France

Paris6

Thanks Brenda for Richard's address, I emailed him straightaway. A few other Aussies will be turning up in the next couple of days..Geoff Levitus and his charming partner get here tomorrow, and Phil Hammial and some of the artists a day or two later!

We have been doing what we always do when OS, and that is to spend all our time either in museums, restaurants, or travelling to museums and restaurants. This will be different in London, as I am going to hit some electronic music concerts. But in Paris, we have the city of museums and the electronic music is quite hard to find, at least I can't find any of the experimental stuff I like, despite Paris having the longest established institute for this sort of thing.

Sorry to hear about the small minded posturing by the mini politicians in Orange. Pity all this happens just after I get an article on local liberalism into the LOOK magazine! Have they published this yet?

It seems to me that the Mayor and Deputy Mayor deserve censure on racist grounds...have Neil Ingram or  Jody Chester issued a statement that informs the world that the Jirrawun girls are an authentic voice of Aboriginal youth, and to censor this painting is to censor aboriginality and its mode of expression? That is in fact exactly what they have done, and the white creeps must not be allowed to get away with this racist and fascist insult simply to gain some non-existent political gain. One thing I have learnt from previous censorship happenings is that the public are very annoyed by it..in Hamilton the creepy councillors who had Don Stewart censored both lost their seats at the next election...this may well also happen to the gibbering cretins in Orange ..

Anyway, back to the slightly larger world, where one can see tee shirts on sale in the best department stores in Paris (for $85 Euros) with the slogan Too Drunk to Fuck emblazoned  in sequins.. Before my aged mother expresses disbelief, we saw this shirt in Gallerie Layfayette today, along with  the latest styles in torn jeans!

Yesterday we spent entirely in Centre Pompidou looking at a large exhibition loosely themed around Movement in Art, and showing how cinema and discoveries by Muybridge and other photographers have altered our ways of seeing for good, and had huge influence in all contemporary artforms.

It included early films, mobiles and other experiemental artforms by just about everyone, from Brassai, Muybridge, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Maholy Nagy to Bruce Naumann, Cindy Sherman and hundreds of others. You would know of most of the artists, but there were a pleasing number of Europeans unknown to me, and I had not seen very many at all of the films and artworks before. It was good to see the curators had put, say a Man Ray film (back projected into the wall) right next to a Braque or a Leger, pointing out various correspondences, without making them too obvious.

I have the catalogue for this show, so will not write much about it, this blog serving as much as an aide memoire as anything else. Suffice it to say that it was quite an involving show, and it had been well curated by team of about six curators...no wonder the Pompidou spaces are  closed for half of the time! Sure it was good, but, as with most of these European productions, one wonders why they take so bloody long to do the blasted thing. The catalogue and wall text scholarship was nothing special, and although the works were very well chosen to make subtle points, I can't see they needed the huge team acknowledged in the catalogue...they must have gotten into each other's way.The physical wall construction etc surely does take time, but I suspect the teams are just too awkward to make decisions.

Fortunately the Pomidou is so big that even with half of it closed (they were establishing a huge Raushenberg show for October) there was still a lot to see apart from the Movemnet show, including a highlight for me, some late Braques that were terrific. Internesting that both Picasso and Brque developed much greater skills as colourists in their later years.Interesting too, that try to differ as they might, they still remained roped like mountaineers, just that in later years they were using elastic ropes that pulled them back together more and more frequently.

So that was a whole day, just some time left to walk around that area a bit, tube home and have some cheap roast chicken in a bag with home made salad. Note however, that the chicken was excellent, not a hint of driness, and the smoky  flavour and skin crispness was just right. It had been cooked just up the road from our flat on a sort of outdoor barbecue thing. A huge chook too..we are eating it again tonight, hopefully followed by a nice Baba au Rhum or Tarte Citron from the local patiserie (caro is off shopping).

I reckon we are lucky to be in Montmartre, although it has certainly increased in popularity for tourists in recent years, of course it always was a destination ,but they tell me the film Amelie has made a big difference to the number of people coming. Every night there is a moving tide of people going up to Sacre Coeur but they seem to come down the hill again and go elsewhere pretty quickly. It is still comparatively inexpensive for a meal of quality, indeed our experience is that the food here is the best value we have seen, the up market areas are really just absurdly expensive...although there is no doubt they are good..(I suppose, we have not tried any ...yet...).OF course there are good cheap restarants in other areas too, but we will probably stick with Montmartre because we are getting familiar with the place.

Today we ate luch in Gallerie Lafayette cafeteria, also a good place for a cheapish meal. A smorgasboard sort of a set up, efficiently and cleanly run, as it is a grand magasin, but the tucker is surprisingly inexpensive..well shall we say $20 for two pretty good large courses and drinks. This is inexpensive for Paris.

We went in the morning to the Musee Gustave Moreau, an artist who has alwyas interested me because of his technique as much as for his esoteric philosphy and refined poetic aesthetics in his writings about his work. Apparently he was a good teacher, and had quite a few students who went on to be leading modernists. As afar as I can ascertain Moreau did no try and force his opinions on anyone. He was a stubborn old coot though..if he got sick, of an idea, he would leave the work unfinished, and even the Rothschilds could not get him to finish the commission for the Ladies with Unicorns. Most of the works in the Musee are more or less unfinished, but he regarded them as complete, and nearly all the huge ones are signed, although we can see areas that are very sketchy still.

