Art Of The Day Weekly
#188 - from 14 October 2010 to 20 October 2010
Jean-Léon Gérôme, L'intérieur grec, Le gynécée, 1850, oil on canvas, 66,95 x 99,1 cm. New York, private collection. Property of Lady Micheline Connery.
IN THE AIR
Larry Clark, the scarecrow
What can we show? Where do art and the documentary end, where does pornography begin? What risks do we take with images that common moral standards disapprove of, at a time of tensions? Such is the challenge Larry Clark faces with his exhibition at the musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris. The crude photographs of teenagers making love are just a part of the artist’s production dedicated to the marginal youth of the large American cities. But they have been the focus of the debate and have nourished the controversy, in part thanks to the front page (quite daring in these times) of the daily newspaper Libération. The ban the mayor of Paris has put on an exhibition that speaks of teenagers is paradoxical. It is a new illustration of the all-powerful principle of precaution, according to which rather than risk an endless trial fomented by fundamentalists, let us not show anything! Rather than face the look of adults, terrorized by the potential presence of pornography, and further more, of pedophilia, Larry Clark had another, more revolutionary idea, as he explained to the Monde, to forbid the entrance to those over 18 …
• Larry Clark, Kiss the past hello at the musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, until 2 January 2011.
EXHIBITIONS
Beauty according to Gérôme
PARIS – For a long time he was one of the symbols of academic painting, hence vilified by the avant-gardes. This retrospective, the first large one in Paris in over a century, should help brush away certain misunderstandings regarding Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904). The curators wish to underline the modernity of his settings (a friend of Le Gray’s, he never hesitated to draw his inspiration from photographic frames) and the spectacular dimension of his antique compositions (such as Pollice Verso, on loan from the Phoenix Art Museum), which would have a great influence on the birth of the peplum in Hollywood. In his paintings of History or of Oriental atmosphere, he went very far in his search of the real detail. The exhibition touches on all these aspects: painter as well as sculptor, where he demonstrates he is a master of the trompe-l’œil and of polychromy (as in the plaster of Corinthe, bought by the museum in 2008), and a great «communicator». He was the son-in-law of Alphonse Goupil, the owner of a famous house of prints in Bordeaux, and would be one of the most reproduced artists of the XIXth century.
• Jean-Léon Gérôme, l’histoire en spectacle au musée d’Orsay, du 19 octobre 2010 au 23 janvier 2011
Eugène Leroy, Head, 1967, private collection, Paris. Photo : Florian Kleinefenn. © Eugène-Jean Leroy et Jean-Jacques Leroy
Leroy, layer after layer
TOURCOING -His long life was very creative (1910-2000), influenced by very varied sources, from Rembrandt to the Russian icons, from the Flemish primitives to Malevitch. His own painting, at the beginning very «easy to read» (portraits, feminine nudes) increasingly gained dimension, and with time became an impressive sedimentation of matter on canvas. The well-defined contours progressively gave way to an accumulation of oil and pigments, which he continued adding, refusing to accept a painting he was still working on could be finished. The donation by his children to the museum is the basis of the 150 work- exhibition of this «local» painter (he was born in Tourcoing). He is practically unknown by the general public but was recognized a long time ago by Baselitz or Sam Francis, by famous gallery owners (Claude Bernard, Michael Werner) and has been presented in major events (biennale in Venice, Documenta in Cassel).
• Eugène Leroy, l’exposition du centenaire, at the musée des Beaux-Arts from 10 October 2010 to 31 March 2011.
Olga, Paulo, Picasso and Gotthard Schuh in front of Hôtel Baur au Lac in Zurich, in 1932. Photo: Hans Robert Welti © Stiftung Adrien Turel, Zurich
Picasso is back
ZURICH – The Picasso exhibition organized by the Kunsthaus is not the retrospective of the century. But its symbolic value goes well beyond the simple digital inventory of the masterpieces grouped together. It is indeed a re-edition of the first large retrospective dedicated to Picasso in a museum and coordinated by the master himself. In order to host, in 1932, this retrospective presented in a very sober and well-spaced manner, the Kunsthaus had even moved a part of its permanent collections. As it celebrates its centennial, the museum turns back to this emblematic exhibition, which at the time had attracted the incredible figure of 34 000 visitors, to show its role in the creation of the Picasso myth. Some of the works shown are back, on loan from major museums or more discreet private collections.
• Picasso at the Kunsthaus Zurich, from 15 October 2010 to 30 January 2011.
The Kunsthaus website with a slide show from the 1932 exhibition
Art-of-the-day also recommends...
• The Picasso museum in Barcelona studies in Picasso ante Degas, the rich relationship that linked the Spanish artist to his Impressionist predecessor. From 15 October 2010 to 16 January 2011.
• In Brussels, the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts, in De Delacroix à Kandinsky. L’Orientalisme en Europe draw the portrait of a pictorial genre very much in vogue during the XIXth century. From 15 October 2010 to 9 January 2011.
