-high model of a house as a body. This work shows the relationship between a human body and a house. I actually just saw a woman - hardly a house. That doesn’t matter.
 |
| Another way of looking |
 |
| The Hole |
 |
| and looking inside |
In the second gallery space the installation is called « Expansion Field ». The sixty sculptures that constitute this piece are arranged in four rows;constructed in steel sheet. Don’t you think that many of the sculptures look like human forms? Women? Men? It’s a mighty installation and needs to be looked at carefully otherwise I doubt if it means too much except « immensity » to the viewer.
 |
| A gallery |
 |
| of people |
 |
| Men I think |
 |
| and some women too |
 |
| waiting for what? |
 |
| Waiting for us ? |
 |
| and looking out |
The final work is called, « Matrix II », and made specifically for the fourth space of the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Pantin. This is the Gallery’s description.
It is virtual architecture, a three-dimensional drawing that identifies sixteen room-sized volumes that interconnect around a void space equivalent to two adjacent standing bodies. Using re-enforcing mesh, the skeleton of cast-concrete buildings, Matrix II interrogates the form and structure of the human habitat.
Sometimes I wonder who writes these comments. They seem so complicated, often badly translated and dissuasive to read before visiting the exhibition. I just saw it as a gigantic structure which was fascinating to look at, at all angles.
 |
| All the different .... |
 |
| angles |
 |
| looking face on |
 |
| from the other saide |
 |
| watching Laurent |
 |
| going closer |
 |
| and closer again.... |
What I really did like was a series of small paintings. From a little way off, they all looked alike. Closer, each one was different.
And out in the garden.....
We don’t stay for very long at this gallery. Perhaps 45 minutes. But it takes twice that time to get there and it has to be worth it. This was……and this was what said goodbye until the next time!
Commentaires