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Making Light of Art: Paris

25 May

Luminous Disks: Daniel Buren’s installation at Monumenta 2012 in Paris. (Image by HWL)

First impressions of Daniel Buren‘s Excentrique(s) Travail In Situ installation at the Grand Palais for the annual Monumenta show were ho-hum. The whole set up felt a little bit …well…crafty…and not in a good way. (We might define ‘bad crafty’ as, say, a pointless box given a decoupage make-over using left-over magazines from a doctor’s office, and not in an ironic way.)

Coloured spheres: Monumenta in Paris. (Image by HWL)

The artist who has, ahem, earned his stripes creating site specific art work, such as the Les Deux Plateaux in Palais-Royal, Paris, has created a false ceiling of transparent, umbrella-like disks that form a sub-level beneath the glass roof of the Grand Palais. The effect is immediately frustrating – the visitor is largely robbed of one of the venue’s best features – a superb sense of space, both vast and grandiose.  The summer show is not called Monumenta for nothing – last year’s installation, Leviathan, by Anish Kapoor was a hella whopper and the better for it. In contrast, Buren’s work feels bitsy, fussy, and a little bit twee; and then the sun came out.

The cellophane effect: Daniel Buren at the Grand Palais, Paris. (Image by HWL)

With the lights on, so to speak, the show went from being pretty naff to being kind of fun.The 377 coloured disks create a kaleidoscope that reflect and play with the light pouring from the roof-top.  In this case, Buren has created something of an Alice-in-Wonderland effect; we find ourselves to be miniature pieces inside the kaleidoscope. Moving through the work creates new vistas and interactions with forms, colour and shadow.

Light Dancers: coloured disks reminiscent of crazy casino carpet; there’s no clocks here either so you’ll have to tell the time by the sun. (Image by HWL)

In many ways, it’s a cheap trick. In other ways, it’s a reminder that simple ideas can be the best ones. Pity about those trademark stripey pillars  – they feel clunky and out of place in this ballroom of light. Our tip: go when the sun is shining. Exhibition runs until June 21, 2012. For details see here.

Grand Palais: Daniel Buren’s coloured spheres mushroom below the vast canopy of the Grand Palais in Paris. (Image by HWL)

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Disturbing the Peace: Oui Oui to Ai WeiWei in Paris

23 Mar

Peek-a-boo: Artist Ai Weiwei flashes some cheek at Tiannamen Square, with his photo ‘June, 1994′. (Image © Ai Weiwei)

Last year the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan held an exhibition of Ai WeiWei’s work entitled ‘Absent’ referencing the artist’s detention by the Chinese authorities and his subsequent inability to attend his own show. ‘Ai Weiwei: Interlacing’ currently showing at the Jeu de Paume, in Paris, acts as a retrospective of the artist’s work which, in his continued absence, verges on a memorial. It creates a portrait of an artist as strong as he is fragile; as mischievous as he is serious; as alive as he is mortal.

Disobey!: Stencil art of the artist Ai Weiwei spotted in Lyon, France, during the artist’s detention. (Image by HWL)

A solo show at the Jeu de Paume is the highest accolade Paris can grant to a photographer. In this context, the show is a bit of a stretch, not only does this multi-faceted artist not fit in to the narrow category of the art form but photography – let’s face it – is not his strongest suite. As an artist, blogger and ‘Twitterer’ Ai is a prolific photographer; he uses the medium to document (and share) the ephemera of daily life (meals eaten, art works in creation, travels taken etc) and as a means of documenting the process or outcome of his work. Photography provides the ‘interlacing’ between his many projects and media; in this sense the show reminds us of the power of this medium to bear witness. Case in point: Ai was repeatedly invited by the authorities to construct a studio in Shanghai. Finally, he concedes but as soon as the building is completed, it is declared illegal. The building is torn down, all evidence of the site is removed and finally the field is ploughed-up and returned to farm land. The only evidence of this studio ever being part of reality (as opposed to a Kafkaesque nightmare) are Ai’s photographs.

