Art Of The Day Weekly
#184 - from 16 September 2010 to 22 September 2010
Claude Monet, En Norvégienne, 1887 oil on canvas, 97,5 x 130,5 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris © service presse Rmn / Hervé Lewandowski
IN THE AIR
Big Monet
PARIS – This exhibition, a retrospective of the prince of Impressionism in the heights of the Grand Palais, is destined to be a success. It is like putting out a Michael Jackson album oat Christmas time or publishing a discount edition of the Astérix comic books. The record so far at this museum is 78 000 visitors, and that was for « Picasso and the great masters» in 2008.Though of no concern to the public at large, one can wonder what novelty this event can contribute to our knowledge of this painter: undoubtedly, a deep insight into Monet’s early years with the snow scenes in Bougival, or the stormy sea at Etretat. But also, very special attention will be given to the still lives and the human figure. This will be the chance to conclude affirmatively that Monet was not simply a landscape artist.
• Claude Monet at the Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, from 22 September 2010 to 24 January 2011. Catalogue RMN, 50 €.
EXHIBITIONS
Dali strikes back
MILAN - Monet in Paris vs Dalí in Milan. Large retrospectives of modern art, with their media coverage, have an increasingly similarity with boxing matches: just like on the ring, it will be interesting to see the performance of the two exhibitions that will open on the same day. Such an ambitious Dali had not been seen in Milan since 1954 and we know the painter loved the Lombard capital. He drew his inspiration from the Room of the Caryatids in Palazzo Reale (where the show is held) for his home in Figueres, now the head of the Gala and Salvador Dali Foundation. Next to a Mae West room dully redone by architect Oscar Tusquets (author of the famous lip-sofa under Dali’s instructions), we will be able to see, in the midst of the fifty or so works (most of them on loan from the foundation), a curious creation: Destiny, the film shot by the artist at the Disney studios and though never finished was shown in 2003.
• Dalí at Palazzo Reale, from 22 September 2010 to 30 January 2011. Catalogue 24 Ore
• Also see the exhibition Dalí, Lorca y la Residencia de Estudiantes at the Caixa Forum in Madrid, from 22 September 2010 to 6 February 2011.
For or against Arman
PARIS – He accumulated cans of paint, brushes, dentures, Renault springs and everything our consumer society could supply him with to melt down under glass. Has he aged well? Was Arman only an opportunist who applied a successful recipe mechanically? We may fid the answers to these questions in the retrospective the Centre Pompidou dedicates to the Stakhanovist artist from Nice, the member of the New Realism who died in 2005 at the age of 77. This global vision that brings together more than 100 works, among them Colères (broken violins), the Poubelles and the lesser known Allures d’objets (traces of objects going back to the end of the 1950s) up to Footing Painting from 2000, to show us a bountiful half a century, may allow us to reach a conclusion…
• Arman at the Centre Pompidou, from 22 September 2010 to 10 January 2011
Artaujourdhui also recommends
. In Madrid, the Reina Sofia museum dedicates a retrospective to German artist Hans Peter Feldman, born in 1941. From 22 September 2010 to 28 February 2011.
. The Bible of Anjou, a superb incunabulum from the court of Robert I st of Anjou, king of Naples, is being presented after two years of restoration work at the museum of Louvain. From 17 September to 28 November 2010.
. Gabriel Orozco, the the leading artist of Mexican contemporary art, will enjoy a retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, in Paris. From 15 September 2010 to 3 January 2011.
FAIRS
Antiques in Paris
PARIS – It has been going on for 54 years and gives no sign of relenting. In spite of strong competition from the Tefaf Maastricht of course, but also from the biennale of Florence, the Biennale des antiquaires de Paris opens its 25th edition at the Grand Palais. It will host, around the hard nucleus of Parisian «historic» galleries (Didier Aaron, Perrin, Steinitz, de Jonckheere, de Bayser, Brame & Lorenceau), a few new exhibitors, such as Tornabuoni, blessed by the success of his recent Paris opening. Without the heavyweights such as the Kugel (who will be inaugurating their own exhibition, «Anticomania» that same day), Noortman or Jean-Luc Baroni, the Biennale has chosen to introduce twenty-five future talents, in a symbolic manner since these future heavyweights have been invited to present one work each, for each edition of the event, at the «Springboard for the Biennale».
