Art Of The Day Weekly
#434 - from 9 June 2016 to 15 June 2016
Francis Picabia, Spring, ca 1942-1943, oil on canvas, 115 x 90 cm. Courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, New York, London, et Märkisch Wilmersdorf © 2016 ProLitteris, Zurich
IN THE AIR
Picabia, a genius or a mystificator?
ZURICH – We are always a bit on our guard in front of Picabia. The artist has delved into too many styles, been provocative one time too many, disavowed his own stances too often to be taken seriously. How can one same artist produce paintings in the pointillist style, surrealist compositions using letters and collages, optical painting in Ripolin, tacky pin-ups, biomorphic abstractions in the style of Arshile Gorky, or even monochromes in the Klein style? That is just a little too much for one single man! But, like some of his contemporaries like Duchamp or Cocteau, it is precisely that frenetic way of experimenting that makes the artist an emblem of modernity. The baffling game of contradictions, his Dada iconoclasm (in Zurich in 1919) and then his taste for money and luxury cars, his wavering between antimilitarism during World War I and his questionable attitude towards Fascist dictatorships, the mind-blowing list of his friends – including Apollinaire, Tristan Tzara, Picasso – all turn the character himself or his life a real work of art. And we can forgive a mystificator for anything when he claims that as a youth he copied all of his father’s collection of paintings to sell the originals and use the profits to finance his own stamp collection.
• Picabia at the Kunsthaus Zurich, from 3 June to 25 September 2016.
EXHIBITIONS
Sonja Sekula, Animal Without Subject of War, 1944, oil on canvas, 46 × 66 cm, Kunstmuseum Luzern.
The short season of Soja Sekula
LUCERNE – At the age of 18, in 1936, Sonja Sekula left Lucerne with her parents and headed to New York. The very young artist, whose friends already included Annemarie Schwarzenbach and Klaus Mann, experienced an exciting decade as she rubbed elbows with the abstract Expressionists and later the exiled European Surrealists. The museum of her native town dedicates a retrospective to her, focused on her relationships with Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock and other great names of the XXth century. Her return to Europe was rather chaotic in spite of other major encounters, from Dubuffet to Boulet and Sedar Senghor. Afflicted by psychiatric troubles, she hung herself on 25 April 1963.
• Sonja Sekula at the Kunstmuseum, from 11 June to 25 September 2016.
Josef Sudek, Street of Prague, 1924, silver gelatin print, 8.3 × 8.2 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Anonymous Gift, 2010. © Succession de Josef Sudek
Sudek, the man with the silver arm
PARIS – Prague artist Josef Sudek (1896-1976) made such large use of the techniques of the darkroom and of development that he became an incarnation of the most refined silver photography. The views from his window, Prague by night, Surrealist still lives (a chair, a globe, a head), flowers and landscapes in Bohemia, all required his inventiveness to the same degree. This great reminder of things past knew how to marry a taste for nostalgia with the most diverse experiments, such as photographs between two glass panes, screened developments, etc. Some 130 images refer to the particular universe of a man who had one thing in common with pianist Wittgenstein and writer Blaise Cendrars: they each lost their right arm during WWI.
• Josef Sudek, le monde à ma fenêtre, at the Jeu de paume, from 7 June to 25 September 2016.
These exhibitions also open this week
Camoin, the unknown Fauvist artist
AIX-EN-PROVENCE – He too participated to the famous Salon d’automne in 1905, the one with the “cage aux fauves”, next to his great friends Marquet and Matisse. Yet, Charles Camoin (1879-1965), a remarkable colourist, remained in the background and unknown by the public at large. This exhibition partly makes up for that injustice. Very near his native Marseille, in the region of the person who inspired him (Cézanne), the exhibition shows a large part of his itinerary, his training in Gustave Moreau’s workshop, all the way to the brightest years that were right between the two world wars.
• Camoin dans sa lumière at the musée Granet, from 11 June to 2 October 2016.
An anthology of Arte Povera
PARIS – Art critic Germano Celant had coined the term “Arte Povera” in 1967 to describe the contemporary current that sought out the most simple and raw materials –stones, tree trunks, sand or fire – as means of his expression. The Centre Pompidou reviews the parabola of this movement between 1964 and 1974, by putting next to the mandarins (Merz, Penone, Kounellis, etc.), neglected interpreters such as Ceroli and Gilardi.
