parislovesme

2006-02-15T16:58:00.000-08:00

Rummaging through my stuff, deciding what to keep and what to free, I come across a quote from Marc Soriano that I may have already blogged: "Si tu veux faire partie des vivants, il est temps d'apprendre a vivre. Il n'est pire douleur que de decouvrir qu'on a ete heureux sans le savoir quand on a cesse de l'etre".

Well, I am happy in Paris, except during periods of stress. I hope I don't stop being happy in New York.

2006-01-09T17:03:00.000-08:00

In the last five years of his life, Lacan sometimes practiced psychoanalysis in as little as 5 or even 1 (!) minute, instead of the normal fifty-five-minute session.

Elisabeth Roudinesco, Pourquoi la psychanalyse?, Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1999, p. 190.

2006-01-02T15:32:00.000-08:00

Frans Post, trained as a Dutch painter, lived in Brazil from 1637 to 1644 as part of the Brazilian governor Johan Maurtis of Nassau's entourage, as did another artist Albert Eckhout. Both followed Maurits to Brazil when he nominated to his post by the Dutch West India Company. Eckhout drew plants, animals, and indigenous peoples of Brazil--all of which were catagorized as natural history, whereas Post painted the actual territory under Dutch colonial control as well as a few buildings and battles. While in Brazil, Post painted eighteen paintings about the same size, 60 x 90 cm. Only seven are now known; elevent are still missing. Upon return to Europe, Post monolized the art market for views of the then-named West Indies, making more than two hundred works in thirty-five years based on his sketches and paintings from his seven years in Brazil.

In Post's "Le Fort Frederik Hendrik," previously in Louis the XIV's collection receieved as a diplomatic gift from Johan Maurits of Nassau and now in the collection of Recife's Institut Ricardo Brennand, three people dominate the center of the foreground in what is essentially a Low Countries landscape-style painting showing the aforementioned fort in the background, on the horizon. A black man and an ostensibly white man both turn their back to the viewer, while we see clearly the metisse or Amerindian woman's face and features from a frontal point of view.

About a hundred years later, copies of his paintings were made in gouache by the French amateur artist Thiery in 1765 for unknown reasons. Thiery's copy, while keeping the same title and maintains practically the same poses for the figures, takes large liberties in adding narrative to the picture. Instead of merely standing by a river, the black man has already started to cross the river while the white man and the woman are still on the bank on the near side of the viewer. Instead of a pipe, the black man holds in his hand a walking stick. The white man is relieving himself into the river, after which it seems he will cross it with the woman. The most ominous change here is that the only other human in this landscape is dead, hanging from the gallows at the side of the road leading to the fort. In Post's original, three other voyagers are in the distance and the empty gallows faces the ocean rather than the road--a threat of hanging rather than punishment fulfilled as imagined by Thiery.

Between the time of these two works, Post made 32 engravings for Kaspar van Baerle's book on Maurits of Nassau's eight years in Brazil, published in Latin in Amsterdam in 1647. This book gives a fundamental account of the Dutch colony of Brazil. Illustrating this book in 1645, immediately after his return to Europe, Post gives his previously mostly observational images a historical significance and narrative (such as, for example, the first meeting between the Dutch and the Amerindians). More strategically, Post labels these engravings with a legend as though they were topographical maps in the Dutch tradition.

2005-12-21T22:49:00.000-08:00

How to Succeed as a Contemporary Photo Artist

According to Boris Groys, contemporary photo artists’ function is to have taste, to formulate, and to change taste—not to produce something new but to become a model for the viewers through strategies of self-dramatization, self-concealment, narcissism, or voyeurism. If I were to follow this model, would I become a famous artist?

Boris GROYS, “The Promise of Photography,” The Promise of Photography: The DG Bank Collection, ed. Luminita Sabau, cat. Expo., Munich: Prestel, 1998, pp. 25-31.

