Robert Ryman at l’Orangerie

“Robert Ryman. Act of Looking” Musée de l’Orangerie

The “Robert Ryman. Act of Looking” exhibition at Paris’ Musée de l’Orangerie revisits the artist’s minimalist white on white paintings (until July 01, 2024). Quintessentially art for art’s sake, people either love or hate this kind of work. Ryman (1930-2019) is a self-taught American painter, who began working in New York in the late 1950’s. He spent most of his career exploring the foundations of painting. Returning to the formula of the white square time after time — which he chose for its neutrality— he explored all the material components of a painting from texture, to surface to lighting and hanging systems. Continue reading “Robert Ryman at l’Orangerie”

Modern Times à la Parisienne

Robert Delaunay, Paris –The Woman and the Tower, 1925 Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Photo © BPK, Berlin, Dist. RMN- Grand Palais / image BPK

“Le Paris de la Modernité: 1905-1925” is an exhibition revisiting the Paris art scene from the end of the Belle Époque to the Roaring Twenties. It was a time when the city was exploding with a frenzy of creative energy attracting artists from all over the world. For Ernest Hemingway Paris in those years was a moveable feast (until April 14, 2024. Modernism sought a new alignment with modern times. The world was changing with new technologies rapidly affecting how people lived, traveled, worked… and made war. Artists felt they needed to change too. Many did while exploring new imagery, materials and techniques. “Le Paris de la Modernité” (at the Petit Palais) tells how the modern art story played out in Paris from 1905 to 1925. Continue reading “Modern Times à la Parisienne”

Loading Urban Art

“Loading, L’art urbain à l’ère numérique” revisits the recent history of street art and the impact of new technologies on its creation and dissemination (until July 21, 2024). The  exhibition at Paris’ Grand Palais Immersif greets visitors with a spectacular 360 degree immersive screen experience followed by several interactive installations including: “World Wide Walls” (a joystick ride of global graffiti partnered by Google Art  & Culture), “Hello, my name is…” (a DIY digital graffiti experience) and Seb Toussaint’s “Magnet Mural” inviting visitors to create a collective artwork with coloured magnetic shapes. Continue reading “Loading Urban Art”

Dana Schutz’s “Monde Visible”

Dana Schutz, “Swimming, Smoking, Crying” © 2023 Dana Schutz, courtesy of the artist, CFA Berlin, Thomas Dane Gallery and David Zwirner. Photo: Obispo

One of the most prominent figures in the U.S. new figuration scene, Dana Schutz, is featured with an exhibition “Le Monde Visible” (The Visible World) at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (until February 11, 2024). With forty paintings from the early 2000s until today, drawings and recent sculptures it spans her stellar two decade career. Schutz (born 1976) is among the most successful female artists of her generation. Her painting “Elevator” recently sold at Christie’s for $6.5 million. It is the first time that the work of this internationally renowned American artist has been shown on this scale in France. Continue reading “Dana Schutz’s “Monde Visible””

Anna-Eva Bergman Revisited

“Pyramide No.6” 1960

The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris presents a major retrospective of work by Norwegian artist Anna-Eva Bergman (1909-1987, who lived in France with her husband Hans Hartung for many years. Her work marked a step forward for non-figurative painters and ranks with other great women artists such as Hilma af Klint, Georgia O’Keeffe and Sonia Delaunay (to July 16, 2023). Continue reading “Anna-Eva Bergman Revisited”

Zoe Leonard at Paris Modern

Over 500 photos by New York artist Zoe Leonard —mostly black and white— are exhibited at Paris’ Musée d’Art Moderne with her “Al Rio/To the River” exhibition (until January 29, 2023)

The documentary style photos revisit the fraught “build a wall” Rio Grande area, which  sets the boundary between the United States and Mexico. Sans “Bressonian” decisive moments and migrant mothers à la Dorothea Lange, these documents are closer to the cool gaze of surveillance cameras obiquitous in borderlands. Continue reading “Zoe Leonard at Paris Modern”

Rosa Bonheur… Animalière Extraordinaire

The Musée d’Orsay revisits French artist Rosa Bonheur on the bicentenary of her birth with a major retrospective exhibition of her work (until January 15, 2023). Bonheur, one of the most important 19th century female painters, was hugely successful during her lifetime with her ultra realistic pictures of animals. She sold paintings internationally (mostly in the U.K and U.S) and was recognized with commissions and prizes (she was the first woman artist to receive the Legion of Honor). She was so famous that Victorian-era American children played with Rosa Bonheur dolls. But then after her death as art tastes changed she was mostly forgotten. Continue reading “Rosa Bonheur… Animalière Extraordinaire”