SHARING WITH ME

No title - 2006 Valerie Belin is also a photographer which made me feel uneasy. In between Milan, the Palais du Tokyo with the Thai artist and now Valerie, I seem to be looking at work which is not so easy to digest. The question which one can ask, is what causes the latent unease produced by her photographs ? Could it be that the mannequins look like real people in shop windows or the disturbingly fixed expressions of the faces turns them into genuine people. No title - 2004 No title - 2004 Is it Michael Jackson? Is it someone else we know? Michael Jackson? The photos left me in a state of uncertainty. They are uncanny, mannequins, stereotypes. There is nothing reassuring about them at all…..what do you think? No title - 2006 No title - 2006 BOB, 2012 BOB, 2012 Before you answer, just a few words about her. She is French, born in 1964 and after her studies at the Sorbonne, now works and lives in Paris. I’m gl...

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...

The following morning we were to go to an outside contemporary art museum called the HangarBicocca. I’m ashamed to say that although Laurent had mentioned it as a possible visit, I hadn’t really looked up to see what it was - or for that matter where it was. Quite a long way out and there the Milan we had seen in the inner city was not extended to the outer. The building seemed to emerge from no-where and that was a real surprise…. The space, wholly funded and managed by Pirelli, was founded in Milan in 2004 and is the outcome of a process that led to the conversion of an industrial plant into a venue for art and contemporary culture. Of course the first question I asked was « who is Pirelli? » Take a name out of context for me and I just don’t seem to link it to its roots. Of course once I found it, it all added up…. The company, the world's fifth-largest tyre manufacturer behind Bridgestone, Michelin, Continental and Goodyear, is present in over 160 countri...