Readiness for death and distance from life lend anyone who attains them an assured, aristocratic look. Losing his physical individuality, the photo-artist accordingly gains this assured aristocratic gaze. Only in the context of the aristocratic way of life could art therefore achieve true perfection. (29) By assuming the position of the pure observer, the absolute consumer, the artist compensates for the deepest trauma of the modern era, namely the loss of the aristocracy. [The artist] has become the exemplary observer, consumer, user, who observes, evaluates and takes in things that are produced by others.

Contemporary art shows that everything can be an object of desire—or at least an object of critical desire.

If the photographer’s attitude is aristocratic, his techniques—as befits our times—are rather more bureaucratic or, more accurately, administrative in nature. The photographer chooses, includes, modifies, edits, shifts, combines, reproduces, arranges, places in series, exhibits, or puts aside. So that potential customers can get a look, a perspective, that will give them a certain overall view of the world. (30)

The most interesting artists of our day who are involved with photography all—each in his own way—follow this strategy. Their photographic images give the impression of having been staged, carefully thought out, planned with precision. They evoke drama, psychological tensions, decadent feelings, or exquisite aesthetics, but at the same time they are neutral, objective, and raise no visible, “expressionistic” claim to the viewer’s sympathy. The creators of these pictures obviously se themselves as managers of the gaze and its centuries of history, not as producers of pictures in the traditional sense.

The present-day photographer lets the individual gaze appear in the monotony of data processing. We have the desire to be free of our body, to be transformed into a pure gaze. Photography, like modern bureaucracy, gives us a further promise, that of affording protection from the stranger’s gaze—but only if we take up position behind the camera, not in front of it. The artist promises us the possibility of imagining ourselves at any time both behind his camera as well as in front of it. (31)

2005-12-04T07:15:00.000-08:00

Loot from Salon Saveurs December 2005

1. A box of baby Bordeaux caneles from Lemoine.
According to my box, the canele recipe has been passed down for six generations in the Lemoine family.
2. 500g of chestnut honey and homemade pain d'epices from Baudat
According to Baudat, chestnut honey is rich in iron and calcium and marries well with goat cheese. My honey is collected in the Limousin region.
3. Young and old Ossau-Iraty, made on one of the 60 farms that from the Idoki network in France's Basque country
4. 500g of lentilles du Berry, not very far from Puy
5. 500 mL of Ruhlmann Gewurztraminer Vendange Tardive 2002
6. Madame Figaro

I tasted lots of savory and sweet spreads, many made with onions; young cognac; cheeses such as tomme de brebis, the Swiss tete de moine, parmigiano reggiano, among nameless others; coffee made with the new Lavazza Blue machine (with those stupid doses); honey--one that impressed me was the fir tree honey; oils--one unusual one was pumpkin seed oil which had a heavy, oily taste; different spreads made with the piment d'espelette, such as a sweet jam (too sweet); and various other goodies.

2005-12-03T04:10:00.000-08:00

Totally superficial post: Last night I had dinner at Tokyo Eat with people from INHA. Tokyo Eat is a 'design' restaurant at the museum for contemporary arts Palais de Tokyo. For appetizer, I had slices of raw Paris mushrooms with fennel and parmesan shavings, tossed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. For my main dish, I just told the waiter to bring me out whatever vegetarian things they had, which was: zucchini shreds that looked like tagliatelles, sweet and sour eggplant, roasted whole cherry tomatoes. And for dessert, I had a supposed chocolate crumble that was really chocolate mousse with crumbs on top! Next to some English cream. Note to self, however: never have coffee again there. They use some low-quality beans that gave me a headache.

Tokyo Eat needs an instruction booklet for its bathroom! First, they are for both sexes. And the locking mechanism is not so obvious. Then I wasn't sure if I was pulling on the right thing to wash my hands. Those crazy museum architects!

I did notice that
1. I eat very slowly compared to these Parisians
2. other women also made bracelets out of Tokyo Eat's napkin ring-ribbon (I am not the only one who likes to take souvenirs!)
If only I had my camera so that I can post mine!