Giving the finger: Ai Weiwei’s Study in Perspective encourages viewers to ‘Question Everything’. (Image © Ai Weiwei)

Continue reading →

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If a tree falls in a forest ….

20 Feb

…and there’s nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound? If an artist makes a work of graffiti, and the work doesn’t appear on Google image search, does it exist? Spotted at Broadway Market in London Fields and published for posterity…

 

I want to be seen on a Street Art Blog: graffiti, Broadway Market, London (Image by HWL)

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Memories of the Future: Now!

17 Nov

'The Last Supper' by David Lachapelle from his 'Jesus is my Homeboy' series. Now showing @ La Masion Rouge, Paris.

You can always count on the Maison Rouge, in Paris, for something best described as a headf**k and their current show is no exception. Any curatorial bent that throws Pieter Bruegel, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Robert Capa and Cindy Sherman into the same room is fine by us. If you’re feeling a tad blasé over the whole vanitas revival-slash-taxidermy thang, think again.

Before the Chapman Brothers, there was Bruegel.'Pride', by Pieter Bruegel Elder from the Seven Deadly Sins series, on show La Maison Rouge, Paris

La Maison Rouge in Paris is consistently one of the city’s most interesting galleries, sitting somewhere between the big public blockbusters  and the commercial scene, the Foundation reinvents itself for every new show. Memoires de Futur is drawn from the collection of Thomas Olbricht, a German collector of ‘curiosity cabinets’ and art old and new. The show pitches traditional art against the contemporary grouped around themes of death, religion, and a bit of sex for good measure. In short: a crowd pleaser guaranteed to disturb just about everyone.

Camp, kitsch & beautiful: The White Queen by French photographic duo Pierre et Gilles, now showing @ La Maison Rouge

Eerie swans and ropey forms of feathers: one of the works by British artist Kate MccGwire's currently showing at La Maison Rouge, Paris

Details: Mémoires du Futur, la collection Olbricht continues until January 15, 2012. For information & opening hours: La Maison Rouge.

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Beautiful Losers

9 Nov

Shephard Fairey's Hope poster helped bring street art into the mainstream

So if you’ve ever wondered how  the likes of street artists Shepard Fairey,  BarryMcGee and Steven Powers (aka Espo) turned a love of skate culture, spray paint and (in Fairey’s case, an unlikely obsession with Andre the Giant) into cult status and highly numerated careers, than the ultimate hipster doco Beautiful Losers is the resource to turn to.  The film has a few structural shortcomings but it’s an exhaustive portrait of this group of artists that led the street art movement. It’s production also marked the moment where graffiti and street art slipped over into the world of commercialism and fine art… If you missed it at the cinema, you can watch it here for free.

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Stitch’in time! Danish Yarnbombers in Paris

4 Nov

Home with a tree by Isabel Berglund: the Tree is on display at the Maison du Danemark in Paris

An exhibition in Paris at the Maison du Danemark elevates the anarchic mischief-making of yarn bombing to an evolved commentary on issues ranging from animal conservation and weaponry without losing the bite of it activist roots.

If yarnbombing grew out of the ironic revival of knitting and crochet clubs it found its voice in the graffiti movement. But whereas the latter is dominated by spray-can wielding types sporting XY chromosomes and low-hung jeans, yarnbombing is a decidedly more feminine movement. And if you will forgive us making a sweeping statement, it is smarter for it. Whereas some aspects of graffiti – such a tags and repetition of motifs – speak largely of territory marking –  the urban  interventions of yarnbombing seem more concerned with space reclamation, statement making or delight creating – in part perhaps because each object must be individually crafted.

Take that!: Lady Weapons by Hanne G (Image by HWL)

The Maison du Danemark devotes a considerable portion of its presentational text to proving/defending the knitted objects as works of art. To be sure, knitting has usually been relegated, along with other ‘women’s work’, as craft rather than art. (The relationship of ‘craft’ to ‘Art’ being that of ‘cook’ to ‘Chef’ with the same gender implications.) For us it’s a moot point – whether art is made using wool and needles, steel and blowtorch or coloured pigments mixed with oils and dabbled about with a little hairy stick is irrelevant.

