Art Of The Day Weekly
#157 - from 14 January 2010 to 20 January 2010
IN THE AIR
French, your documents please!
As headlines talk a lot of national identity in France, the exhibition at the Salle Saint-Jean of the Paris Town Hall is a real gust of fresh air. Indeed, it will delight among other viewers those who have tried the surrealist adventure of renewing their French passport when they have been born abroad or, God forgive, if they have an ancestor from the Mediterranean region. The exhibit is dedicated to Izis, and first of all surprises us when we learn that among the five photographers who best symbolised the French humanist school (according to the exhibition at the MoMA in NewYork in 1951), half of them had rather exotic roots. Willi Ronis was the son of a Jew from Odessa, Izis was Lithuanian and Brassaï was Hungarian. If these three artists had not been able to exercise their profession, would the other two members of the quintet, Cartier-Bresson and Doisneau, have been stung by the same creative bug? The funniest side of this is the fact that these «mixed blood» artists caught the true essence of Paris, much better than the old Parisians – the lovers, the carrousels, the pigeons pecking on the sidewalks, the barges, the kids of Montmartre flying down its steep steps. A troubling enigma…
•Izis, le Paris des rêves is presented from 20 January to 29 May 2010 at the Salle Saint-Jean of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris.
EXHIBITIONS
Frida Kahlo La columna rota (The Broken Column), 1944 Oil on masonite, 39.8 x 30.5 cm © Collection Museo Dolores Olmedo, Xochimilco, México
A concentrate of Frida's essence
BRUSSELS – Throughout her short life she was shadowed by her powerful lover and husband, Diego Rivera, and had to fight against the consequences of a terrible tram accident. Today, Rivera is in purgatory and she, Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), has become an international icon, even enticing Hollywood screenwriters. As incomplete as it may be, an exhibition of her works is bound to attract the crowds. It is the conviction at Bozar, which presents for the bicentennial of the Mexican Independence the private collection from the Dolores Olmedo museum: a mere twenty paintings, but they cover the essential part of Kahlo’s career, from 1927 to 1945, and most of the themes she dealt with, of which of course the self-portrait. At a time when the discovery of Frida Kahlo copies is constantly announced, this is good timing. An ensemble of photographs presents the famous Blue House in Coyoacán, in Mexico City, and the people who surrounded her, including some well-known personalities such as Trotsky and Gisèle Freund.
•Frida Kahlo y su mundo, at Bozar, from 16 January to 18 April 2010
•Do not miss, until 27 May 2010: the exhibition Les femmes soldats at the Maison des Amériques latines (3 rue Cassette, 75006 Paris), presenting a selection from the Casasola photo archives, among the most complete on the revolution and the social unrest at the beginning of the XXth century in Mexico.
Bronzino on paper
NEW YORK – This is a big first for Bronzino (1503-1572). The Mannerist painter, with metallic colors and whose Portrait of Eleonora di Toledo is one of the masterpieces of the Uffizi in Florence, had never been the object of an international retrospective. The fault is somewhat forgiven. Not completely, since the exhibition organized by the Metropolitan Museum is only dedicated to the artist’s drawings, of which almost the totality has been brought together. A notorious perfectionist, Bronzino only left some sixty drawings; but they allow us to see the refinement of his line and the extent of his sources of inspiration, mythological and allegoric. Justice freeing Innocence, a preparatory drawing for one of the first tapestries produced by the Medici’s workshops, is the highlight of the ensemble. Like many of the pieces exhibited, this elaborate composition has too rarely been on public view.
•The drawings of Bronzino at the Metropolitan Museum, from 20 January to 18 April 2010.
Claude Parent, oblique architecture
PARIS – His name has long since left the limelight, but his influence goes on, in particular among his former disciples, the most famous being Jean Nouvel (who is responsible for setting up the exhibition). This much-awaited retrospective by the Cité de l’architecture is a sort of official consecration for Claude Parent, born in 1923.The church of Sainte-Bernadette in Nevers or the Maison de l’Iran at the International Campus of the University of Paris, real milestones of modern architecture, never aroused popular enthusiasm but they did leave their mark on a generation of professionals. The large cement forms in which he placed private homes or his later shopping centres bestowed him the title of pope of «oblique architecture». The man who also played an essential part in the architecture of nuclear plants, will come back for this event and will create a 10-meter long fresco on the urban theme.
