As I mentioned, first stop was the Louvre, which was overwhelming in a wonderful way, of course. I gave you a pretty thorough idea of my Louvre experience in my previous post, however there is one other notable event that I’d like to share. Because it’s protocol, I of course went to see the infamously mobbed Mona Lisa. Despite the buzz that she projected, which was most likely just the bustle of of masses of tourists whispering and taking pictures, she, like the Vitruvian Man who I saw at the Accademia in Venice in January, could not sing nor dance, which was slightly disappointing. However, this is not a sad story because while what seemed to be the rest of the world was busy snapping away at Mona Lisa’s missing eyebrows, I found Ingres’ The Grand Odalisque, (the painting on which the Gorilla Girls' ad is based,) in a room with David’s Intervention of the Sabine Women and his Oath of the Horatii, which were situated across from Girodet’s The Rest of Endymion, not far from Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa, Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, Gros’ The Pest House of Jaffa, and multiple portraits of Napoleon rendered by Gericault, just to name drop a few. (By the way, if any of those paintings don’t ring a bell, I urge you to Wiki them immediately, or email me for a personal 18th/19th century European art history lesson. While, I may be a bigger fan of modern and contemporary art, and while I certainly spent more time looking at Soulages' work than all of the rest of the works I listed put together, the art historian in me couldn’t help but be outrageously excited to see so many of the western cannon’s most famous, influential works all at once!
From the Louvre I walked through the gardens of the Tuileries, where I stopped beside the Henry Moore sculpture in the photo above, to enjoy the warm, fresh air, (a forshpeis, as they say in Yiddish, for the many public art works that I am looking forward to seeing in NYC this spring,) and then ended my day at the Musee de l'Orangerie, a spectacular museum with unusually large amounts of natural light, and perfect artificial lighting as well. (Lighting plays a crucial role in how I experience all spaces, from galleries to bathrooms. Sometimes I wish we could light up the world solely with candles, millions of them, because candle light surely produces the best atmosphere, or vibes if you will.)
Unfortunately, several of the Musee de l'Orangerie's galleries were closed for reinstallation, but I got to see Monet's water lilies and had that been it, dyanu, because the deep purples and oranges, which I've never before seen in other versions of the lilies, were breathtakingly beautiful. (As you can see, I am getting ready for Passover, where we sing a song called Dyanu, which essentially means "would have been enough".) BUT, the water lilies are not all that I saw! I also saw Paul Guillaume's collection, which is housed by the museum. Paul Giullaume was an early 20th century collector who amassed an extraordinary modern art collection during his forty year life. The collection now includes works by Renoir, Monet, Cezanne, Rousseau, Matisse, Picasso, and Modigliani, just to name a few. My favorite work was Modigliani's Paul Guillaume, Novo Pilota (1915), because it reminds me of home since a reproduction of it hangs on Alexander's wall, as it is one of his favorites. Plus, beside the portrait of Guillaume, there was a Modigliani portrait called Antonia (1915), and she looked a bit like me, so I felt as though Alexander and I were temporarily reunited. (Oops, sorry for going cheeseball on you for a second there.)
After the Musee de l'Orangerie, I met Miriam at a super cool Parisian cafe-bar, and then we headed back to her house to have dinner with her host family, which was a treat, as all too often vacations become filled with touristy activities like visits to the Louvre, and meeting the residents, who give life to the culture, gets overlooked.
The next day I woke up bright and early and visited five museums! First stop: Musee D'Orsay. I arbitrarily decided to go on a guided tour of the highlights of the impressionist collection, which was a positive experience on a couple levels. 1) I met two lovely guys from Singapore, (who in what seems to be typical fashion at this point, asked to take a picture with me). 2) I learned about the history of the building that houses the collection: it was a former railroad station... 3) I found that I knew just about everything that the docent shared with us in her two hour tour, which was super exciting because it is really a testament to how much I learned in the two impressionism classes I took during my college career. 4) Afterward, when I walked around the museum on my own, I was able to contemplate the art historical narrative created by the docent, admiring certain aspects of her tour and critiquing others. I imagined which pieces I would have added or subtracted from the tour had I been the docent, and ultimately I came up with my own narrative on the story of impressionism, which I would in fact like to share with you however, for the sake of holding you attention I will do so another time...
