The webzine for English speaking Parisians
Los Angeles based British artist Thomas Houseago’s “Almost Human” is a retrospective exhibition featuring his sculptures and paintings at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (until July 14, 2019). The exhibition —with a title inspired by Leonard Cohen’s iconic song “Suzanne”—follows the evolution of Houseago’s work from the 1990s to present day experiments. Continue reading “Thomas Houseago Paris Retrospective”
Decorative art by “Nabis” artists such as Bonnard, Valloton, Vuillard and Sérusier is the subject of “Les Nabis el le Décor” at the Musée du Luxembourg. It includes ceramics, textiles, wallpaper project proposals and decorative panels commissioned by the artists’ friends and patrons (until June 30, 2019). The exhibition accompanies another “Nabis” themed exhibition in town at the Musée d’Orsay “Le Talisman Sérusier, une prophéte de la couleur” (until June 02, 2019). Continue reading “Les Nabis Revisited”
The “Fendre l’air, Art du bambou au Japon” exhibition at Musée du quai Branly —featuring bamboo art dating from the late 19th century to the present— looks at how Japanese basket making went from craft to a medium of expression used by contemporary artists (to April 07, 2019). Continue reading “Bamboo Art at Branly Museum”
Gleichapel, an upper Marais Paris art space —describing itself as “a discrete, miniature and independent art platform— is showing an installation of Zen word paintings by New Mexico based painter John Phillip Abbott (February 9-March 24, 2019). Continue reading “Zen Word Paintings at Gleichapel”
“Japonisme” is a word coined in 1872 by French art collector and critic Philippe Burty describing the French craze for all things Japanese. With France’s 1867 Exposition Universelle Parisians saw their first major exhibition of Japanese art inspiring such artists as Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin. Continue reading “Paris Celebrates “Japonisme””
“Light Matters” is an immersive room-size light installation by Austrian artist Erwin Redl at the Fondation EDF where visitors enter a labyrinth of LED lights spread over two floors and whose tones vary slowly between red and blue (to February 03, 2019). Using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as an artistic medium Redl’s works redefine interior and exterior spaces by exploring architectural volumes. From floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall, the work fills the EDF gallery space with a grid of phosphor LEDs, creating a visual web of light. Continue reading “Erwin Redl’s Light Labyrinth”
The exhibition “Southern Geometries, from Mexico to Patagonia” at Paris’ Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain revisits the vibrant styles in geometric art of Latin America made by over 70 artists from the Pre-Columbian period to the present (to February 24, 2019). Continue reading “Southern Geometries at Fondation Cartier”
Art meets science meets technology with the huge “On Air” exhibition —devoted to a selection of major works by Argentinian artist Tomas Saraceno— at Paris’ Palais de Tokyo (until Jan 06, 2019). The exhibition has been described as an ecosystem in motion hosting a polyphonic choreography between humans and non-humans. From jamming with spiders to walking on air, Saraceno’s immersive installations challenge viewers’ to consider such improbabilities as spiders playing music and cities floating in the air. Continue reading ““On Air” at Palais de Tokyo”
Following his denial of access by Google, artist John Gerrard hired a helicopter and produced a detailed photographic survey of one of the key physical sites of the internet, a Google data server building in Oklahoma known as a “data farm.” This survey was the starting point for “Farm (Pryor Creek, Oklahoma)” featuring a slow pan portrait of a simulated “twin” of the squat building flanked by diesel generators and powerful cooling towers. Continue reading “Surveillé-e-s”
Paris’ Maison de l’Amérique Latine hosts an exhibition by fifteen international artists—photos, installations, holograms, video projections— inspired by Argentinian writer Adolfo Bioy Casares’ science fiction novel “Morel’s Invention or The Image Machine,” published in 1940 (to July 21, 2018). The book—a contemplation of image, reality, immortality and love— has influenced generations of artists from Garcia Marquez to Robbe-Grillet’s scenario for “L’Année Derniere à Marienbad (1961). Continue reading ““Morel’s Invention” Paris Exhibition”
Art meets technology with “Artistes & Robots” at the Grand Palais (until July 9). The exhibition, featuring mostly European artists, opens with Jean Tinguely’s mid-1950s “Metamatics” (machines that make paintings). Among the techno pioneers the exhibition includes Nam June Paik’s iconic pseudo robot, “Olympe de Gougs,” an assembly of 12 wooden television sets, 12 color monitors and a laser videodisc player. It was commissioned by Paris for the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1989. Continue reading “Robots & Artists at Grand Palais”