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Art Of The Day Weekly

#446 - from 27 October 2016 to 2 November 2016

IN THE AIR

From Russia with love, the weight of the Matisse

PARIS – This is what we would call a winning initiative: a great number of museums would have loved to fulfill the dream of bringing together the former Shchukin collection in the space shuttle designed by Frank Gehry, covered in its autumn coat by Daniel Buren. The Fondation Louis Vuitton won the bet, without revealing its investment. With his friend Morozov, Russian textile industrialist Serguei Shchukin was one of the greatest collectors of the beginning of the XXth century. He had audacity, was open to the Western world, first fell in love with the master Cézanne, and then widened his repertoire to include works by Gauguin, Derain, Picasso and Matisse. The link with the latter was surprisingly fruitful. A very didactic video of Peter Greenaway by Saskia Boddeke, with actors in costume, reminds the public that the famous Danse (of which the first version is at the MoMA, the second at the Hermitage) was commissioned by Shchukin, who had been enraptured by a group of dancers who appear in La Joie de vivre, the painting Picasso admired above all. In total, Shchukin owned up to 37 Matisse paintings! His collection was confiscated during the Soviet Revolution, was shared between the Hermitage and the Pushkin museum in Moscow, and then Stalin forbid for it to be exhibited for it was ‘indecent’. The art patron moved to Paris where he died in 1936. Claims by his heirs, who were ready to have what they considered their stolen patrimony seized, made this type of exhibition longtime hypothetical. It seems a modus vivendi has been reached and now we can all contemplate 168 master pieces (among them Russians like Malevich and Tatlin) without being interrupted by these legal blitzes. But the diplomatic apotheosis Putin dreamt of (opening of the exhibition and inauguration of the new Russian cathedral) paid the price of recent diplomatic tensions.
Icônes de l’art moderne, la collection Chtchoukine at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, from 22 October 2016 to 20 February 2017.

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THE ABC OF THE NEW EXHIBITIONS

BALLA (Futurist artist)

ALBA – Along Boccioni, he was one of the masters of Futurism: the Ferrero Foundation in Piedmont hosts a retrospective dedicated to Giacomo Balla (1871-1958). 29 October 2016 to 27 February 2017.

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BESNARD (an academic artist)

PARIS - After Evian, former glory Albert Besnard (1849-1934) is hosted at the Petit Palais ((Portrait of Francis Magnard, 1884 © Carole Rabourdin/Petit Palais/Roger-Viollet). 25 October 2016 to 15 January 2017.

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BOURDELLE (clearly monumental)

PARIS - In 1902, the monument to the dead in Montauban was inaugurated. This iconic work of Bourdelle’s career is deciphered in his museum. 27 October 2016 to 29 January 2017.

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COFFEE (through the ages)

MARSEILLE – The long history of coffee is told at the Mucem. The sponsor -Malongo- knows what he is talking about. The waiter’s race will be held on 29 October. 26 October 2016 to 23 January 2017.

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GIACOMETTi (through his plasters)

ZURICH – He did a lot more than bronze sculptures, and that is what the Kunsthaus reminds us of in this exhibition dedicated to Giacometti. 28 October 2016 to 15 January 2017.

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KANDINSKY (as a Parisian)

GRENOBLE - The museum of Grenoble presents the last decade of Wassily Kandinsky, his Parisian years (1933-1944). 29 October 2016 to 29 January 2017.

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MEROVINGIANS (not all were lazy)

PARIS - The musée de Cluny looks into a far-away period, that of the first Kings of France, Clovis, Dagobert and the so-called lazy kings. 26 October 2016 to 13 February 2017.

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PEETERS (a forgotten artist)

MADRID – A master of still lives, Flemish artist Clara Peeters (1594-1657) enjoys a small retrospective (only 40 paintings of hers are known) at the Prado. 25 October 2016 to 19 February 2017.

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PICASSO (the artist as a sculptor)

BRUSSELS – The retrospective of sculptures by the Andaluzan master, first presented at the musée Picasso in Paris, is now showing at Bozar. 26 October 2016 to 5 March 2017.

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YANTCHEVSKY (and nocturnal Paris)

PARIS -A photographer with a humanist eye looks into Paris at night: a donation has allowed the BNF to bring back to life Nicolas Yantchevsky (1924-1972). 25 October to 4 December 2016.

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BOOKS

Condé, a rival to the Sun King

When he died, the embalmer report said "two kidneys half rotten", but "the most beautiful brain in the world, both in its color and in its consistency", but Bossuet did his funerary eulogy. A representative of the younger branch of the Bourbons, a major military figure to whom we owe the victory of Rocroi in 1643, which prevented the Spaniards from opening a road to Paris, Louis II, prince of Condé (1621-1686), was a central figure during the reign of Louis XIV. Though he was not his main potential rival - one thinks first of Fouquet - he was by his attitude. Especially during the period of the Fronde. But he was also magnificent. He built himself a house that dazzled Mme de La Fayette ("Of all places on which the sun shines, there is none equal to this one") and filled it with a remarkable art collection. The building still exists, it is of course the castle of Chantilly. That is where the exhibition is held until 2 January 2017, accompanied by this catalogue and which details the various sides of this great man of the Great Century.
Le Grand Condé, le rival du Roi-Soleil ?, directed by Mathieu Deldicque, Snoeck, 2016, 232 p., €29.

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OPENINGS OF THE WEEK


KATSUJI KISHIDA

27 October 2016 - PARIS - Galerie Akié Arichi

The sculptures of a Japanese artist (born in 1937) who has been working on steel for 50 years

See all the openings