SURPRISES CAN BE PLEASANT -
After Bohemia I was a little reluctant about going to see Bertrand Lavier. Some of his installations I already knew from the M.A.M. Reading Beaux Arts Magazine, as much as the article was interesting - I was not convinced. The marvels about having an ICOM card is that if you don’t like the exhibition, you turn around and leave. So without too much enthusiam I went off to the Beaubourg after an hour and a half of conferences on 16th/17th century sculpture at the Ecole du Louvre. In my mind as I walked from the Louvre to Beaubourg I was trying to work out what the morning had really taught me and what I had recalled or would recall. Suddenly I was there. From the 16th century to present day art can be a bit of a shock to the system but not only was it a shock, it was a very pleasant one. Bertrand Lavier certainly shakes up the most solid categories in the history of art. Crashed cars, African statues, Neons tubes looking not alike the American artist Frank ...