Art Of The Day Weekly

Who did it?

FRANKFURT – The Schirn Frankfurt is currently offering a very interesting exhibition. All you need do is create a small change in regard to what one is used to – in this case erase the name of the artists – for the visitor to loose his points of reference. We so often read the label before looking at the work and thus judge the latter based on the name of the creator… That is impossible at «Anonymous». The eleven artists concerned decided to remain just that, anonymous. Their way of proceeding is of course very conceptual and aims at putting the finger on a reality, nurrished by the media system: known artists are increasingly limited to brand names (come on, take one example, that of Damien Hirst) which are then promoted according to the traditional marketing methods. And we end by putting aside any criterium of quality or originality. What curator had this brillant idea to have people talk about him? To date, he is playing according to his own rules and has remained unknown. If we push the game further, we would like for the embargo to remain after the exhibition. But maybe that is going too far. The system always catches up with those who try to resist it…

The website of the Schirn Kunsthalle (in English and to the rhythm of an Irish jig)

Klimt or Picasso, the night of the records?

NEW YORK - No sale has ever been so enticing: Christie's will be offering in New York, during its auctions on 8 and 9 November, five paintings each estimated about 50 million dollars. Will the market be solvent? When the contents of the sale were announced a few months ago, the star attraction was a Picasso, a melancholic portrait of the blue period, that of Angel Fernández de Soto (1902), that belongs to composer Andrew Lloyd Weber. Since then, the arrival on the market (again at Christie's) of four works by Klimt, stolen during the war and returned to their legitimate heirs, has disrupted the situation. A fifth painting of this ensemble, the portrait of Adèle Bloch-Bauer, was indeed bought in the Spring at 135 million dollars by Ronald Lauder, the king of cosmetics. And it is rumored he wishes to continue on the same path. Consequently checks will include various zeros that evening, even if one is never protected from a bad surprise. Next door, a Balthus at 7 million dollars (Les Trois Sœurs The three sisters), a Kirchner at 18 million or a Schiele at 20 almost look like trinkets. Gauguin's L'homme à la hache (Man with an ax) is the only one that could aspire to climb up on the podium. No easy task nevertheless, as it is only estimated at 35 million dollars…

Presentation of the sale

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November is photo time!

PARIS – This event, created in 1980, follows a bienial rhythm: in the fall of each year with an even number, November is promoted to «month of photography». Which implies there will be some 80 exhibitions on a given theme – this year it is the relations between photography and the printed page. In museums and galleries of course, as well as in book stores (Artazart, la Chambre claire), foreign cultural centers, town-halls of various arrondissements (Erich Lessing in that of the Xth), be it in a lycée (Louis-le-Grand). At la Maison européenne de la photographie, the flag ship in a way of the event, the focus is on young European creators (Mutations 1, starting on 2 November). A project that will be echoed in partner cities (Berlin, Bratislava, Luxembourg, Moscow, Rome and Vienna). The climax of this marathon of images will be the festival Paris Photo, from 14 to 18 November.

Artaud's parallel worlds

PARIS – A febril, frightening, crazy creative power, and in so many fields: cinema, drawing, writing, theater… The Bnf wishes through this exhibition to underline just that which characterized a man unique in his way, Antonin Artaud (1896-1948). His share of craziness, his confinment at the insane assylum of Rodez are rendered scenographically by a tunnel the visitor must enter. But the wealth of the funds of the Bnf and of private collectors allows us to go beyond what has become the Artaud cliche. Dozens of hand written notebooks, of which some have never been seen before, some sixty drawings (with various selfportraits), strange «spells» thrown on his friends as well as his writings on art, his contributions to cinema (in 1927-28, years that were very intense, he was directed by Dreyer and Dulac and played the part of Marat in AbelGance's ). To help define the character - if that were possible -, some of his sources of inspiration are shown in front of them. They go from Lucas de Leyde to Balthus, including André Masson and María Izquierdo's Mexican painting.

Rouault - Matisse: their friendship

PARIS – While all exhibitions aim at being unforgetable, unique, this one - rich, intelligent - announces it has no ambition of being a retrospective. This is very refreshing! The objective is simple: to bring back to life the friendship that united two major artists of the XXth century by focussing on their parallel lives. They were contemporaries– Georges Rouault (1871-1958) was slightly younger than Henri Matisse (1869-1954). They went to Gustave Moreau's workshop and agreed over half a century on a number of «knots»: the taste for landscapes, the love for the circus, the passion for Baudelaire, which they both illustrated. When they were in their seventies, Rouault and Matisse met one last time in the magazine Verve of Tériade. Those were the 40s: the heroes were old and tired, they had witnessed two horrendous wars but remained friends…

London calling... over...Paris...

LONDON – The season «Paris Calling», dedicated to the French contemporary scene and open since June, was officially launched by the minister of Culture, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, on 31 October. It presents a series of events in the English institutions (Pierre Huygue at the Tate Modern, Antigone under hypnosis by designers M/M at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Klossowski and Bellmer at Whitechapel) and in the private galleries (Tatiana Trouvé at Bischoff & Weiss, Erik Dietman at Anthony Reynolds). But also some installations at the Great Eastern Hotel and at the Chelsea College of Design. Or Ange Leccia at the Sketch, Pierre Gagnaire's very trendy restaurant. With the secret desire of proving that French contemporary art is capable of being exported…