Art Of The Day Weekly

Just what is a museum?

News from Japan recounts scenes of near hysteria as the public sets eyes on Gauguin’s mythical painting, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?, which is on show for the first time in Nagoya. Women cry, men pray. This confirms that the museum can be a temple – Stendhal himself used to faint when facing beauty and the syndrome that describes this type of ill-feeling is named after him. Museums can also be the latest fashionable venue – where one goes rather than go have a drink at Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Concerts, shows, fashion shows and the rendez-vous of the «Night of the museums», which will be held for the 5th time on 16 May, are party to this sometimes forced adaptation to the trend. Lastly, the museum can be the successful extension of a vineyard or a tool-manufacturing multinational: just think of the different Würth museums or the latest one, the James Turrell museum, inaugurated two weeks ago by wine magnate Donald Hess, on his Argentine estancia in Colomé. Some may find this variety a bit shocking but it illustrates the sector’s vitality at a time when the crisis American museums are going through due to a lack of funds always comes up in conversations.

La nuit des musées 2009 (Museum Night 2009)

The Turrell museum at Colomé

Going through Normandy

CAEN-ROUEN-LE HAVRE – This is what happens when Normans get together: a major exhibition, in three parts, presenting the image of Normandy over the last two centuries, strongly shaped by Anglo-Saxon artists and photographers. Rouen presents the vision of English painters Bonington, Turner or Cotman, pioneers in appreciating Normand beauties. The Havre focuses on one of those ambitious projects of the XIXth century: Picturesque and monumental Normandy was a publication in five volumes, in perfect quality as we can see through the helioprints. Lastly, the city of Caen shows the attraction photographers had for a region of changing lights and omnipresent water. And the itinerary ends with a contemporary look thanks to a commission made to three current artists – Joachim Mogarra, Vincenzo Castella and Ruth Blees Luxemburg.

Frank Lloyd Wright, 50 years later

NEW YORK – He died two months before the inauguration of the Guggenheim museum, his most known work. It is a little as if Frank Gehry had passed away before the opening of the Guggenheim Bilbao… Fifty years after the birth of the spiral building that marked the New York landscape, an exhibition celebrates its architect, Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), the variety of his inspiration and his exceptional longevity. Original drawings, rarely or never seen before, and new models, made especially for this exhibit, give a perspective of a career that spanned three quarters of a century, and includes office buildings (the Larkin Building in Buffalo), villas (the Falling water House or his own house in Taliesin, now the headquarters of the foundation) and urban utopia such as the Crystal City in Washington or the map of Larger Bagdad.

Bulgaria on a gold background

PARIS – They come from the National Gallery in Sofia, from the Historical Museum in Preslav, or the monastery in Batchkovo: a choice of Bulgarian icons, presented at the recently restored Sainte-Chapelle in the Castle of Vincennes. The icon was born when the people converted to Christianity in 864, and became a true political symbol of the country during the fight for independence, won in 1878. The nearly 80 examples brought together are set up on a narrow wooden gallery, similar to a iconostasis, and span a period of nearly one thousand years, from a saint Theodore in ceramic from the Xth century up to profane motifs from the XIXth century, including large compositions from the XIVth century, when the genre was at its peak.

Do not miss: The treasures of Mount-Athos at the Petit Palais until 5 July 2009

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The call of Nature

BRUSSELS - A chameleon in repoussé copper from the Wiener Werkstatte workshops, a bird in rosewood by the Martel brothers, great names in Art déco, a watercolor of an elephant by Paul Cooreman, an illustrator from the thirties, or an etching by Paul Jouve detailing the fight between a tiger and a python. During the May sales, the Pierre Bergé house has planned a session of animal art. It will include famous artists such as specialists Mène and Barye or Rembrandt Bugatti. The latter had settled in Antwerp in 1907 and used to often go for walks towards the zoo… His marabout faces a monkey or an ostrich during her bath by his friend Albéric Collin. The highest bid, that could go beyond 50 000 euros, will have a competition between Dunand with a deer screen, Fernand Gysen and his baby elephants and a cayenne chicken from Pompon.