2005-11-30T17:39:00.000-08:00

Look at this CA-HUTE group of half-animals, half-whatevers! I can't identify the animals, except for the one on the far right: it's a toucan! And maybe that green one on the middle left: could it be an anteater? They advertise for a children's book fair this weekend in Seine-Saint-Denis. Imagine me, going about my daily business, stopped before their poster-sized cuteness, wishing for their actualization in plush so that I could give one a hug.

I, however, won't be going to the book fair--my French reading level has progressed beyond that, thank you very much. If I have any time outside of that 3-day conference, you'll find me at the food fair, Salon Saveurs. Look at what could be had there! Any gift requests, anyone?

2005-11-28T14:12:00.000-08:00

Yoga Needs

A while ago, I made a list of things I need to have in my life. Yoga was one of them. So when I arrived in Paris, I was pleased to find that yoga alive and mushrooming all over Paris.

Unfortunately, I forgot to be specific on my wish list. I should have specified yoga that
- makes you sweat--I mean, you told me to bring a towel!
- builds on a specific movement or body area or theme for the class and is not just poses randomly cobbled together
- challenges me from start to end--I almost fell asleep once--in a pose, not during final relaxation!
- has a hands-on teacher
- is not routine--which I can tell just by seeing if students would anticipate the teacher's spoken instructions

I didn't think this would be hard to find, especially at 15-25 euros a class. But it is.

Is it only in New York where teachers belt out the chants as though they were on Broadway, make sweat drip down your face to collect in a pool on your mat, push you to do things you didn't think you could do, live yoga as a passion rather than some bland, neat philosophy?

Maybe I should start going to the 25 euro classes, just to see. Such as to the studio in the photo above, for one example, element in St-Germain-des-Pres, one of the poshest neighborhoods in Paris. Those funky dots on the ceiling? Lights designed by Philippe Cholet et Jean Luc Ledeun. They have designers for their lights. Is this why tuition will be so high?

2005-11-27T05:04:00.000-08:00

Randomness, Again

Last night I met a mathematician from the Netherlands who works on randomness. He has used his math skills to gamble with two physicists, but I'm not sure if they made filthy money. The best place to gamble in Europe is Slovenia.

2005-11-26T07:46:00.000-08:00

Chance/Coincidence, or, how Paris is becoming New York

Last Friday night I desperately wanted to meet a French banker, and the day after I met C-H, a French banker, at a party otherwise filled with crazy people : a blonde with a huge Afro wig, several guys in fur coats and gold chains doing vodka shots from a Sherlock Holmes pipe, a dear vegetarian friend with an oversized coke spoon hanging around his neck, a wig-wearing and lipstick-smeared boy who kept on trying to kiss my friend, and a girl from Texas.

Yesterday I met and chatted for a while with a photographer, and only when he handed me his card with a photo on it did I realize that I had seen him taking that very photo on rue Bonaparte on October 16! I distinctly remember checking out his camera after remarking on his model and location choice. But actually, now that I look in my agenda, it doesn't make sense. I had met F with D on October 16, and so I must have seen this photographer with his Hasselblad around rue Bonaparte another day. More like a week or two before that. I'll see him again soon and unravel this mystery. Of all things, the photographer ran into my friend C on rue Bonaparte during this shoot (too).

Another proof that Paris is becoming as small as New York: Last night I also met Caecilia Tripp, an artist whose interview I translated for Saskia's magazine. Coincidentally, I had met her on February 26 or 27 at a round table/film screening at the Forum des Images. Since she sported a Labyrinth bookbag (the ex-Columbia accessory) and looked familiar, I asked her if we had met before. At the time, of course, we had not. Last night, however, it was she who recognized me. And now she's invited me to a conference. Incidentally, the same C started talking to her by asking her if they had met before. When I called him out for using an abused pick-up line, he showed me how wrong I was...he was the one who called her to announce that she had won the AFA grant a few years ago.

And today my astrologist quoted an old friend of mine E, with whom I've lost touch.

