Art Of The Day Weekly
#388 - from 14 May 2015 to 20 May 2015
Inauguration of the Bosquet du Théâtre d'eau, in Versailles, 11 May 2015, with O'de ballet performed by the L.A. Dance Project (Photo R. Pic)
IN THE AIR
A new garden in Versailles
It had not happened in the last two centuries! The castle of Versailles had capitalized on the colossal assets left by Le Nôtre (and, we could add, by Hubert Robert), and had not created a new garden in two hundred years. As years went by things had changed. The former Bosquet du Théâtre d’eau, an aquatic masterpiece with jets, waterfalls and statues, inaugurated in 1671, was just a mere shadow of what it had been. Louis XV abandoned it, Louis XVI disfigured it and the storms in 1990 and 1999 leveled it down. It was screaming for help. The choice was to either recreate it identically or, on the contrary, make a contemporary work of art. The latter was decided. Landscape artist Louis Benech and artist Jean-Michel Othoniel steered the project, and the new thicket was inaugurated on 11 May. The pool is “environmentally friendly” and reversible, as it is simply set down, surrounded by resistant species such as periwinkles and Siberian bramble – to shine even in winter -, and embellished with fountains of golden pearls in a shape that recalls the dance movements of the XVIIth century. The châteu de Versailles is used to seeing artists such as Jeff Koons or Lee Ufan intervene on its site, and has updated its landscape. It has no intention of stepping out of the limelight: next week the pool of Latone will be inaugurated after being restored and remained in its original style.
EXHIBITIONS
Jacques Bellange (circa 1595-?, 1616), Turkish Archer, 1600-1606. Chantilly, musée Condé © RMN Domaine de Chantilly/ Thierry Ollivier
The festive XVIIth century
CHANTILLY – We had to wait 161 years so the public could discover this portfolio. In 1854, Louis-Philippe’s son, the duke of Aumale and the real founder of the museum, bought it. According to the by-laws the institution cannot lend any of its works that range from Clouet to Piero di Cosimo, Watteau to Ingres. Said portfolio takes us back to the region of Lorraine during the XVIIth century. It documents the wedding of Henri, duke of Bar and heir to the throne of Lorraine, with Marguerite de Gonzague, the daughter of the duke of Mantua, in 1606. Indeed, the portfolio contains 23 drawings by Jacques Bellange that illustrate the sumptuous celebrations that accompanied that wedding in Nancy. A triumphant chariot, page boys dressed in “Turkish” style, choirs and groups of dancers in blue satin, fireworks and lights that lasted throughout the week of the Summer solstice. The court of France was to take example from these celebrations as can be seen in the 34 engravings enclosed: they were drawn by Berain, who was in charge of the celebrations given by Louis XIV.
• Fastes de cour at the château de Chantilly, from 13 May to 13 August 2015.
Jacques-Emile Blanche, Marcel Proust, 1892, oil on canvas, 73.5 x 60.5 cm, Paris, musée d’Orsay © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski
The other Blanche
EVIAN – We owe him the emblematic image of Proust, with a carnation in his lapel. But not only. He also painted young Gide at the Café maure of the 1900 Universal Expo in Paris or Cocteau puffing up his chest. Jacques-Emile Blanche (1861-1942) was naturally exposed to the “beautiful people” , since throughout his youth he saw the most original characters walk in and out of his home. His father was the famous Docteur Blanche, a psychiatrist who welcomed his patients – among them Nerval and Maupassant- in his clinic, a “hôtel particulier” in Passy. Blanche Jr was a friend of Oscar Wilde, Maurice Denis, Puvis de Chavannes (his marriage witness) and Mallarmé, among others. He was able to apply his psychological insight inherited from his father, in these portraits that are true reports on the intellectuals of the Belle Epoque. The nearly one hundred paintings – most of them on loan from donation made in 1921 to the musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen - prove it. Blanche considered himself a writer as much as a painter, but he was not known for his literary works and his novels, studies of his masters (Manet) or his memoires (La Pêche aux souvenirs) still await their public.
