France

France 3

We have been as busy as a one armed croissantier the last two jours.Yesterday we went in the morning to Halle St Pierre, but they were not quite ready to begin the condition reports, so we  walked down the hill to the Metro and headed over to a place the staff had told us about...the Maison Rouge, no...not what you are thinking...in fact it is a private Foundation devoted to the latest brilliant contemporary art, and other not so rare forms of life.

This is near the Seine in the Marais district, a shortish walk from Musee Picasso and many other groovy things.

Maison Rouge has an amazing permanent sculptural exhibit in an open courtyard consisting of twelve animatronic large crows, which are programmed to flap their umbrella folded wings and make a ghastly cawing whenever a large white inflated beach ball makes its rounds on a wooden track which runs right around the sides of this small red house, the old core of a larger modern complex. With typical French engineering skill, the beach ball , amid a frightful flapping of caws, is lifted by a motroised ascenseur and the process begins again. Apparently the artist got carried away and made the project much more complex than was asked in the commission. Can't remember his name, but clearly one of those Biennale type artists who make interesting theings that have absolutely no point beyond the moment.

But we were there to see the Henry Darger exhibition, amidst Outsider circles it is the talk of Paris, indeed of Europe.Nell, who showed in Flaming Youth told me about it in Orange, as she had seen it recently when on one of those six month jaunts that the best of the young artists seem to be able to score quite easily.

Darger was a weird American, since recognised as one of the 3 pillars of American Art Brut, who died in 1970 leaving this amazing archive of disturbing and disturbed  writings and paintings, he had obsessively kept since escaping from his psychiatric hospital when a young adult. He lived in Chicago, and seems to have lived a tragically lonely life completely dominated by his fantasy world which featured the torture and salvation in turns, of young girls. There is no evidence that Darger did kill children in real life, but if not, it is further proof for the efficacy of Aristotelian Catharsis because he surely was skating close to the edge of complete insanity.

Very disturbing, but well worth seeing, as his fantasy is peculiarly pretty as well as occaisionally ridiculously violent.A bizarre mix indeed of comic characters and book illustrations like the Bobbsy Twins playing merrily in fabulous spring time gardens (he taught himself to paint by copying and tracing such things) with imagined massacres of the same characters by sadistic armies !

Well for some light relief we walkd down to the Yacht Club of Paris for some home packed lunch of bread and cheese watching thed various crew prepare some massive Seine cruiser for a gourmet dinner that evening.

And then to the Musee Picasso, as you all know, a superb collection of works by the indisputed master. Still don't agree with John Berger and Clement Greenberg that he declined into grotesque self parody, after the 2nd war. Sure, he got a bit slapdash in the sixties, but there were still plenty of discoveries and innovations as far as I am concerned.

I must say though that I wasmost  staggered by an analytical cubist work, Man with Lute, of about 1913 I think, which was so heavily fractured that it was almost impossible to detect a single correponsdence with the physical world. Nonetheless, when standing a certain distance from this work I was overwhelmed by the presence of the luteplayer, and his posture, his instrument being lightly strummed...yet I could not discern hand, lute, arm, or even head of the man!Amazing.

There was nothing as amazing in the sixties it is true, but his head of a woman of 1961 is still a marvellous bit of "minimalist monumentalism" that reflects his profound ability to see what others do not.I was staggered by one painting where the  attention of the viewer seemed to be directed to the strange stretch of webbed skin that lies between forefinger and thumb of his subject...has any other artist really seen this so clearly before? It may sound trivial, but for some rerason it showed me just what a seer he was..

We also loved the Vallauris ceramics, which too are belittled by Greenberg, but for mine these are great works that can stand in any ceramic company of any time.The collection here is more concentrated than those in Nice, and makes just as strong as impression although fewer and smaller in scale.

I also think that Picasso imporved as a colourist greatly in the laste fifteis asnd sixties, as though he no longer needed to be different from Matisse, but could shamellessly explore some of the avenues of the older artist.

WE too are spending nearly all day on our feet, and by six thirty or seven when we get the tube back to Montmartre, we can barely walk, very sore feet.. This is the curse of the artlover. Apart, that is, from not having the money to buy anything much.

Today we set out to visit as many as we could of the Galleries and Passages, Arcades, of Paris, that I had read about in Walter Benjamin's amazing book. We visited about eight of these structures, most of them in the area around the Louvre...the first buildings designed to literally reflect the consumer looking at consumer goods on either side....to place you among the produce of capitalism, your image seen through as though to flesh it out you needed to consume the contents within. Benjamin makes many similar analogies which concern both modern marketing and post modernist thought.Fascinating book, and an excellent thing to do for us, some fascinating shops are still in the arcades, although they have lost a lot of their glam since the early 19th century... other simulacra have won the day.We  found some bargains in the arcades nevertheless!

