Basilique de St Denis

Basilique de St Denis
Originally uploaded by parislovesme.

Why on a beautiful fall day such as this would anyone want to bring young kids full of life to see dead bodies buried 12 feet (or more) underground? Ok, so it's the burial grounds of French kings and queens, but it's all rather macabre for 5-year-old, no?

A hard day's work of organized flaning...

Paris has been unseasonably warm and sunny lately. Sunday I had a full day on the Left Bank, where I usually do not venture except for a visit to satisfy my cravings at Pierre Herme. The day started with breakfast at Heurtier, a beautifully designed "bistrot a pains" on a cozy second floor. From our perch next to the window on the corner we can see passersby below, but they can't see us. Since this was the heart of bobo (short for 'bourgeois boheme', which is a French version of a bourgie hipster) Marais across the street from the mayor's hall of the 4th arrondissement, everyone was beautiful with perfect bedhead. I told my dining mate that this is the perfect place to come if the person with whom you spent the night before was not so cute--because here are lots of cute people to wake up to! Catty, I know, but I was infected by the Marais' pretentiousness.

Since the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts was having a huge book sale, we wandered underneath its huge glass roof, thumbing through unsold exhibition catalogs marked down cheap by the publishers. Beautiful books from the Pompidou, the Bibliotheque Nationale, and lots of smaller museum publishers as well as the Revue Noire that are usually 45 euros could have been had for 15 euros. Lots of classical and contemporary art but not much Impressionist or early 20th century--my guess is that the tourists buy all of those.

Afterwards, I went to a guided tour of the one-room Relief Map Museum in the attic of the Invalides. Made to scale on tabletops in the 1600s-1700s, the relief maps, by laying out the land and urban fabric of border cities, were critical in strategic planning against the new technologies of warfare. On display were cities of the Channel, on the Atlantic Coast, and most importantly, on the Mediterranean. As this was a tour especially created for the Reading festival, one of the two tour guides read passages from French literature and non-fiction throughout history that brought these miniature cities to life. Expecting a French public already familiar with these sites, she had chosen texts specifically counter the image expected of her citations. This was especially the case for Mont-Saint-Michel, a fortress-abbay on the Channel, which has been a site of pilgrimage since its construction and is now the second-most touristed site in France after Paris. Located on an almost island, Mont-Saint-Michel becomes an island at high tide, but pilgrims may arrive on foot at low tide. For this magical place, the tour guide had chosen a passage from Victor Hugo, who had visited Mont-Saint-Michel when it was a miserable prison! The connection of the history of territorial defense and of urbanism through travel literature makes me want to travel.

After this trip through miniature coastal France, I returned to the Place Saint-Sulpice to hear five minutes' worth of the church organ's thunder before walking up rue Bonaparte back to the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts for their exhibit "Indian Summer", the first contemporary Indian art exhibit in France according to the brochure. Many works touched upon post-modern and post-colonial identity exploration (one humorous diptyque formed circles with sperm-shaped bindis and was titled "Spit or Swallow?"), but one artist's installation of ceramic pieces on wooden columns illuminated by a single strong light source was my favorite.

Someday soon I will find the time to write about the three plays I saw last week.

FIAC Notes

Here is the copy I sent to La Dauphine, which she
had edited way down on her blog:

FIAC is an international contemporary art fair that
takes place in Paris every year in October. Galleries
and artists from all over the world are represented,
and it is always a huge buying frenzy. Collectors note
works' dimensions, gallery representatives are only
interested in talking to potential buyers, and
everyone wants to see the hot new things. This year
was no different, except for performances at the
newly-reopened Grand Palais, which is fitting as the
Grand Palais was first built for the 1900 World
Exposition, itself an international show and market.

FIAC is separated into two halls on the southern edge
of Paris, at the Parc des Expositions. The smaller
Hall 5 showcases emerging talents where no work of art
is above 5000 euros. Being closer to the métro stop,
this was the first stop for most casual vistors. Full
of people, the gallery stands in Hall 5 were more
bric-a-brac, where gallerists seemingly tried the
strategy of diversification to attract a wide variety
of people. And attract they did--for here, people
gawked but passed rather quickly. Take a look at the
random hanging style at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art.