Chance, coincidence, luck? Randomness. Wonder whom I'll meet tonight? Paris is an open city.

6 degrees

2005-11-16T03:57:00.000-08:00

Connector
Originally uploaded by parislovesme.

Le peuple des connecteurs is the quiz version of Friendster. Despite my friends' assessments, I am NOT a connector, I am 'conservative', which means that I see the world as though it's perfect. Novelty scares me, and I doubt that it even exists! Is this the real me? Take this quiz (in French!) and see how you match up to me.

2005-11-10T16:31:00.000-08:00

Notes on some instances of sound in Battle in Heaven (2005)

Carlos Reygadas' new movie has made many journalists waste lots of ink on its explicit sex scenes. What moved me was his explicit and considerate use of sound. The first sign of the film's unusually meaningful and thought-out use of music is during the second scene, when the main character Marcos waits for soldiers to put up a huge Mexican flag. In the middle of what I assume to be the Mexican national anthem, we hear a ringing--a cell phone--get louder and louder although remaining always faint in the background. Only when we start to wonder who left their phone on does the camera show Marcos speaking into his phone in the background, away from the flag-raising. Rather than making the ringing obviously central, the ringing interrupts the bombastic, patriotic song that we were supposed to focus on.

Next ingenious use of music: a close-up shot of Marcos and his wife from the middle of the chest up, against a neutral wall and basked in fluorescent light. We hear a constant dim ringing among ambient noise, so we know they are in a public space of some sort. Only when an off-screen character addresses Marcos' wife do we understand that she sells alarm clocks, which are the source of the ringing. Again, rather than making the setting--wife selling clocks in underground tunnel--obvious, Reygadas focused the camera on the their faces so that we concentrate on the relationship between them even while embedded in their social milieu. All the people in the tunnel are not typical physical types in Hollywood cinema: the camera follows a man wearing a bad toupee and a boy who looks as though he has Down's Syndrome. Upon panning back in the other direction, the camera follow an old man who carries his urine in a bag.

When Marcos drives Ana to the brothel, she asks him to put on the music. He is so distracted by the music (loud enough to make the car bounce), that he doesn't hear the honking of cars and angry screams of drivers behind him.

Later, Marcos fills up at a gas station. We hear Bach blasting, but in the middle of the scene we hear singing fade in and out. Just as before, we hear and then we see. The singing comes from a parade of pilgrims on their way to the Cathedral. Up until the moment another car pulls into the gas station, out of which comes a grandmother who complains about the music, we are not sure if this music is just in Marcos' head. Just as the film goes in- and out-of-focus because Marcos' glasses broke and we are supposedly then to see with his eyes, what we hear is what Marcos hears in his head as well as the real ambient sound that surrounds him.

Two of the last scenes of the movie show people desperately ringing huge church bells again and again. We, as the audience, hear nothing (the exact opposite of Arvo Part's Requieum for Cornelius Cardew!).

From Reygadas' interview with the Guardian :

"Real cinema is much closer to music. Music doesn't represent anything, it is just something that will convey feeling. It doesn't mean anything."

2005-11-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

Diving into twelve lanes of traffic

Last night E described skinny-dipping in the Seine in June. Jumping off the bridge at six in the morning (when traffic was no longer permitted on the river, so she would not dive into a boat and die), she had closed her eyes to prevent her contact lenses from flying away. Not being able to see, she kept on wondering when she was going to land...and why hitting water was taking so long. Where was she exactly? Halfway there? Almost there? Right above the water? She flapped her arms in the air, eyes closed and laughing while sitting on my balance ball (which she claimed should belong in an SM dungeon, but I noticed she sat on it for a significant part of the late evening).

Today while on the platform roof of the Arc de Triomphe, I looked at Paris laid out before me. As much as I like playing Where's Waldo with Paris' monuments, the most pressing questions were what it would be like to flap my arms in the air and how long it would take to land in the roundabout with twelve lanes of traffic. Is this desire strong enough to make me learn how to swim so that I may one day dive?