Off to the Rodin Museum! We're all familiar with Rodin's most famous work, The Thinker (1902), but thanks to my visit to the Rodin Museum, I've seen every possible permutation of the work. The Thinker was originally meant to depict Dante in front of the Gates of Hell, from his "The Inferno." The number one thing the work is intended to represent is the importance of intellect, however from a quick glimpse at the work it seems to be more representative of the pain caused by intellect - you know, a visual representation of the opposite of "stupidity is bliss." Regardless, The Thinker is surely not up there on the list of the darkest of Rodin's works - for something extremely disturbing Google The Cry (c. late 19th century). The collection is housed in a old, almost decaying, mansion that has a musty smell and feels like a brightly lit haunted house spooked by Rodin's beautifully rendered, contorted, disturbed, and disturbing figures. The whole scene was inspiring and I actually sat and sketched for over an hour and then wondered the gardens for another hour and took photos, (on an archaic disposable camera, since my digital ran out of battery on the first day). (Oh and Ramon, if you are out there reading this, I found a very special bronze Gaunyin from China, she was seated with a child on her knees - when I have my pictures developed I will send a photo of her to you.)
The next museum I visited was Musee du Quai Branly, which is absolutely one of the weirdest museums in that it looks like a combination between a jungle and a kids museums, which ironically are the two stereotypes about "primitive," or indigenous, art and cultures that the museum tries to fight. The spiral structure of the museum is reminiscent of the Guggenheim in NYC, except instead of the empty space in the center there is an exposed bunker that houses all of the works which aren't formally on display. The outside of the building is quite interesting, as it is a "living wall" that was designed and planted by Gilles Clément and Patrick Blanc. (When I get my disposable camera back I will upload a photo of this...) I enjoyed viewing the art, particularly because I studied African art for two semesters in college, but I think I'm a little jaded because I can see similar art objects at Alexander's house whenever I want since his father collects art of pre-modern cultures. (Visit his family's collection website at: www.tomkinscollection.org) However, one installation called The River (2010) by Charles Sandison is worthy of mention. The River is a video projection on the path through the museum, containing an assortment of words whose connections I could not determine. Sandison is a post-minimalist, conceptual artist whose works always incorporate words - as he says, "Words are very important, they seem to have a life and history... I precieve them as living entities." I personally enjoyed watching people interact with the projected words as they wooshed accross the floor in an unfamiliar way. Some people didn't want to step on the words at all as if it was sacreligous to do so, others deliberately stepped on particular words... Feel free to watch this YouTube clip to get the feeling:
Following the Musee du Quai Branly, I walked beneath the Eiffel Tower to the Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. (Unfortunately I couldn't go to the top because the wait was over an hour, however I did take a photograph of a person standing on a ridiculous Eiffel Tower veiw-simulator billboard thing, which again, I will post when I get my disposable camera developed. As you can imagine, that was a very funny sight.) Sadly a large part of their perminant collection was closed for rennovations, however I had the honor of seeing ceramics created by Matisse and the other fauvists, who I didn't even know produced ceramics! My favorite part of the museum was a corner made up of two pure white walls, covered in a Malevich collage - the instillation is called The Last Futurist Exhibtion, (1985). My articulation will not do justice to the instillation, and Google failed to come up with a colored photograph, so you'll just have to wait patiently until I develop my pictures to catch a glimpse of the awesome scene. (Ugh, what did you people do before the age of digital photography, with its instant gratification properties?)
At the Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, I took the time to watch short video art films, (I don't think that's what they called,) which is something I never do, largely because of my ignorance regarding this medium. However, I was inspired to watch the videos during this particular museum visit because they were set up in a cool, accessible way: they had several videos playing in different parts of one huge, dark room, and surrounding each television were comfortable chairs to rest on, (a huge draw after all of the walking I'd done,) and smaller screens showing interviews with the artists for the purpose of shedding insight on the works. I saw two impactful (is that a word?) videos, both of which were so disturbing that I could not stand to watch any others. The first was Paul McCarthy's Wild Gone Girls (2003), an extremely graphic scene of girls slashing and delapitating each other during a sailing party gone terribly wrong. The editing of the work is meant to mimic the dicy editing of a Girls Gone Wild film, and the narrative is supposed to make you consider the effects that violence and mutilation, both real and simulated, have on the viewer. (To watch the video, visit this link: www.dangerousminds.net/index.php/site/tag/Paul-McCarthy/ ) The second video I watched was El Gringo by Francis Alys (2003). In this video, Alys essentially disappears, as the camera becomes the protagonist, serving as both a shield and a weapon against a group of wild dogs that attack him upon provokation. The intersting part of this video is that he deos something that simply could not be done using any other medium - as he says, the camera offers him a "filter," "justification," "sense of protection" in the heat of the dangerous situation. (To watch the video, visit this link: www.lumeneclipse.com/gallery/04/alys/index.html )
I probably could have stayed at the Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris for another several hours - I just loved the way the light shined through the giant windows, illuminating the front rooms and providing a view of the building's age old facade filled with skateboarders and graffiti, (an interplay that I'd consider to be art, in and of itself) - but unfortunately the museum was closing and I therefore was unable to visit the temporary exhibitions.
