SOME MORE ODDITIES AND MARVELS

It took me more than a day to feel a little less desolate. As exciting as the Juan Munoz exhibition had been, the silence (which normally I love) and those figures continued to haunt me. My mind had to be changed, pushed into another direction. Of course you know what I do - I go to an exhibition. This time around it would be the Palais du Tokyo. Laurent and Jerome had been there a couple of weeks earlier and had spoken about Patrick Neu’s work. As soon as Jerome had sent me over a picture, I knew who he was and wanted to see more.

He’s a very experimental artist and works with materials not often found in the art world. Oh by the way, he is French and was born in 1963. He uses bee’s wax, lampblack on crystal glass and many other strange bits and pieces.

Every Spring since the early 90’s he has painted irises with frilly dark purple flowers. They are both sensual and mournful. Look more closely and once again you see faces and animals and all sorts of things….I wouldn’t mind one of those on my walls.












If you look carefully at his upturned glasses, there are mythological animals and I’m sure he has borrowed from masters that we all know so well.  He converses with the figures of Bosch, Holbein and Rubens and reproduces them in black smoke, guided by the properties of the material.










And how about this Samurai armour in crystal



or this glass installation on the floor?







and the wing (angel’s?) in wax



as well as the hand in wax and glass…


His work is surprising and brought a smile back to my face. A small exhibition so I could go downstairs and see something else.

It would be Korakrit Arunanondchai (Thailand)  and that name I will certainly never be able to pronounce or even remember. A strange description for the one room installation.

Painting with History in a Room filled with people with funny names. 

Apparently it is an epilogue to a series of works created over the past four years. Reality and fiction merge - it’s like a memory room which functions as a landscape and a stage for an audience which can wander around and look at people that seem to ring a bell.
















Weird….This would close my day and I would then wander back home with oddities swimming in my mind.

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