The show is dominated by Danish artist Isabel Berglund’s gorgeous tree. Rendering what is usually hard into something as soft and in need of support creates a Hans Christian Andersen -like fairy tale mood while engendering the desire to tree hug. Or should we say tree hygge? (Don’t worry, out supply of Danish themed puns is now officially exhausted.)

Knitted Stag by Art Oriente Objet (Image by HWL)

Woolly endangered panda by Art Oriente Objet (Image by HWL)

Also on show are French artists Art Oriente Objet’s lovely interpretations of endangered animals from their 1992 series, The Year My Voice Broke. Reflecting on issues of extinction and human’s approach to conservation whereby animals became subject to human laws (governing, we suppose, their movements, migration, procreation etc), the artists decreed it should be “The Year of Knitting for Animals” during which, according to their website, they “would knit as many animals skins as were asked of us”. The Panda and Stag on display are beautifully realised works reminiscent of the ongoing (and somewhat bemusing) craze for taxidermy.

Choose your weapons: artist Hanne G's Crochet for Peace series (Image by HWL)

Danish artist Hanne G has taken history’s most common and iconic guns and rendered these objects of – let’s face it – masculine power all floppy and harmless. The Crochet for Peace (2007) series inspires the following un-woolly idea: let’s spend our defence budgets on buying wool for knitted guns and live in peace. In contrast her  Lady Weapons (2007)  series features feminine and domestic paraphernalia with a potentially violent application such as rolling pins, irons, stilettos and lady razors.

Also on display are knitted and knobbly landscapes captured from Google Earth  by the Collectif France Tricot.

The Mailles: Art en Laine show continues until 19 November, 2011. Visitors are welcome to contribute to a communal knitting project and help themselves to cups of tea, bringing a touch of homeliness and sociability to this otherwise crisp, if lovely, space on the Champs Elysee.

For details: see the Maison du Danemark website.

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Revolutionary Art: Tunisia

28 Oct

Vehicle for revolution: works by Tunisian photographer Wassim Ghozlani are now showing at Art Tunis Paris. (Image © Ghozlani)

“How long have you been waiting to vote?” I asked.
The answer was irresistible.
“Forty years,” someone said.
“Who do you think will win the election?” I asked another voter.
“Sir,” he said, “we will all win. We are voting freely for the first time. It means we have already won.”
—Extract Allan Little for BBC News (see full story)

Last Sunday Tunisia voted in its first ever free elections, with citizens choosing from a whopping 110 political candidates on the ballot paper.  Eligible voter turn-out was high at 90% (thanks in part to clever voter registration campaigns like this one.) The verdict is in. The moderate Islamist party Ennahda came out ahead, but probably won’t be able to rule on their own and talks have begun with the moderate secular parties Congress for the Republic (CPR) and Ettakatol. The vote comes ten months after President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was bought down by protests triggered by public outrage over the self-immolation of a young, unemployed fruit seller, Mohammed Bouazizi, which ultimately kick-started the Arab Spring – now  spreading into Autumn.

Out with the Old: parties close to the old regime performed worst in the recent Tunisian elections (Image by HWL)

Will this newly elected government add up to what the youthful Facebook generation revolutionaries were hoping for? On our recent trip to Tunisia, optimism was muted.  I guess only time will tell…  In the meantime, those wishing to ruminate on the revolutionary spirit of Tunisian artists can head to the Art Tunis Paris exhibition featuring 30 young(ish) Tunisian artists that opened at the Ambassade de France in Tunis in September and is now being followed up in Paris at the Musée du Montparnasse.

Erreur #404 series by photographer Hichem Driss documents the diversity of the Tunisian population & challenges a few taboos along the way (Image © Driss)

While the exhibition wasn’t entirely to our taste, the art is nonethless interesting as a historical document of this extraordinary time. (French speakers can hear the artists explain their work, motivations and feelings about the revolution in this film created for the exhibition.) We loved Wassim Ghozlani‘s photographs of burned out and tagged post-revolutionary cars; an explosive moment in an otherwise largely peaceful revolution. (Aside: the revolution provided loads of interesting street photography moments and you can peruse Ghozlani’s attempts to capture the moment and diversity of the protesters here.) Photographer Hichem Driss‘s work also struck a chord with his hip-hop aesthetic. His series Erreur 404 aims to document the diversity of Tunisians of all persuasions: colour, gender, sexual preference, class, religion and ethnicity. Will they get the representation that they deserve? In the struggle to create a new democratic system for Tunisia, Driss’ portraits are a reminder of the diversity and complexity of his nation’s citizenry.

