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Art Of The Day Weekly

#483 - from 21 September 2017 to 28 September 2017


© Nouvelle AOM / photo RSI Studio / IDA+

IN THE AIR

Montparnasse, the endless tower

PARIS – The old neighborhood of Montparnasse was known for its bohemian life, for its artist studios, and – among other things - for the bars where Hemingway boxed with Scott Fitzgerald. Well, back in the beginning of the 1970s it went through a real shock when the highest tower within Paris proper was to be built. To fit in this 210 mts. tall building, the neighborhood was cleaned out. According to its opponents who had protested uselessly, the tower shared a quality with the Eiffel Tower, that of not seeing its metal structure when you are in it. Fifty years after it was built it has become a banal point of reference, and its terrace on the 56th floor offers the best view of the city. But time has left its marks and the tower now needs a renovation. The architectural contest for its beauty treatment, launched in June 2016, attracted no less than 700 offices, among them the icons of urban thinking such as OMA and Architecture Studio. On 19 September 2017, a little-known office has just been announced as the winner. Nouvelle AMO includes forty-year olds Franklin Azzi, Fréderic Chartier, Pascale Dalix, Mathurin Hardel and Cyrille Le Bihan. The project covers 40,000 m2 of façades with 7200 windows, and a 120,000 m2 internal area. The winners imagined a vegetable transformation, something that is very trendy. This “bioclimatic metamorphosis” as they call it, can best be seen from the first floors, and the top floor which will don a sort of glass and wood capsule. They promise to give the public a transparent tower that will be permanently alive with new “innovating” uses, still to be specified. The works, at a cost estimated at €300 million, should be over in time for the 2024 Olympic Games. Only then will we know whether this latest transformation will definitely reconcile the Parisians with the building they love the least.
• The exhibition Métamorphose de la tour Montparnasse at the Pavillon de l’Arsenal, from 20 September to 20 October 2017, shows the architectural projets.

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EXHIBITIONS


Anders Zorn, Portrait of Elizabeth Sherman Cameron, oil on canvas, 1900 © Private Collection. Photo Courtesy Atheneum

Zorn, amiable Paris and deep Sweden

PARIS – We’ve been waiting for this show for 111 years! Anders Zorn (1860-1920) has not been shown in Paris since 1906. Yet the Swedish painter was one of the favorites during the Belle Epoque, at the turn of the 19th century. He lived on boulevard de Clichy, and knew success at the Salon with his portraits of Paris socialites, which he could be proud of in front of those by Boldini and Carolus-Duran. His audacious nudes spiced up his glory with a touch of scandal. He travelled extensively, to Spain as a young man, to London, Istanbul, and Venice, and to America in seven different trips. Zorn could not resist the call from his native country, and at the age of 36, he settled in a town on the shores of lake Siljan, in the beloved Swedish plain of Dalecarlia, drawing changing landscapes and the nude, vigorous bodies of peasant women. A true lover of water colors, Zorn was also a gifted engraver. They say he drew the portrait of Renan on a brass plate in less than an hour. Through donations, in particular from the artist himself, the Bibliothèque nationale de France owns one of the most complete collections of his engraved works (75% of his 288 production), which represent an interesting section of the exhibition.
Andres Zorn, le maître de la peinture suédoise at the Petit Palais, from 15 September to 17 December 2017.

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Irving Penn, Girl with Tobacco on Tongue (Mary Jane Russell), New York, 1951; silver gelatin print; 37,5 × 36,5 cm ; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Promised Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation © Condé Nast

Seven decades with Penn

PARIS – This full retrospective was already shown at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. It is dedicated to Irving Penn and the many facets of a photographer who had an impressively long life (he passed away at age 92 in 2009), and delved in all genres. He is known mostly for his work in the fashion world, since he collaborated continuously with Vogue magazine for 66 years, from 1943 to 2009, and did 165 of its front covers - a record no one could beat! – in particular with his wife, Swedish model Lisa Fonssagrives. But the exhibition shows that he was also brilliant photographing still lives (his famous series on cigarette butts), urban scenes, and portraits – be it London grocery store owners, Peruvian peasants or international stars, from Picasso to Marlene Dietrich and Truman Capote. The 275 prints are all vintage, that is they were all printed while Penn was alive: this is an opportunity to see up close this undefinable Paris light which he described as “soft but precise”, that he wisely recreated in his studio, and which surrounds a number of his images.
Irving Penn at the Grand Palais, from 21 September 2017 to 29 January 2018.

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ELSEWHERE IN EUROPE

FLORENCE - Palazzo Strozzi is the ideal setting for a retrospective on the Cinquecento in Florence around the figures of Pontormo, Michelangelo, Giambologna.
From 21 September 2017 to 21 January 2018.

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FRANCFORT - The Städel Museum places two great colorists face to face, Matisse and Bonnard, that were close friends for over 40 years.
From 13 September 2017 to 14 January 2018.

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LONDON – The “enfant terrible” of the 80s, who left us much too young, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), will face the Brutalist architecture of the Barbican Center.
From 21 September 2017 to 28 January 2018.

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MILAN - The Hangar Bicocca recreates for the first time seven colorful ambiances by Lucio Fontana, an artist known more for his “sliced” canvases.
From 21 September 2017 to 25 February 2018.

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ROME – Picasso’s slip out of Cubism to classicism is partly due to his trip to Italy in 1917, which is put under scrutiny at the Scuderie del Quirinale. From 22 September 2017 to 21 January 2018.

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OPENINGS OF THE WEEK


HICHAM GARDAF

26 September 2017 - LYON - Regard Sud

A young photographer looks at Moroccan suburbs

Our selection of new exhibitions

BOOKS

Monet’s personal museum

Painters paint. But they also collect. One can see Pablo Picasso’s collection in his own museum, he who never parted from his Douanier Rousseau or his Balthus. The same can be said about Rodin in his beautiful hotel Biron. Monet cultivated the same interest for the works of other artists, but was more jealous. “Thing is, I am an egotist. My collection is for me alone … and for a few friends”, he wrote. It was rather touchy to rebuild this fund: indeed, while certain works remained in the family patrimony and then at the Musée Marmottan-Monet, created in 1934, many works were sold by his son Michel, who used the money to finance his expeditions to Africa. It took work worthy of a detective to identify the works, and then locate them. The search itself is the theme of an exhibition at the museum itself (until 14 January 2018). Monet put his hand on certain works through exchanges or even as gifts. But, as is the case of passionate collectors, he did not hesitate to pay out important sums of money, even for works by his old friends. It was the case of Young Girl Bathing by Renoir, which hangs today at the Metropolitan in New York. This book follows the traces of the group of works which includes Japanese prints as well as works by Signac and Jules Chéret. The master Cézanne has a leading place, with in particular his surprising Black Scipion which he adored and which through the surprises and turns of the art market, ended up in São Paulo.
Monet collectionneur, by Marianne Mathieu and Dominique Lobstein, Hazan, 2107, 312 p., €35.

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IN BRIEF

BUENOS AIRES - Bienalsur, the new biennale of contemporary art, will be held from 14 September to 31 December 2017.

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FLORENCE - The 30th Biennale dell’Antiquariato will be held from 23 September to 1 October 2017.

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LYON – The 14th Biennale d’art contemporain will be held from 20 September 2017 to 7 January 2018.

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