For what it's worth, the Palais d'Tokyo is just accross the street from the Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and it is open until midnight... So, I headed over there to find nothing more than a monsterously industrial, terribly uninviting warehouse of a space, containing nothing interesting. In fact, I'd argue that even the most massive works or art, like the beloved Richard Serra's, aren't large enough to fill the space in any meaningful way.
Finally through with my full day of museum visits, I met up with Miriam for falafel in Le Marais, a delicious treat I'd been waiting for since the moment I booked my flight to Paris. After scarfing down the best shwarma of my life, Miriam and I wondered the streets until we stumbled upon an olive oil tasting, which we decided to partake in. The whole thing was in French, but Miriam kindly translated for me, providing me with what I imagine was a bit of her own sarcastic and humerous take on what the very serious Frenchman was saying as he discussed olive oil, and perhaps pitched his products, for nearly two hours.
That brings me to Wednesday. So tired from my jam-packed museum day, I actually permitted myself to sleep in, (and by that I mean I slept until about 9:30,) something I haven't done since arriving in Europe. When I woke up, Miriam and I walked to a hair salon where I got my hair cut, very short! I'm still abivilent about my haircut and as I told Alexander last night, "I will not set foot in another hair salon for the rest of my life." Well, maybe that's extreme, but seriously I've never actually loved any haircut I've ever gotten! Hm, maybe it's just that I don't like change all together... Anyway, here is a picture - you can decide for youselves if my new do works in my favor or not. (Please don't share your opinion in the comment section of my blog.)
After my haircut I ventured to the Pompidou. The first exhibition I saw at the Pompidou was the Lucian Freud (grandson of Sigmund Freud) retrospective. Freud's works are mostly portraits of wrinkly, saggy, and fat people, and not particularly picturesque views from his studio windows. Needless to say, I didn't like the works very much, but I did think what Freud had to say on the subject was interesting: "...I wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them. I didn't want to get just a... mimic, but to portray them, like an actor. As far as I'm concerned the paint is the person. I want it to work for me as flesh does."
Next I saw the feature exhibition called Elles@CentrePompidou: Women Artists in the Collections of the National Modern Art Museum. The exhibition was broken up into seven sections: Pioneer, Free Fire, Body Slogan, The Activist Body, A Room of One's Own, Wordworks, and Immaterials. (To learn more about each specific section visit this link: centrepompidou.fr/Pompidou/Manifs.nsf/0/44638F832F0AFABFC12575290030CF0D?OpenDocument&sessionM=2.2.1&L=2 .) Interestingly, there was not one single piece in the entire exhibition that was asthetically beautiful. The works were all either conceptual or graphically violent, sexual, or just downright disturbing. While I think it's admirable that such a large, world-renouned cultural institution has devoted almost all of their gallery space to presenting the work of women artists, I read a great quote by artist Judy Chicago in December's issue of ARTnews, that articulates the problematics of this exhibition perfectly: "...[women artists] are still fit into a meta-male narrative. One of our goals is to integrate women's history into the mainstream, so it is no longer a separate, minor phenomenon. There is still an institutional lag and an insistence on a male Eurocentric narrative. We are trying to change the future: to get girls and boys to realize that women's art is not an exception - it's a normal part of history." And by creating an exhibition fully devoted to feminist art, as apposed to merely featuring women's art within the galleries that house the perminent collection, we are yet again setting women apart from mainstream history.
After the Pompidou I visited Brancusi's studio, as reinvented by Renzo Piano. Not much to say about that experience, as I really rushed through it in an effort to make it to the airport on time for my flight. So, after breathing my last breath of big city air, I hopped onto the metro, to get to the bus, which took me to the plane, that took me to a second bus, which left me to take the vaperetto back to my house where Max Teicher, who had come all the way from Berlin, was awaiting my arrival, just in time to close one adventure's book, and open another...
1. Me in front of the Louvre.
2. Henry Moore, Reclining Figure, 1951. Garden of the Tuileries, Paris.
3. Amedeo Modigliani, Paul Guillaume, Novo Pilota, 1915. Oil on cardboard mounted on cradled plywood. Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris.
4. Me with my new friends from Singapore in front of the Musee D’Orsay. (Pending)
5. Me in front of The Thinker in the garden of the Rodin Museum. (Pending)
6. Me in the reflection of Musee du quai Branly’s “living wall.” (Pending)
7. Man on Eiffel tower view simulator thing – LOL. (Pending)
8. Kazimer Malevich, Last futurist Exhibition, 1915. (Pending)
9. My new haircut.
10. Lucian Freud, Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, 1995. Oil on Canvas. Private Collection. (In 2008, this painting set a new world record price for a work by a living artist, selling at a Christie’s auction for over 33 million dollars.)
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