SHARING WITH ME

Anne and I had been at an exhibition and the Quai Branly museum and had a fast walk through the Jacques Chirac exhibition. The few masks or paintings which I saw made me feel that this show was important - even very important, but on the spur of the moment, I couldn’t see why. I decided to come back but when mentioning the name of the exhibition to friends, no-one was interested. In actual fact, it was the political innuendo which probably put people off. Politically, you liked Jacques Chirac - or you didn’t. Isn’t that the same with all political figures? Chirac was elected President after Mitterand died in 1995. When his second mandate came up in 2002, it was against Jean-Marie Le Pen (far right and fascist). France definitely voted against J-MLP. I admired him for his stand against the Irak War. With the next elections, we were once again voting against a candidate. This time it was Segolene Royal or Nicolas Sarkozy …and after that we were voting against Sarkozy…do we ever vote for

When the exhibition opened in April this year, I had already received a message on one of my art sites about Paula Modersohn-Becker. (1876-1907)An artist I knew absolutely nothing about. The title itself was intriguing « An Intensely Artistic Eye » or in French « L’Intensité du Regard ». The image used for the exhibition certainly defined that. Over the following weeks and probably well into May, I met quite a few people who said they had seen the exhibition, but it was « uninteresting » and they were sure that I wouldn’t like it. Most of these friends know my taste in art so l decided against it. The weeks roll by. The other day I was hesitating about which exhibition I would go to. That face looked at me again from my computer. I was going to see THAT exhibition. Portrait of a young girl, fingers spread on her chest : 1905 After training in Berlin, Paula Modersohn-Becker joined the artists' colony at Worpswede in northern Germany, but soon left to seek inspiration elsewher

Laurent and Jerome had just come back from the Mauritius Islands and I was impatient to catch up with news. To my delight they ‘phoned and suggested Versailles as an outing on the Sunday. Usually Anne and I visit Versailles once a year. A pilgrimage to discover the artist who has been chosen to install « something » in the grounds and sometimes in the chateau. Over the years you have seen our discoveries but this year, the critics had slashed the installations even more than usual. Olafur Eliasson had been a discovery for me at the Tate in London with the weather project installed at the London's Tate Modern in 2003 as part of the popular Unilever series. The installation filled the open space of the gallery's Turbine Hall. Quite startling. In all probability we had also seen his work at the Biennale in 2005. Another place was for sure. The Fondation Louis Vuitton in  2015. There I know that I had been most impressed. The First Visit to the Foundation with Marielle