He set himself huge challenges, and I would like to read more about him, but the books they had in the Musee were a bit light on, especially about his philosophy and how come he beat the Order of the Golden Dawn to the punch?

The museum has some fantastic works, and very many cabinets of drawings and watercolours one can slide out, all more or less preliminary for bigger pieces, some of them in the Musee. I was impressed by the landscapes and found it likely also that his habit of not "Finishing" works might hadve been influential on modernism.I also discovered that his watercolours have quite a different feel...although he was pretty good at everything, he was surely one of the all time greats of watercolour technique.

In the Musee, I loved the one of Ulysses shooting all the suitors with Minerva's help, and variousx Leda Pintings, but also the risque Hercules paintings, where he is faced by the gift of the fifity daughters of (what's his name?). The Saturn revealing himself in his majesty is deservedly famous too, cracker of an expression on the God's face.

They have many of the rooms in the house set up exactly as he lived there, and that too was very interesting, he seemd to have a lot of prints of his own works amidst the nearly wall to wall paintings and prints, but he had great ceramics as well as things like cabinets of medals including his Legion D'onnheur and Academic uniform at the end of his bed.

Any way. after Gustave we had lunch at Layfayette, bought a few presents there, and then on to Musee Delacroix in Germaine des Pres, which was a bit disapointing, not really a lot of his works, alrthough those that they had were very interesting of course. The Museum is in his last Paris dwelling, where he died, and he designed the studio himself, and it has a lot of his accoutrements intact, so quite interesting and worth seeing. I noted that the first President of the Society of Freinds of the Delacroix museum was Maurice Denis, in 1929.

Then, we just had enough time to tube it to the Museum of Arts and Sciences, where we filled in the last two hours of the day in its fascinating displays, which have hardly any audiovisuals, and suit me to a t.

Then, back to Montmartre, write this blog and chicken dinner...It seems we have spent a lot of time on the Metro, but it is a terrific system, and usually only takes about ten minutes to get anywhere.I forgot to say that last night I went to a Meeting, in the American Church near Invalides,  great place to be at night, with some impressive views...also I met some interesting and very freindly people, English speakers, although many are French.It seems that many people, if not most who deal with the public regularly, do speak English, but I try to speak French wehre I can, and that seems to be appreciated.

Anway I now leave you for my Poulet al Marocc and Flan Citron.

Monmarte by chicken light

10:38 AM, 16/9/2006 .. Posted by nicomic

Thank you for the last three blog posts. The real problem in reading them was trying not to rush out for a plane ticket and take off to join you.
Your trips to the various galleries and the local walled twon sound wonderful and of course for those of us less educated in the art scene of the area they are most useful, helping in the process of deciding where to go when we do arrive in Paris.
Like the other tourists when last in Paris I took the train up to Sacre Couer and enjoyed that wonderful church and its splendid views out over the city, then wandered through the Montmarte area for a coffee and to watch some acrobats on stilts. Then, down back to the Metro! I remember some young men on the walk up to the church joking that I was Australian and saying I should be bouncing up like a kangaroo but I smiled and laughed with them and kept my thoughts on my money-belt. There seemed to be quite a few affable rapscalions in the area, no doubt feasting in a pleasant and light-hearted fashion on a series of MasterCards from all over the world.
Jane and Ali are now in Vienna after deciding thast Prague was, in fact, the most beautiful city in the world, but I believe like the BicycleRepair brethren, they may both be more than pleased with Paris, especially as they will enjoy a tiny apartment near the Marais for a few days before their crusty old parents arrive.
I understand that the blog is useful to keep records of the galleries and exhibits, but please keep this up, as it will be most useful for the girls and later visitors.
In Canberra the whitepage.com server has been slow to impossible for a few days so I will take care and copy your blogs to OneNote so that if it fails the notes will be intact.
Keep very well, basted in chicken fat and chardonnay, and I hope the exhibition runs as well as your trip so far.
Gozo

The life and death of a squirrel on steroids

5:23 PM, 16/9/2006 .. Posted by janda

Bonjour mon cheries...dear me, I meant my cherrys...
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<br>Im awfully sorry I havent commented before this, see I have been reading your blogs but just the mere thought of you has made me SO dreadfully ill (NOT with fright) that I have had to rush straight to bathroom at the moment I have finished reading it. This time though I came prepared, carrying barf bags and the like.
<br>Anyway, great to hear you are having a tres bon experience in Paris, even though the city IS filled with Frenchmen with Outraaageous accents. You would be pleased to know that I have managed to get into numerous arguments concerning Communism with a right wing American twat. I was thinking of you Alain.
<br>Also I should note, much to my relief that Vienna is so entirely flat that I feel (no doubt falsely) entirely safe from the cunning of bicycle repair man.
<br>Hope you guy continue living the highlife amongst the Parisian elite, and dont worry about the facists back home who were censoring zour exhibit Alan, theyll get theres. All you facists bound to lose!
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