• Un art pauvre at the Centre Pompidou, from 8 June to 29 August 2016.
ARTIST OF THE WEEK
Christo, The Floating Piers (project for Lake Iseo, Italy), Collage 2015, 28 x 21,5 cm. Pencil, wax crayon, enamel paint. Photograph by Wolfgang Volz, aerial photograph and fabric sample. Photo: André Grossmann © 2015 Christo
Christo, two birds with one stone
He is now alone, since his companion Jeanne-Claude left 7 years ago. Their perfect complicity could be summed up in a symbolic coincidence: they were both born on the same day, 13 June 1935. His Sa solitude has not prevented Christo from continuing his “Pharaonic” projects that made him famous, such as the wrapping up of the Pont-Neuf in Paris (1985) and that of the Reischtag in Berlin (1995), or The Gates in Central Park (2005). Two projects are making ground almost simultaneously. The first is an installation at the Fondation Maeght, a mastaba made of oil barrels that recall one of his obsessions. Christo had already blocked rue Visconti in Paris in 1962 with this material and he continues to work on a monumental mastaba at Abu Dhabi, with 410 000 barrels – to be the largest sculpture in the world. And while The River in Arkansas has been stuck for years, The Floating Piers (floating passages between an island and the banks of lake d’Iseo, in Italy) will be inaugurated on 18 June 2016, five days after his birthday. At age 81, Christo continues to have big projects.
• Christo and Jeanne Claude at Fondation Maeght, from 4 June to 27 November 2016.
• The Floating Piers on Lake Iseo, from 18 June to 3 July 2016.
BOOKS
Hartung, a legionnaire
As a child fascinated with storms, he drew lightning. Throughout his life, Hans Hartung (1904-1989) nurtured a taste for broken lines and vehement forms. Did he need to prolong his childhood passions or rather was he in a rush to create a dangerous world? This work, as well as the exhibition that accompanies it at Aubagne until 28 August 2016, open the interesting question of death as a driving force. Hartung saw it up close. Indeed, as a German living in France he was placed in the stadium of Colombes in 1939. Later, to gain a sort of freedom and demonstrate his opposition to fascism, he enrolled in the Foreign Legion. Stationed at Sidi Bel-Abbès, he took part in the Landing and then lost a leg in the battles of Belfort, at the end of the war. As part of the large group of amputed artists –see Josef Sudek a little higher up-, his creation, like those of Pierre Mac Orlan, Cendrars, Ernst Jünger or even Cole Porter, cannot ignore this period as a legionnair. It is also a guiding thread in a work that spanned the whole century, from his first drawing signed in 1914 to his last work – with a pistol - in November 1989.
• Hans Hartung, peintre et légionnaire, Gallimard/Fondation Hartung-Bergman, 2016, 160 p., €29.
OPENINGS OF THE WEEK
JEAN LURÇAT, L'ÉCLAT DU MONDE
10 June 2016 - ANGERS - Musée des Beaux-Arts
After the Galerie des Gobelins in Paris, Angers, which keeps the famous Apocalypse tapestry, celebrates Jean Lurçat, who died 50 years ago.
IN BRIEF
PARIS - The Parcours Saint-Germain, an itinerary of contemporary art in the district, will take place from 10 to 19 June 2016.
QUIMPER - Following the announcement according to which the municipality will no longer help finance it, the art center Le Quartier, opened in 1990, runs the risk of being closed.
TOURS - The Mame printing press, designed after the war by Bernard Zehrfuss and Jean Prouvé, will reopen on 10 June 2016 as the Cité de la création et du numérique (center for creation and digital) following its transformation directed by architect Franklin Azzi.
VENDÔME - The 28th Garden Party sale of the Rouillac company will be held at the château d’Artigny on 12 and 13 June 2016.
VILNIUS - The modern and contemporary art fair, Art Vilnius, will be held from 9 to 12 June 2016 with oland as the guest country.
ZURICH - Manifesta 11, the biannual event of European art, will take place from 11 June to 18 September 2016.