• XXVe Biennale des antiquaires at the Grand Palais, from 15 to 22 September 2010
AUCTIONS
Lot 9. Anonymous, Dai Nihonkoku fûzoku zu, end of 19th century? 26 x 23,4 cm. Courtesy Pierre Bergé et Associés. Estimate: €1,000-2,000
Prints a'plenty!
PARIS – In the Bérès family there is Pierre, the father, the unique booklover died in 2008, and Huguette, the mother, a specialist in Japanese art died in 1999. Among the many children, there is Annisabelle, the heiress of her mother’s activity, who will be in the limelight this autumn with the 4-day marathon sale at Pierre Bergé’s. The thousands of Japanese prints of the Ukiyo-e style («images of the floating world») up for sale come from the mother’s collection as well as from her own. Major artists’ names are present and the public expects beautiful works by them– Hokusaï with his Three water turtles (15 000 €) or Hiroshige, with a complete album of the Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji (same estimate). But the star of the auction should be the mysterious Sharaku, whose known activity was limited to des portraits of kabuki actors sketched over a brief six-month long period (1794-95). His Morita Kanya III in the role of Uguisi No Jirôsaku in an Oban format (380 x 255 mm) is estimated at 100 000 €.
• Ukiyo-e ou les images du monde flottant at Pierre Bergé et Associés, from 16 to 19 September 2010.
ARTIST OF THE WEEK
Guo Fengyi, courtesy galerie Christian Berst, Paris.
Guo Fengyi, brut art, Chinese style
The watershed of young artists in a rush, the price inflation– up to various million Euros in public sales – have pressed the public to conclude hastily and in a lasting manner that Chinese art is either calligraphies on rice paper, or «pure and hard» contemporary. Yet, there are some cracks to explore as the Christian Berst gallery has discovered. It shows a representative of art brut, Guo Fengyi, recently deceased (1942-2010). A technician in a rubber factory, she was often condemned to inactivity by her crises of arthritis and this pushed her to a hallucinating type of creation, with long, spectral characters, dragons and imaginary birds traced with a brush and black ink.
• Guo Fengyi is exhibited until 16 October 2010 at the galerie Christian Berst, which will inaugurate on 16 September 2010 its new space near the Pompidou Centre, (3-5 passage des Gravilliers, 75003 Paris).
BOOKS
Gallery owners, slices of life
The author presents in his introduction a saying by Heinz Berggruen: «There are as many types of collectors as there are collectors», and he is right in doing so. For this applies to the world of gallery owners as well. It is therefore impossible to draw up a profile of the specimen. In these Parisian sketches we can find ambitious youths (Emmanuel Perrotin) as well as family dynasties (the Di Meo, Albert Loeb) or late vocations (Jean Brolly). Some react immediately to new fashions, others defend artists over a long period (Guinan at Loeb) even if most admit that the selection at Art Basel has become an essential passage if one wants to survive economically. Beyond this sociological study, what makes these characters fascinating, and in particular the older ones, is the quantity of remarkable encounters they had the luck of having throughout their lives. As we trod along we run into Alfred Barr (the founder of the MoMA), the Viscountess de Noailles, Mrs. Schlumberger in her Rolls, Alain Cuny or Claude Berri…
•Galeristes by Anne Martin-Fugier, Actes Sud, 2010, 304 p., 23 €
IN BRIEF
BOULOGNE-BILLANCOURT - The museum dedicated to the sculptor Paul-Belmondo opens on 18 September 2010.
EUROPE - The Heritage Days, held on 18 and 19 September 2010 in various countries in Europe, offer exceptional vistis to monuments that are usually closed.
LIVERPOOL- The contemporary art biennal will run from 18 September to 28 November 2010.
MONACO-The New national musuem of Monaco (NMNM) presents its first exhibition at Villa Paloma, one of its spaces, on 18 September 2010 with works chosen by artist Thomas Demand.
PARIS-The BAL, the new space dedicated to photos from documentaries through exhibitions and debates, will open on 18 September 2010 in a former public ballroom over 650 sq.mts. big, which was also once a brothel and a game hall (6 impasse de la Défense, 75018).
PARIS- The 1st contemporay art biennal of Belleville will be held until 28 October 2010 in various venues in the neighborhood: Maison des métallos, the Antenne du Plateau and various galleries..