Made in Tunisia: homegrown revolution by photographer Hichem Driss (Image © Driss)

Around the same time the Tunisian artists were attending the opening in Paris, some of their compatriots were busy rioting down by the local television station to protest against the screening of Persepolis, an award-winning animated film based on the memoirs of Marjane Satrapi. At issue, a scene where the young Marjane is talking to God as he imagines him: depicting God is a violation of Islamic doctrine. (As is depicting humans or even animals: hence the Islamic world’s tradition of using non-figurative geometric mosaics etc in decorative arts and architecture.) The film had screened previously in Tunisia without incident, though this is the first time the film had been dubbed into the local Tunisian dialect and the content of the film (how fundamentalist Islamisists hi-jacked the youthful, liberal Iranian revolution and created a dictatorship) was obviously pressing a few buttons.

Be uprising: Ghazi Frini's video art installation at the Ambassade de France, for Art Tunis Paris.

The two contrasting scenarios – on one hand, young artists celebrating their personal creativity and freedom of expression in Paris, on the other, angry fundamentalists running wild and advocating censorship, reminds us of what we already know: democracy entails trying to get along with people you don’t agree with. It’s not easy. Good luck Tunisia. We leave with a sort of action video extracted from Marjane Satrapi’s film Persepolis, one day it will be Iran’s turn again.

Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive…

*****

Click here for Hotels We Love in Tunis.

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Pins & Needles: Urban Graffiti in Italy

26 Oct

Rethinking the urban landscape in Grottaglie, Italy (Image by HWL)

Sometimes simple is simply good. We just came across this video depicting an obscure installation by street artists Brad Downey and Akay… For the Fame Festival 2011 in Grottaglie, Italy, this year, they created a myriad of playful artworks, including a pasta curtain, a Tipping Point paint-meets-donimo effect street painting, shenanigans involving brooms and the deletion of cars (now that’s the kind of Tidy Town campaign we’d like to see more of). Hope you enjoy their little video for more details, see the FAME blog page here.

BTW Brad Downey and Akay’s tipping point installation reminds of this bit of shenanigans by the veteran Swiss artist Roman Signer. For the surreal and mechanically minded, it’s a cracker.

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You Make Me Slick: Paris’ Hipster Art Fair

21 Oct

Just a little prick: outsider artist Francis Marshall at Slick art fair in Paris (Image by HWL)

Visitors to Paris this week will find the city mid-art explosion. The largest contemporary art fair FIAC is on, plus dozens of related ‘off-events’. If you were to visit just one, we suggest SLICK. Admittedly, we haven’t yet been to FIAC – we have unwisely opted to wait until the weekend so we can enjoy the art with the maximum amount of unpleasant crowding – nonetheless, we know how these things work. Pricey ticket, enormous expanse of art works, zillions of people and  a sense of impending panic/collapse bought about by the combination of disorientation/claustrophobia/fear of over-sized handbags and lack of water/oxygen.

You poor dear. Recalling early cinematic trauma. 'Accident de Chasse - Bambi' (Hunting Accident) by Pascal Bernier. Selling for almost €10, 000, significantly more than the poor thing would have fetched by the kilo. Sad when you are worth more dead (and stuffed) than alive. (Image by HWL)

Digging among the small change and handing over €10 will get you into Slick, best described as FIAC’s hipster offspring, situated in the forecourt of the tres cool Palais de Tokyo. In return you’ll enjoy a solid hour or so of overall pretty good art. There’s more quality than quantity, so not only can you see it all, you can also probably enjoy it. We have collected a few highlights for your perusal. Keep an eye out for them! (Hover on photos for the names of each artist/gallery.)

