Art Of The Day Weekly

Malevich, as much as you like

AMSTERDAM – His Black Square and White Square sufficed to ensure him world renown. But the work of Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935), one of the creators of Suprematism, is not limited to these avant-garde manifestos. Aside from the abstract component, there is a recurrent figurative element in his work. He first painted landscapes and nudes, with a Fauvist inspiration – and his last works are “stylized” landscapes full of color that reinterpret the motifs of the icons. The mammoth-sized exhibition dedicated to him allows us to see all of his work that could have disappeared in the upheavals of the Russian Revolution and of the Soviet era. The organizers added to the rich Stedelijk collection (created with paintings left in Western Europe as the artist foresaw the possibility of a change of popularity for him back in his native country), the Costakis collection, assembled by an embassy attaché in Moscow at the time of Communism. There are in total various hundreds of works in all possible formats by a radical genius who designed his own coffin…
• Kazimir Malevich at the Stedelijk Museum, from 19 October 2013 to 2 February 2014.

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Angkor resurrected!

PARIS – The temples of Angkor were devoured by the luxuriant vegetation after the site was abandoned by the Khmer dynasties during the XVIth century. In the middle of the XIXth century, explorer Henri Mouhot spoke up for them and Napoleon III’s France, with the intention of “saving” Cambodia –the prey of both Siam and Vietnam – studied them passionately. A native of Loches, a drawer, took part in their resurrection. Louis Delaporte (1842-1925) had a first mission on site in 1866. He then spent more than fifty years to carry out or to commission reliefs for the temples. These moldings, carried out under very difficult conditions, with gelatin and plaster, fascinated visitors of the Expositions coloniales in Marseille (1906, 1922) and Paris (1931). They were then left to rot for half a century in a humid room in the abbey of Saint-Riquier. But they are extremely important: some of them present states that have now disappeared due to the alterations and destructions the temples have undergone. Copies of the Bayon Face Towers, or the Churning of the Sea of Milk , recently restored, are finally exhibited at the musée Guimet. But no one knows what tomorrow may bring: will they once again fade into oblivion? Their future still remains to be decided …
• Angkor, naissance d’un mythe, Louis Delaporte et le Cambodge au musée Guimet, du 16 octobre 2013 au 13 janvier 2014.

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Pre-Colombian visions

LONDON – In Beyond El Dorado, the British Museum hosts the treasures of the museo de Oro of Bogotá, the expression of the Quimbaya, Calima and Chimú cultures. From 17 October 2013 to 23 March 2014.

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Poliakoff, the return

PARIS –Here is another great forgotten artist, who had never been shown in such a detailed manner in nearly half a century.Serge Poliakoff (1900-1969) is hosted at the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris (photo: Espace orangé, 1948, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Liège © ADAGP Paris, 2013). From 18 October 2013 to 23 February 2014.

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Helleu, old times snobbism

PARIS - On 27 June 2000, his rate had shot up above €430 000 (Sotheby’s London, artprice figures). Since then, Paul-César Helleu (1859-1927), the portrait artist of a high, superficial bourgeoisie, wearing hats and caps, busy with its regattas and horse races, has been in purgatory. In five years only one of his paintings has sold for more than €50 000. His redemption is probably around the corner as an interesting private collection – that of Françoise Dolto’s brother, Dr Marette – includes ten of his works, among them a beautiful portrait of the painter’s wife and son. Their lightness and carefree aspect say nothing of the time at which it was painted, 1915 or 1916, when the Marne and Verdun made the headlines for other reasons… Phippe Marette was a psychiatrist as well as an antique dealer, and he had a good eye as we can also see in his two beautiful Metzinger, certain Forain and some Waroquier at friends’ prices (oils on cardboard estimated less than €1000)…
Importants tableaux et sculptures modernes 18 October 2013 at hôtel-Drouot (Blanchet & Associés)

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Niki, mother of the Nanas

She is inextricably linked to her over-dimensioned Nanas that made her famous. But Niki de Saint-Phalle is not limited to these icons of colored femininity the public at large loves so. Earlier on she had shocked more than “a lucky few” with her “shooting paintings” or with her colossal lying odalisque, Hon, presented in 1966 at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. One could visit the inside by going through the vagina. Niki de Saint-Phalle was a descendant of a blue-blooded dynasty ruined by the crash in 1929, was abused by her own father, married to an experimental writer -Harry Mathews-, was a friend of Queneau’s and then of one of the popes of art brut (Tinguely). She had multiple lives. The book covers all of them in parallel, tracing her friendships with Spoerri, Restany, Jodorowsky among others, her creations (from< i>The Golem in Jerusalem to the garden of Tarots in Italy) and her sufferings. There is only one thing that is missing, which Anglo-Saxon publishers know how to avoid: the absence of an index of the names, that would be most useful to find one’s way through this labyrinth of lovers, friendships and artistic influences!
• Niki de Saint Phalle, la révolte à l'œuvre, by Catherine Francblin, Hazan, 2013, 448 p., €29

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