SHARING WITH ME

If you don’t like squiggles: if you don’t like fantasy: if you don’t like odd-looking animals - stay away. So many people object to  Basquiat or Tanguely and yes, there is a lot of their work that I don’t particularly go for either, but Karel Appel and his works on paper, I do. I can giggle, act as a child or search for faces or anything as his work is not always titled. Encounter, 1963 Big Head, 1963 Woman's Face, 1961 The Harmonica Player, 1947 Karel Appel (1921-2006) is rich, diverse, raw, intense and alive with energy. He was a Dutch painter who explored many forms throughout his long career lasting over 60 years. And looking at his work, knowing a little about his life, I am sure he remained « a child » right throughout his life. If not a child, open to many ideas. He was independent, radical and his spirit led him to shun established categories. He is certainly famous as a founder of the Cobra group (1948) which I came across the fi...

I was bowled over by the Pierre Soulages exhibition. As I had the gallery virtually to myself for nearly an hour, I could walk around the paintings - or rather look at them from either side. There was no way that I could convince Laurent later in the afternoon that « The Shades of Black" are full of different images. (Soulages was born in 1952, studied art history in Munich and received his PhD in 1983. After stints at the National Museums in Munich, the Berlinische Galerie for twentieth-century art and the Städtisches Kunstmuseum Bonn, he has worked since 1991 as the curator of nineteenth and twentieth-century painting and sculpture at the Museum Folkwang in Essen. He is also a lecturer in art history in Bonn and Düsseldorf.) This is all I could find in English on Internet so I suppose he helped to curate the exhibition at the gallery. He was born in Rodez, Aveyron, in 1919 and is  also is known as "the painter of black" because of his interest in the colour, ...

I had tried to go to a couple of galleries with exhibitions recommended by Jerome but as I told you - I never found them. While the sun was still shining off I went yesterday morning and with quite a few detours, I go there. Next time around it will be very simple. I do wish I had a better a better sense of direction. What is the answer? The first exhibition was Adrian Ghenie. Born in Baia Mare Romania in 1977 and now living and working in Berlin, Adrian Ghenie is currently representing Romania in the 56th Venice Biennale. « Brought up in post-Ceausescu Romania, his work often dwells on the darker moments of post-war European history and the personalities whose actions have defined its course. Collective and personal memories, film stills, images culled from the Internet and art historical references are cut out and fused to make up the fabric of his paintings. Adrian Ghenie speaks of “painting the texture of history” and it is his fascination in recapturing these lost texture...