Art Of The Day Weekly
#414 - from 21 January 2016 to 27 January 2016
Adrien Dauzats, (The third wall of the Portes-de-fer. The sappers give the date of the passage of the Portes-de-fer, 28 October 1839 on an inscription), 1841, Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon © RMN-Grand Palais (Château de Versailles) / Gérard Blot
IN THE AIR
Algeria, Algeria
MARSEILLE – Elia Kazan’s - America America, is a moving tale of the destiny of emigrants in the USA. There was a time when Algeria represented the same promised land to the French. It was conquered in 1830, under the reign of Louis Philippe, and welcomed pioneers who were not always well prepared. Proof of this were the billboards put up in 1848, calling Parisian workers to become farmers! In the project to displace local populations and erase memories, maps played a major role. New names covered old roads, thus giving the illusion of a virgin, empty and open land. Also participating were paintings by painters-topographers of green, uninhabited hills, in particular in the Prise de Bône by Horace Vernet, in 1835. Among the hundreds of maps shown in the exhibition, some are dazzling, others picturesque – like the bicycle map to get to the Sahara – others are adventurous – like the ones traced according to information given in 1808 by Boutin, the spy. Drawings and paintings, an impressive model of Algiers as well as videos and contemporary art installations complete this original panorama, the crystalization of a territory in the Western imagination. Somewhere between nostalgia, frustrations, resentment or appeasement, it questions the difficult management of a shared history.
• Made in Algeria, généalogie d’un territoire at the MuCEM, from 20 January to 2 May 2016.
EXHIBITIONS
Zimbabwe, Chinamora, Massimbura, 8,000-2,000 BC, watercolour by Elisabeth Mannsfeld, 1929, 65x202.5 cm © Frobenius-Institut Frankfurt am Main
Reflections of pre-historic times
BERLIN – In France, Henri Lhote (1903-1991) became famous thanks to his copies of the pre-historic frescoes on the desert of Tassili. When he explored the archaeological sites of Djanet or Jabbaren, he took with him young graduates from the school of fine arts who managed, in spite of difficult weather and other conditions, to recreate works that are thousands of years old and are constantly threatened. The travelling exhibitions attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors. We tend to forget that Lhote had a glorious predecessor, ethnologist Leo Frobenius (1873-1938), who sent teams to the Sahara as well as to Zimbabwe, to Spain, Scandinavia or to Australia to immortalise in the same manner those cycles of the Palaeolithic et du Neolithic ages. As photography developed the art of copiers fell to oblivion and was even openly criticized for a few arrangements with the truth, or water sprayed to revive the colours, for example. Today the technique is seen as an important phase in the science of pre-historic times, almost like a form of art in its own right. The Institut Frobenius from the Goethe University in Frankfurt, is the most important guardian in the world, with 5000 copies. This exhibition presents an significant series, bringing back to life the ancient cultures of Fezzan, Lesotho or Altamira.
• Art of Prehistoric Times at Martin-Gropius Bau, from 21 January to 16 May 2016.
Ulay, Water for the Dead, 1992, Polaroid, 70x55 cm © Ulay / collectie kunstenaar
Ulay, fifty years of polaroid
ROTTERDAM – He recently made the headlines by stomping his foot down in regard to his former companion, Marina Abramovic, accusing her of taking all the credit for their shared creations. Ulay, born in 1943, and who has constantly been in the shadows for the last 20 years, certainly deserves a one man-show. The famous performer presents another aspect of his creation, his Polaroid shots, which he experienced with as early as the 1960s, in often gigantic formats, using them as much as a tool of introspection as a way of looking at the peoples of the world.
• Ulay. Polaroids at Fotomuseum, from 23 January to 1 May 2016.
Robert Pippal, Vienna, 13th District. Boulevard at the Schönbrunnner Schlosspark, 1949
Pippal the Viennese
VIENNA – In him there is some Dufy, some Utrillo, some Bernard Buffet and some Carzou. Hans Robert Pippal (1915-1998) is not well known out of his country. He was the perfect interpreter of the topography of Vienna, of its palaces and monuments, of its parks, its winter nights, its socialites and its pretty women. The exhibition is nourished by the recent donation his daughter gave the museum (watercolours, pastels, drawings).
• Hans Robert Pippal at the Albertina, from 22 January to 28 March 2016.
Antoni Taulé, Nautilus 5, 2004, oil on canvas, 110 x 178 cm.
The parallel universes of Taulé
PARIS – His work is full of perspectives, of doors and of tiled floors, of openings through which a hard light passes – a souvenir of his studies in architecture. Born in 1945, Taulé quickly abandoned this discipline to dedicate himself to painting, and in parallel he was active as a photographer and a theatre designer. Three simultaneous exhibitions explore his works, inhabited by enigmatic characters, fugitive shadows and spirits in transit.
• Taulé, Interior at the Institut Cervantès, from 21 January to 26 March 2016. Also not to be missed, the exhibitions at the Photo12 and BOA galleries.
BOOKS
Spreck's Arch
Real life is sometimes more fabulous than fiction. That is what this book proves, with its very explicit title. It retraces the adventure of the Grande Arche of la Défense, a colossal project awarded during Mitterand’s presidency to an unknown Danish architect. When the envelope with his name inside was opened, there was total dismay. Who was this Otto von Spreckelsen, whom even the Danish embassy in Paris knew nothing about? It was impossible to tell him he had won as he could not be reached as he was out fishing for whiting in the Jutland region! The book is more of an investigation than a novel, in spite of its title, shows how this clear-eyed idealist, with the approach of an artisan - something like his compatriot Jorn Utzon -, working solitarily, without an agency, the author of a few bare churches, would be crushed by the bureaucratic mechanisms of the French administration. This is a fable on creation and power, pouring over with known names such as Robert Lion, Jacques Attali, architect Paul Andreu, critic François Chaslin, etc.) but which reads like a thriller.
• La Grande Arche, by Laurence Cossé, Gallimard, 2016, 368 p., €21.
IN BRIEF
BRUSSELS – The antiques fair BRAFA will be held from 21 to 31 January 2016.
FORT-DE-FRANCE (Martinique) - On 24 January 2016 the Fondation Clément will inaugurate its new buildings, designed by architects Reichen & Robert, with an exhibition dedicated to Hervé Télémaque.
LONDON – Based on photographs and souvenirs of his loved ones, the Mayoral gallery recreates during a few days the workshop Miró opened in Mallorca exactly 60 years ago (6 Duke Street, from 21 January to 12 February 2016).
LOS ANGELES - The Photo L.A. fair will be held from 21 to 24 January 2016.
MULHOUSE – The EDF Electropolis museum will reopen on 27 January 2016.
PARIS - The Journées internationales du film sur l'art are being held at the Louvre museum from 21 to 31 January 2016.
PARIS – Visual artist Laurent Grasso will inaugurate the light installation Solar Wind, at 25 quai d’Ivry (75013 Paris) on 25 January 2016.
OPENINGS OF THE WEEK
François Glineur - Ovid's Metamorphoses
21 January 2016 - PARIS - Galerie Gilbert Dufois
A recent interpretation of the famous work of the Antiquity