2005-11-01T02:11:00.000-08:00

NOT in Paris

A drop of nerve agent can kill within a minute. When released in the ocean, it lasts up to six weeks, killing every organism it touches before breaking down into its nonlethal chemical components.

Mustard gas can be fatal. When exposed to seawater, it forms a concentrated, encrusted gel that lasts for at least five years, rolling around on the ocean floor, killing or contaminating sea life.

Although the article from which I extracted these two images makes me worry for the state of the world, I imagine them as beautiful : mustard-colored blobs rolling around on the ocean floor, scored to Arvo Part's music.

2005-11-01T01:23:00.000-08:00

Sunday I remarked to someone that I don't remember things. And
since I forget them, I just don't know how much I forget. A blast
from the past just emailed me something I don't recall at all:

 je me rappelle le moment apres le bistro ungoir

tu ma embarsse.. et vraiment traite , to my surprise ,
comme si j'ai ete ton petit copin..

you almost pulle dme by force.. and I remember that
you stared the kiss. no me.. I was very impressed


I wonder what else I don't remember. Anyone?

Basilique de St Denis

2005-10-24T03:26:00.000-07:00

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?

2005-10-17T15:47:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-10-13T02:58:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-10-11T06:10:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-20T03:26:00.000-07:00

Tunnels and Palaces

Living in France is expensive. Where does all that tax money go? Well, one thing I enjoyed were the Journées du Patrimoine held this past weekend, September 17-18, when French patrimony is open and free to the public. Patrimony can be printing presses, architecture, porcelain factories, bridges, even a makeup 'institute'--Lancôme's. Some were open just this once a year, such as the Elysées Palace where the president lives.

Another exceptional opening was the astronomical Obervatory in the 14th arrondissement; this is the origin of France's meridien, which was their cartographic standard before succumbing to Greenwich. Too bad they don't use the observatory anymore now that Paris suffers from too much light pollution. And in any case we didn't make it up to the coupole, since line-forming was only accepted between 13h and 16h!

Other patrimony attracted less people, although I felt they were even more exceptional. For example, M and I's personal favorite would be the Regard de la Lanterne at the crossing of rue Compans and rue Belleville in the 19th. A regard is a 'room' where water collects and can be sorted and relayed to fountains in other parts of Paris. This particular regard is named after the lantern-shaped cupola in 'pierre de taille', a stone used in many old Paris buildings, that crowns it. With origins in the 12th century and in use until the 19th, this regard's classical lines stand in contrast to the neighboring high-rise apartments. I told M that I felt we were in the banlieues.

This regard is at the head of the aqueduct of Belleville, which was one of the most important first aqueducts. In the 1980s, the volunteer-based ANSEP (Association Sources du Nord Etudes et Protection) cleaned out the regard that had fallen into disuse and then renovated it. It is now a working regard that collects rainwater. Underneath the northern part of Paris is clay, so the rain does not enter the earth and becomes runoff. (Note to future catacombs-exploring self, under the southern part of Paris is gympsum.)

When M and I visited, one of the three rain chutes was dripping water into the well. We were lucky since it has been dry this past summer. The well was lit up from below, in the water, which gave everything a magical halo cast. We followed the water as it was relayed elsewhere. The height of its tunnel became progessively lower, as we went from pierre de taille ceiling to just packed dirt--I even touched a wispy roots pulling down. Of course, the tunnel eventually became so small as to be difficult to enter, so ANSEP lit up a path between candles leading into the darkness. It was obviously a work of love.

More patrimony to come...

2005-08-21T15:44:00.000-07:00

Modernism's Heart Thumps

I studied Le Corbusier and his "purist" white houses floating on stilts. From the back of a darkened room, the slides of his designs seemed cold, rational, sterile. Even though for the Villa Savoye, he claimed to have designed with light, air, and nature in mind, it was the opposite of that to me: a white box that mitigated nature's effects through horizontal bands of windows. Really, a "machine for living", just as this cold, cold man wanted it. Had he no heart that swelled with the sunlight and singing birds and rainbows?