159/295: detail of beautiful flying kites & red threads. A lovely work at the entry of Slick, you can't miss it. (Image by HWL)

Poetic offerings by Pierre Tilman. Poems created in the early 80's using a Dyno label make was also on display - cutting edge technology at the time! (Image by HWL)

Spooky David Lynch-like vignettes by Francis Marshall. Mysterious and evocative, we rate this our favourite installation. (Image by HWL)

More Hilton than Paris. (Image by HWL)

One of Gorlizki's strange melding of slightly absurd yet terribly dainty collages in the tradition of Indian miniatures. We were also charmed by the gallerist Franz van der Grinten. Do say hello to him - or pop into the gallery in Cologne.

And now for something a little bit gimmicky. Pop art stars vs limited edition, rather pricey skateboards by the likes of Hirst, merchandising genius Takashi Murakami, and graffiti upstarts like D*Face. (Image by HWL)

Kenosha Theater, Kenosha, US, 2009 by Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre. We loved their large format photographic series of decrepit theatres in American towns such as Chicago & Detroit. (Image by Marchand & Meffre)

A timely installation by Robert Montgomery in this season of Arab Spring...

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Paris does Delhi @ Pompidou

16 Sep

Catch Paris, Delhi, Bombay in it’s final days at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Presenting an overview of contemporary Indian art, the exhibition spaces are broken down into six themes: politics, urban development & environment, religion, home, identity and craft. Additionally there is a final space where French artists have created works in response to the concept of India – which is a little bit unusual (did they run out of Indian artists?). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the exhibition takes a fairly bleak view of the issues effecting India – the ratio of positive to negative art was that of a bindi to an elephant.  Nonetheless it’s a great and stimulating show. Our suggested highlights include the pop art-ish yet beautifully crafted ‘ Tara’ , by Ravinder Reddy. This portrait of an ordinary Indian woman is  majestic, upbeat and somehow reassuring.

The bold & the beautiful: ‘ Tara’, by Ravinder Reddy (Image by HWL)

Other highlights include Krishnaraj Chonat’s ‘My hands smell of you’; a dual-sided wall at the entry of the exhbition. One side is covered with electrical cords, keyboards and disused computer mice evoking issues pertaining to both India’s growing digital economy and the perils of unmonitored and toxic computer waste disposal and less than bona-fide ‘recycling’.  The other side is composed of soap scented with sweet-smelling – and decidedly organic – sandalwood. The two sides evoke the two faces of India and highlights tensions between tradition and modernity, community and globalisation. Hema Upadhyay’s “Think left, think right, think low, think tight’ a three-dimensional, re-creation of Mumbai’s notorious shanty town, Dharavi, in miniature, was also a crowd pleaser. Created from left-over rubbish it was an all too easy to imagine the real thing.

The metaphysical meets the familial in the Hijra Fantasy series. 'You too can touch the moon', 2006, by Tejal Shah @ Pompidou (Image Courtesy de la Project 88, Mumbai © Tejal Shah)

Among the French contingent we enjoyed Pierre et Gille’s installation of Indian inspired portraits referencing religious iconography with a heavy dose of kitsch. If not entirely unpredictable, India a la Pierre et Gilles was a love match made in polytheistic heaven…gorgeous, lucious and lurid. Finally we enjoyed the ‘Bragdon Pavillion’ by the cool French artist Loris Greaud. Featuring a black room with multiple screens showing loops of hypnotic video art that might described as ‘pared back psychedelia’ alongside a minimalist trance-inducing sound track, Revelation: Music in Pure Intonation by Michael Harrison. After an overload of colour, themes, imagery, noise and ideas it was like stepping off a street in Mumbai and retreating to a kind of meditation ashram. Om.

Madly, deeply, lovely kitsch: 'Hanuman', 2010, by Pierre et Gilles @ the Pompidou (Image courtesy Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont, Paris © Adagp, Paris, 2011)

PS: Don’t get so overwhelmed that you forget to go downstairs and have your photo taken for French street artist JR‘s latest project.

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