•Claude Parent, l’œuvre construite, l’œuvre graphique at the Cité de l’architecture, from 20 January to 2 May 2010.
AUCTIONS
Dirt cheap prices for the eternal summits
PARIS – Are you looking for a snowy view of Chamonix, for the aiguille du Midi in a violet light, or for the hard lines of the Jungfrau, in black and white? The fourth auction of «Mountain paintings», at Blanchet’s, is one of those themed sales that is increasingly popular. Aside from some isolated cases such as a Scottish landscape by Gustave Doré (estimated at 4000 €), a series of views of Swiss Alpine villages by August Joseph Knip (1777-1847) or Vallotton’s beautiful xylographs, most of the lots will be accessible at limited quotations. A beautiful Sunset over Belledonne by Paul Berthier (end of XIXth century) will be accessible at 200 or 300 €, a small watercolor by Harpignies for the same price and drawings by Samivel for hardly more. Is this the right moment? In this cold continent at the beginning of the year, potential buyers will have their share of winter atmospheres …
•Mountain paintings at Drouot-Richelieu (SVV Blanchet et associés) on 15 January 2010
ARTIST OF THE WEEK
Fred Wilson, Oto Benga, photo G.R. Christmas, © Fred Wilson, courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York
Fred Wilson, the essence of black and white
One could make a mistake if looking at his works from far: Fred Wilson is neither a sculptor nor a talented foundry worker. He is a conceptual artist who has become a master in politically incorrect installations, with one aim in mind, to show by the bias of allegories and irony, how racism persists. During his studies, he was the only black student in his class at his university in Purchase, New York. Now 56 years old, he is known and respected around the world. He was the artist of the American pavilion at the biennale of Venice in 2003 and was recently elected to the Administration Board of the Whitney Museum. But he continues to denounce what he feels must be. By combining objects found randomly, pieces of material, symbolic manufactured objects (in Venice, it was the Moors in black Murano glass), video projections (Othello for example), he recreates a visual and sound environment that forces the viewer to reconsider the relation between Whites and Blacks and beyond that, the relation between all races.
•Fred Wilson is shown at the galerie JGM (79 rue du Temple, 75003 Paris) from 15 January to 6 March 2010
BOOKS
Vu, a lesson in reporting
It marked the thirties by closely following the rise of Nazism, the Spanish war, the passion for sports and the major technical and scientific adventures (aviation, cars, exploring). With «provocative» covers, the magazine turned to the best photographers (Germaine Krull, Eli Lotar, Robert Capa whose famous photos of the militiaman dying in combat appeared in the 445 issue dated 23 September 1936) and it also called upon the best writers (Colette, Philippe Soupault, André Maurois, Bertrand de Jouvenel). The magazine Vu, by Lucien Vogel, had a predominant influence on the evolution of printed magazines. And its courage still surprises us today: on 23 April 1932, the cover signed by Maximilien Vox, which frames Hitler, is written over with a huge «We are done for». In this volume that retraces all the history of Vu from 1928 to 1940, one simply regrets the facsimiles are sometimes too small to be easily read and that not all the articles were systematically reproduced. This well proves that seventy years later we are still incited by these splash headlines…
•Vu, le magazine photographique, by Michel Frizot and Cédric de Veigy, La Martinière publishing house, 2009, 65 €, ISBN : 978-2-7324-3751-4
IN BRIEF
HONG KONG – The Chairman of Christie’s Europe, François Curiel, will leave his seat to François de Ricqlès to go head Christie’s Asia.
LONDON – The London Art Fair brings together some one hundred galleries of modern and contemporary art from 13 to 17 January 2010 at the Business Center of Islington.
LOS ANGELES –The Getty Museum announced on 7 January 2010 the resignation of Michael Brand who directed the museum since December 2005.
LOS ANGELES- New York art dealer Jeffrey Deitch has been named director of the MoCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), a position that had been vacant for a year.
MADRID – In one of its most massive movements of works of art, the musée d’Orsay is lending nearly one hundred paintings to the Mapfre foundation for an exhibition on Impressionism from 15 January to 22 April 2010.
PARIS – The Louvre museum has set a new attendance record by welcoming 8.5 million visitors in 2009.
TUNIS – The Institut des belles-lettres arabes (Institute of Arab Literature) was victim to a fire in the night of 5 January 2010 that caused the death of one person and important damages to the precious manuscripts and works.