Today I went to the Villa Savoye in Poissy and realized that architectural photographs are lies. They don't give a sense of what it feels like to move and breathe in spaces. Now I feel that buildings are like Minimalist Art according to M. Fried: it must be experienced through and in relation to the human body. Being around and inside Villa Savoye was not at all cold or sterile, although many details certainly were rational. For example, the skylights' glass tops were tilted so as to better persuade precipitation to slide off. Similarly, the laundry room's wall-sized sink contained a ledge that sloped slightly to let the waste water run off. Many of the windows also had a built-in shelf underneath its ledges, as though to accommodate the very human urge to put things on window ledges. The skylights not only lit up the spaces underneath them dramatically like a spot light, but also had small side windows for ventilation that one could open by a pulley system from below. Many of the built-in storage functioned to also divide spaces, such as the closet that separated a bedroom from its mini-office. The kitchen was divided also by its storage, but this time, the storage communicated: one could access the shelves from both sides as well as the counter space.

Even better, light and air were really everywhere except for one intimate room in which I actually felt crowded. I could see into other spaces from almost every room, a density that made my body feel open yet sheltered. And the nature? The terraces were actually supposed to have been "hanging gardens", but they were too sparsely populated to be properly called gardens. Le Corbusier had planned for grass to grow in between the concrete tiles he used on the terraces. Functionally, they kept the concrete humid and expanded. And I think he liked the nature interwoven with the concrete. And the views from the horizontal bands are beautiful, framing the ex-orchard just so. I only wish that today it was sunny, as I could see from photos that shadows thrown onto the stark white would have made a non-negligible visual impact.

There is a guardian's house on the edge of the property, next to the gate. I asked if one could visit it, as it is built in the same design: house on stilts with a band of windows, but just smaller. It turns out that one of the museum workers LIVES there and no, we could not visit it. I peeked inside the gates and noticed that he has a huge garden with a scarecrow.

I settled for picking up twigs on the still wooded property while waiting for the bus to come. There were mushrooms also but my travel partner M told me not to pick them.

2005-08-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

Le Rouleau de Printemps

Sunday in Paris is a consumer's nightmare. No stores are open. This fact makes it also a nightmare for those of us who buy food when hunger strikes and the question 'What am I having for dinner?' surfaces. So Sunday usually finds me walking to L'As du Falafel in the Marais or taking the metro to Chinatown/s. This past Sunday I decided to go buy frozen vegetable dumplings in one of the smaller Chinatowns in Paris, the one in Belleville. I went to about five different grocery stories, small little storefronts that open out into gigantic underground or upper-level emporiums with side rooms for the raw fish and meat. No vegetarian dumplings to be found after an hour of fighting to get through narrow aisles.

I called up my friend C in a panic. 'I'm hungry! Where can I find vegetarian dumplings in Belleville?!' Apparently, I should have gone to the other Chinatown, as even C who lives around Belleville goes to the other one for shopping.

I started to panic and wonder what I was going to eat that night, since it was around 6:30pm and the stores would close at 7pm. C, ever-so-helpful, decided to come find me with his friend G to have dinner in Belleville. They took me to this amazing hole-in-the-wall Chinese-Vietnamese-Thai restaurant off of the main street, with an entire vegetarian section on the menu! Most restaurants, even Asian, in Paris have barely one vegetarian option, so I was about to die of choice overload.

Eventually I decided on a summer roll that came with a sesame paste, an unusual touch. For my main dish, I ordered vegetable noodle soup, expecting a pho. But no, it was just noodle soup--a little bland. Next time I'm going to order C's dish, which was vermicelli with tofu that was like Taiwanese stinky tofu or what our neighbor had, which was vermicelli with curry samosas. YUM...YUM.

The only mishap was that they had forgotten about C, and only when G was done with his noodles did C ask about his dish which they must have left in a lonely corner somewhere.