• Jacques-Emile Blanche, peintre, écrivain, homme du monde at the Palais Lumière, from 7 May to 6 September 2015.
Belgian delirium
ROME - To be Belgian is a true mission! Two thousand years ago, Julius Cesar himself noted the originality of this people the most difficult to conquer among the Gaul tribes. Courage can be exercised in a thousand ways, even pacific ones. In the genesis of the artistic avant guards for example, the Belgians have always played a part that in proportion to its population – 10 million – is greatly superior). We have various examples to prove it, from Ensor’s grimacing satires with his carnivals of skeletons to the contemporary provocations by Jan Fabre, who covered the walls of the Royal Palace of Brussels with the wing case of dragon flies, undressed actors in Avignon or continued very interesting research on death and on the human condition, which also stimulated Magritte, Delvaux or Wim Delvoye, the author of an impressive machine to produce excrements (Cloaca). Félicien-Rops, Spilliaert, Permeke, Alechinsky or Panamarenko reinforce the ranks in this exhibition that reveals, in one single glance, the unsuspected wealth of Jacques Brel’s beloved ‘Flat country.’
• I Belgi. Barbari e poeti at MACRO, from 15 May to 13 September 2015.
ARTIST OF THE WEEK
Carl Andre, a maxi exhibit for a minimalist artist
MADRID – A well-known minimalist artist, Carl Andre (born in 1935) is not only known for his stone or wood blocks laid out very precisely, almost ritually. He also appeared in the news in 1985, when his companion at the time, Cuban artist Ana Mendieta, fell from the 34th floor of their apartment building. The exhibition at Reina Sofía means to be definite: it spans over fifty years of creation, spread over various venues (the museum itself and Palacio Velázquez in the park of el Retiro), it brings together some 400 works. Sculptures, of course, for which he is famous, but also his poetry (visual and concrete poetry).
• Carl Andre, Escultura como lugar, 1958-2010 at the Museo Reina Sofía and in the park of the Retiro, from 4 May to 12 October 2015.
BOOKS
The blazons of a body
A long neck or a short one? A long face or a round one? And what about the nose? And the hands? How did artists represent them over the centuries? Which perspective and beauty rules did they follow? This is the object of this book presented like a dictionary (with certain entries that don’t really belong here – like the myth of Icarus, what is it doing here?) The book proves that standards change through time and space: there is nothing in common between the eye in ’Standard of dancing lamas (Tibet, XIXe century) and that of Odilon Redon. Illness, death, blood, the relationship to the doctor are the object of interesting developments: we learn how the great Albucasis of Cordoba cauterized wounds in the Xth century or how doctors in Lombardy in the XIVth century examined their patients (illumination by Guy de Vigevano). This voyage also reaches the limits of the imagination: for a long time people believed in the existence of the sciapods described by Marco Polo (men with one single foot, which they used as a parasol to protect themselves from the sun) or in the fact that the liver turned food into blood.
• Le livre d’or du corps humain, by Giorgio Bordin, Marco Bussagli, Laura Polo Ambrosio, Hazan, 2015, 504 p., €29.45
OPENINGS OF THE WEEK
WETLANDS HERO
16 May 2015 - CHATOU - CNEAI
A collective exhibition where the artists turn into curators (Photo: Red Swan Hotel, by Ben Kinmont)
IN BRIEF
EUROPE – The Nuit européenne des musées (European Museum Night), to be held from Saturday 16 to Sunday 17 May 2015, will offer the free night admission to nearly 3500 museums in Europe.
MILAN - Since 2 May 2015 the Pietà Rondanini, one of the masterworks of Michelangelo, has its own museum in the former Spanish hospital of the castle of the Sforza.
NEW YORK - Les Femmes d'Alger (1955), a painting by Picasso, was sold for €179.3 million on 11 May 2015 at Christie's. Consequently it is the most expensive painting ever sold in an auction.
VENICE - The Biennale has awarded the following gold Lions: best pavilion to Armenia and best artist to Adrian Piper (United States), while Ghanaian artist El Anatsui was awarded the Gold Lion for his career.