• At the Cité de la Musique, in Paris, Lénine, Staline et la musique is a multi-disciplinary approach, based on models, drawings, paintings, photos, instruments, etc, of the conflicting relationships between revolution, dictatorship and the arts. From 12 October 2010 to 16 January 2011.
AUCTIONS
The hidden aspects of Marquet
PARIS – Everyone knows Albert Marquet and his views of ports in a pearl grey light, his Parisian boulevards or his townscapes of the working class suburbs. But what about his portraits and self-portraits, his caricatures, his nudes – from the back, the front, sitting, leaning against a wall -, his erotic sketches (or rather Sapphic and only towards the end of the auction), the animals from the zoo in Vincennes, the singers in the cafes and the scenes of mundane cruises? The two-day sale of some nearly one thousand drawings by the artist will have us discover themes hardly seen before. It is also an opportunity for fetishists: on sale there will also be the artist’s car certificate from 1946, his voter’s card from the VIth arrondissement, his mail, his family record book (livret de famille)…
• Albert Marquet at Richelieu-Drouot (SVV Deburaux-Aponem) on 17 and 18 October 2010.
ARTIST OF THE WEEK
Gagosian Gallery, Gallery one : Jean Francois Bodin - Caruso St John Architects / Photo © Gautier Deblonde
Larry Gagosian, portrait of the gallery owner as a performer
His arrival is creating tremors in the Paris art world and has become a happening in itself. Larry Gagosian is not an artist so to speak, even if the legend that precedes him says he started by selling posters and silk-screened T-shirts on the beaches in California. Though a man of few words, he is currently the number one gallery owner in the world in terms of volume of business. His collection is full with the most expensive masterpieces, from Murakami to Damien Hirst, which he presents over an «urbi et orbi» network. Indeed he owns galleries in New York (3), Los Angeles (2), London (2), Rome and Athens. Paris is simply the last pawn of a well-furbished game of chess. The space was redesigned by architects Jean-François Bodin and Caruso St John, and the opening exhibitions are dedicated to Cy Twombly and Jean Prouvé. But rumor has it King Larry has come to Paris not so much to show as to buy: his appetite is whet by the treasures that sleep in the venerable French collections …
• Galerie Gagosian opens on 20 October 2010 at 4, rue de Ponthieu, 75008 Paris
BOOKS
Angkor, in black and white
The site of Angkor, in Cambodia, spread out over more than 50 km2, currently welcomes more than 2 million visitors a year … and its physical integrity is at risk because of this. It has already greatly suffered in the past. This book, a catalogue of an exhibition at the musée Cernuschi, takes us back not too far in time, at the end of the XIXth century and the first half of the XXth. That was the time of pioneers who first discovered the site engulfed by colossal banyan and kapok trees, then –directed by Henri Marchal-revived them partially, through the anastylosis technique (which consists in removing and rebuilding a temple), learnt from archaeologists active in Indonesia. Aside from the captivating and «sublime» images of a jungle that was devouring man’s architecture, the book describes in detail the phases of the saving of the main temples by the specialists from the EFEO (French School of the Far-East). The latest was the Baphuon, a «mountain-temple» to soon be «inaugurated» following a long restoration.
• Archéologues à Angkor, photographies de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient catalogue of the exhibition at the musée Cernuschi (until 2 January 2011), Paris musées, 2010, 240 p., 29 €.
IN BRIEF
LISBON – The Architecture Triennale will be held from 14 October 2010 to 16 January 2011.
LONDON – The Frieze contemporary art fair will be held from 14 to 17 October 2010. It is accompanied by satellite fairs such as Sunday, Moniker and Multiplied (launched by Christie’s).
LONDON – The Pavilion of Art & Design will be held at Berkeley Square from 13 to 17 October 2010.
PARIS – The Pompidou Temporary Studio, a light structure built on the Centre Pompidou by architects Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines during the construction works of the Centre Pompidou Metz, will be up for sale on 15 October 2010 at Pierre Bergé & Associés.
PARIS – The Trois jours of the Drouot district, grouping together galleries, experts and auction houses, will be held from 14 to 16 October 2010 on the theme of the nude.
PARIS – The exhibition Antidote 6, that presents seven contemporary artists at the galeries Lafayette department store, will be held from 14 October 2010 to 8 January 2011.
PARIS – The galerie Taglialatella, specialized in Pop Art, already active in New York and Palm Beach, will open on 23 October 2010 at 10 rue de Picardie.
ON ART-OF-THE-DAY.INFO
This week, do not miss…
SIGNAC, THE FRENCH PORTS
LE HAVRE - The musée Malraux presents for the first time the extraordinary series of watercolors on the ports of France. These nearly one hundred compositions were done by the artist between 1931 and 1933 with the magnanimous sponsorship of Gaston Lévy, the founder of the Monoprix stores.