5,50 euros for my sit-down meal! This is the cheapest and most satisfying meal I have ever had in Paris. I'm getting hungry again thinking about it...

It's easy to know where the expensive good food is. But when you know where the cheap good food in a city is, that is when you have arrived.

2005-08-09T17:59:00.000-07:00

Four in the Morning

It is 3 in the morning, that magic time of night, and still no pages typed. There has got to be a name for this feeling in a language somewhere--love/hate comes close in the English language, but it is not about love or hate. A band I liked a long time ago wrote a song about this feeling and called it 'Stuttering.' That fits better, as frustration is connotated. I desire and am reluctant to fulfill this desire at the same time, emotions in a dialectic. This reluctance is not due to laziness or inability. From where does it come?

I want to write my thesis, at least sum up to what I have devoted a year's worth of study if not churn out a thesis worthy of French Art History (those capitalizations are in the name of the department itself, as it is 'l'histoire de l'art', not 'l'histoire d'art' or 'l'histoire des arts', as it very well could have been). And at the same time, my body betrays me. I don't do it, don't want to. This is not what I am here for, I know now.

What I wish I were doing instead:
-exploring the Catacombs of Paris
-making my apartment into my home, where everything has a place and everything works
-planning my vacation

2005-06-25T04:01:00.000-07:00

Impressed by the Wolf

So last night, on a whim, I decided to go see some folky singer-songwriter inspired by Stockhausen. At least that was what I had gathered from the press release. The fact that I chose to be in the back near the exit for a fast getaway speaks to my lack of confidence. When I saw the mini-guitar, the violin (or is it the viola?), the ukelele, the piano, AND the drums on the stage, I had expected something gimmicky along the lines of--aren't I so cool and multi-talented? And then two people show up on stage without shoes, one the drummer and the other who did everything else...and then my metaphorical socks were fucking rocked off by an incredible artist and performer by the name of Patrick Wolf.

Patrick Wolf is adept on all of the instruments (unlike certain who just randomly add random instruments to their repertoire) and his voice's range and power is as incredible as scary. He rocks out, but it's a slow build-up of quiet sounds, sometimes accentuated by a steady drumbeat. (Tonight's performance the drums were miked too much and overshadowed the piano/guitar/singing sometimes.) In some ways, his music reminds me of Bedhead's musical integrity--just let your music get to where they should be without force and suddenly they are there like a wave washing over you. I prefer him most on piano, as I was converted into fandom by his song "Empress" which started out with Stockhausen covered with Morissey-like lyrics and ended as just rocking out. His strings, while in the strain of non-classical new-music-ish usage, was creative, plucking out the better half of a song on pizzicato. I think this is the first non-intellectual interpretation of Stockhausen I have ever experienced, and that time with feeling instead of intellectual masturbation of aren't I clever.

Through the performance, I got a feel for who he is and what his music is, as though he was giving his audience a little slice of heart to taste. His biography, which I just looked up, makes him all the more tantalizing. I heart Patrick Wolf. And can somebody out there tell me where to find his "Empress" song? It's not on either of his albums; could I have heard the name wrong?

2005-06-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

Public Service Announcement : My Breasts are Deaf and Dumb

Walking home from work today, I noticed a long paint-spattered mirror that I thought would look nice in my future apartment. This particular mirror was under the arm of a man. He noticed that I noticed, so he decided to strike up a conversation:

“Are you Japanese?” … “I’m a painter.” … “You have a beautiful smile; I’d like to paint you sometime and give you the portrait.” [nude? I wondered, as his eyes looked me up and down]… “Are you Chinese?”

As I continued walking without answering, he finally gave up, “Guess you must not like compliments, although I could make many about you.”

That made me smile, which was the crack into which he leapt to continue the conversation. While he was interrogating me on the art museums I’ve been to in Paris, he would not stop staring at my breasts. I felt like he was asking them, “Have you been to many art museums in Paris? Did you go to that Japanese exhibit at the Grand Palais?” This was an exhibition of erotic ukiyo-e prints, which was most likely the site of many a pick-up or the scene of many an Asian-fetish-motivated seduction.