Then, caught a tube to Quartier Latin and began a walk from Lonely Planet Guidebook around the literary pilgrimage sites of the Left Bank, saw Hemingways pad and all the honorific Restaurant Papas, saw George Orwells little walk up, and James Joyces flat (all from the outside, they are not preserved as shrines, although I suspect it might be possible to get the oweners to open up for cold cash, I can't imagine some American enthusiasts taking no for an answer!

We were going to continue to Collete's and many others, but got sidetracked by the Pantheon and an amazing exhibition by Netto, the Brazilian guy who we have seen in Vencice and in Sydney, who hoists huge stockings full of spices up to the ceiling to make pendulous alien flowers with associated Prousitan contiguities.He had not finished this work, it opens in a few days, as it was fun watching him set it up, only about half finished, but it will fill the Pantheon, which is of course now a  secular monemnet to the heroes of republican France, despite its Puvis de Chavannes and other fin de siecle muralists life of St Genevieve!Good to see Voltaires grave in the crypt, opposite Jean Jacque Rousseau's crypt (I understand they did not at all get on, and now indisposed to eternity..!) .Whenever I see a crypt I think of the cat that crept into the crypt, crapped, and crept out again.Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

Then in the immense civc buildings nearby, the Mayoral offices of the Arrondisement, we were further distracted from our literary search by what is the by far the largest collection of Goya etchings I have ever seen. All of the Proverbs, the Caprichios and the Disasters of War, along with many other obscure prints. I had not seen many of these beofre, even in books, and certainly did not see so many in one place  in the Prado, so this took us about two hours to get around. Fantastic of course, but particually funny was the way , on the exhibition labels and panels, that the French curator disagreed with everything that Harris (the English expert on Goya) said!

So, really tired by now, we staggered over to the Luxembourg Gardens and settled on the stone edge of the carp pond to rest our bones and cool off.. Alan was obliged to push two horrid noisome  children into the pond after their silly boats had nudged him in the back. You may know that the French  give a huge amount of licence to les enfants in France... amd sure enough, in no time a jabbering crowd of irate Frogs had gathered and drove us out of the Park. Not before Caro had hurled one or two into the chestnut parterre  I can tell you!

Anyway after this excitement, which really aggravated the sore feet, we luched and snuffled to the Metro miles up in Montparnasse (the last of the crowd had stopped chasing us) and returned to out wee flat for a home cooked dinner of spaghetti alla pesto, with proscuitto and grana pava.So nice to have some good Aussie tucker after all the froggie stuff we have been eating, I can tell you!

Au Bientot chumps!.

An excellent guide to Paris

9:33 AM, 10/9/2006 .. Posted by nicomic

Thanks for th3e comments and the tips for the visit to Paris. Your discussions and analyses were fantastic and I am writing down the names of the galleries and places to visit. We only have a few days in Paris but will try to follow your lead around these dizzy cultural dump-bins.
I know Lyn&Don wanted to speak with you guys urgently about contacting Fred in Paris and that may already have occured, though I have not seen any comments from that motley crew in here. Mother wanted you to see them as a high priority and wanted also your addresses over there, sent privately so not to splash the details on this site.
We now have two weeks to go and this morning I awakened at 4am and did not go back to sleep worrying about all the stuff that needs doing before leaving: preparing work for school, my damn Masters that is now well behind schedule, the house and organisation of the myriad odds and bends to allow others to take over this place while we wander.
The builders are extending one room and threaten to start in a week, after many months of silence and not answering calls, so we have the further problem of supervising their work from afar.
Please keep up with the travelogue and comments, they are not only fascinating but very useful. Much love to both A & C.
Hope the next few days are as full and wonderful as your last few.

Thought you might be interested, if you have not heard ...

6:20 PM, 11/9/2006 .. Posted by nicomic

Last Update: Monday, September 11, 2006. 8:00am (AEST)
Complaints see gallery staff cover painting with curtain
A painting by a group of young Aboriginal women that hangs in the public gallery at Orange in the central west of New South Wales has been deemed to be for adults only.

As a result, the work has been covered over.

The work, titled You Big Hole, consists of four panels of graffiti and contains swear words.

The gallery has used a large black curtain to cover over the work following complaints made to the Orange City Council and upon approval by the city's general manager and mayor.

A gallery spokeswoman says the artists, called the Jirrawun Girls, are a group of Aboriginal women ranging in age from 14 to their mid 20s.

The exhibition now carries a warning sign that children need parental guidance and the painting has a notice telling people to ask gallery staff for a view.

Source: ABC News Online
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1737553.htm