Among those using the diversification strategy was
Volume Gallery, who found quick success with Michael
Scoggin's over-sized faux-naive letters written on
pages torn from a spiral notebook. Amidst the sea of
too many artworks, its size and simplicity and instant
impact made it an easy sale. Animals drew attention,
such as the glass compartmentalized cage suspended
from the ceiling with hamsters and a red snake inside.
Children and adults alike were mesmerized. Another
artist built a huge wooden ramp all the way up to a
cage of chickens.

Besides live animals, another recurring theme was
peeking--built environments that viewers could only
see through a hole. From the Citroen DS exhibit
outside of Hall 5 to various installations throughout,
artists liked to emphasize the erotic nature of
viewing art. Once I sneaked up behind a man to see
what he was seeing through one of these holes, and
--surprise--it was a girl's head! A real live person
was in here! While there was explanatory text to the
side and an attendent should things get rowdy, this
installation at the Synopsism Gallery was no mystery,
no awe, just pity for whoever had to stay cooped up in
there for the five days of the art fair.

Hall 4 showcased the proven names, although in contemporary art that
could just mean artists with press clips. Four artists were nominated
to
compete for the Marcel Duchamp prize, and all of them fell into the
shock
and awe strategy that is unfortunately too common among today's artists
(all
could have been in the Dionysiac exhibit of spring 2005 at the Centre
Pompidou). The strategy seems to consist of making installations to
shock or
creep people into another way of being or thinking--which, for me,
usually
stops at just being shocked and creeped out. For example, Kader Attia
created an installation 'Childhood #1' of a children's playground slide
placed among broken mirrors and razor blades. I know I'm supposed to
think
he's clever and audacious, but I leave feeling numb.

One of the artists whom I DID think was clever was Raphaël Julliard at
Art &
Public, who commissioned 1000 Chinese workers to paint and sign 1000
red
square paintings, each measuring 100 cm x 100 cm and costing 100 euros
a
piece. Instead of studying the red squares, visitors were studying the
text
explaing the projects--certain proof that we are in the presence of
conceptual art. On display was the cash register, which had a sign that
asserted that the receipt was the proof of authenticity. The red
paintings
were wrapped and stacked in the stand in which one could wander and
presumably pick out the one among the 1000, behind the explanatory wall
text. As though in Oz, Julliard drew away the curtain from the sheer
consumerism rampant at FIAC and sharply commented on the threat of
Chinese
'make-it-cheaper' business model even in the world of art. This point
was
especially germane, as I noticed a few galleries from Beijing and
Shanghai
at FIAC. By Sunday, it was completely sold out.

One of the artists whom I DID think was clever was
Raphaël Julliard at Art & Public, who commissioned
1000 Chinese workers to paint and sign 1000 red square
paintings, each measuring 100 cm x 100 cm and costing
100 euros a piece. Instead of studying the red
squares, visitors were studying the text explaing the
projects--certain proof that we are in the presence of
conceptual art. On display was the cash register,
which had a sign that asserted that the receipt was
the proof of authenticity. The red paintings were
wrapped and stacked in the stand in which one could
wander and presumably pick out the one among the 1000,
behind the explanatory wall text. As though in Oz,
Julliard drew away the curtain from the sheer
consumerism rampant at FIAC and sharply commented on
the threat of Chinese 'make-it-cheaper' business model
even in the world of art. This point was especially
germane, as I noticed a few galleries from Beijing and
Shanghai at FIAC. By Sunday, it was completely sold
out.

Fred Eerdekens at Tache Levy epitomized the good art I
was looking for. Using wire and paper and other simple
materials, he creates words out of their shadows. A
little girl was entranced with his cloud, in whose
shadow one could read 'bleed'. Another of his works,
not on display, says 'dog' when lighted from one
direction and 'god' when lighted from the opposite
direction. Ingenuous and obviously skilled, Eerdekens
drew me in and made me want to look at his quiet
assertions amidst a sea of artworks doing the visual
equivalent of fireworks to attract all eyes.

To end on a short and sweet note, at Emmanuel Perrotin
Gallery, thin white filament cage shapes suspended
from the ceiling could only be truly appreciated when
viewed against something of color. Otherwise, these
thin white magical shapes could not be seen.

Spy for Hire

I've been taking photos at art fairs and getting paid for it. Evidence here http://ladauphine.blogs.com/my_weblog/2005/10/foreign_corresp.html