As my breasts are mute, I answered for them: “Yeah, I did…”

He passed his eyes over my lips as I spoke, but then he asked the area under my neck: “What about the Musée Guimet?”

“Yeah, that too, but my interest is in contemporary art, not in Asian art,” thinking of the most recent exhibit I had seen, Africa Remix at the Centre Pompidou. I turned around, he wished me a good day, I wished him the same back, and we each continued on on way.

The key thing I have learned is that conversations in France are as easy to let go of as to pick up. So I no longer feel weird when men talk to my breasts, as I will never see them again after a turn around the next corner.

2005-06-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

Recovering from my move in early June, I hardly went out at all. I stayed at home, sleeping and nesting. When EB called with an invite to the infamous boat parties on a private peniche docked on the Seine, I had been in bed for a few hours and had to regretfully decline. Even had I been able to get dressed, there was no way I could have danced with them until dawn. Apparently, the party ended with an illegal dip in the Seine.

So I've been missing out on a few parties. But this week made up for it in droves. Monday night E invited me to Antonio Segui's one-man show opening at the Centre Pompidou. She made a film about him, and so she got a personal invite to his show. He was nice but didn't have much to say to me. And I didn't have much to say to him either besides the usual compliments.

Wednesday night I went to a colloquium held in conjunction with Africa Remix, also at the Centre Pompidou. The conversation heated up after Professor Elvan Zabunyan at Rennes critiqued the exhibit's out-of-date geographical focus and logic. Two artists from the show who were not on the stage but in the audience wholeheartedly agreed with her. I wanted to make a comment but the moderators hardly allowed any audience member to speak, instead focusing a lot on Simon Niami, the curator of the show, who was put in the position to defend personally all the faults of the show: colonialist logic, lack of post-colonial consciousness in France, why the art world sucks. When the moderators tried to develop more range, asking Mai Adu El Dahab what she thought as an Egyptian curator, she threw the question right back at them, claiming that she knew that she was here to represent Egypt and not herself. So she wasn't even sure how to respond.

Afterwards, E and I met up with the artists she knew and went with some of the speakers to Cafe Beaubourg. I chatted a bit with Niami, when he told me that Zabunyan actually warned him of her critiques before the colloquium. He knew what was coming and didn't want to speak at all, but this is part of the 'game', as Ntone Edjabe put it. Ntone is a DJ and writer as well as publisher of the S African magazine Chimurenga, which translates to 'struggle'. With both of us being outsiders in France, we got a good talk going about why France has no colonial memory. Claire, a French metisse, finally explained to me why my friends of color in Paris refer to themselves 'black' and not 'noirs': France is so supposedly color-blind as a country that to hear color applied to people is shocking, practically unthinkable. 'Black' a la americain is even kinda cool, but 'noir', now that's not somewhere the French want to go. The conversation was good; we stayed there until the lights turned on.

Thursday I went back for even more fun. When I arrived, I couldn't find E. But I find Alexis, a classmate from my undergraduate years. She is here as her mentor Achille Mbembe is giving a talk. We first went up to the cafe in the museum but as they didn't serve drinks, we ended up at Cafe Beaubourg...again. When we arrived, the artists and curators were already esconced at the tables we were last night. I followed my curiosity and went with the academics to the outside terrace: besides Mbembe and Alexis, there were four other professors/PhD candidates in this party. Eventually, I went around to the artists' tables and scandalized the two artists I met that I hadbn't even seen their show yet! I told them that I was just here to have fun...

The night ended with an amazing talk with Orlando Britto, basically telling me that the art world is not ideal, that you suffer in it while you're young, don't think people are your friends just because you drink and party with them, don't take the shit, and always be positive. I feel like he is one wise, nice man.

So after Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday socializing around the Centre Pompidou, I need to give myself a rest. Nontheless, this past week just confirmed my desire to stay in the area.