Andrea Mantegna’s paintings in Paris Musée du Louvre

There are many reasons to pay a visit to Paris Musée du Louvre, and this fall provides a very special one : Mantegna 1431 - 1506.  The last exhibition dedicated to this star painter of Italian Renaissance took place in London in 1992, so this one is a real event.

Don’t get fooled by the apparent quietness in the lobby, people gather under the Sully aisle esclator, you have to stand in line for a while and it’s a bit crowdy inside, so I would suggest you to come early morning, or for nocturnes, or to make a reservation.

But you should’not miss this. For the first time - at least for decades- the exibition shows most of Mantegna’s remaining works, gathered from museums all around the world.

This Saint Marc leaning on a “trompe-l’oeil” balcony comes from Städelesches Kunsshalle in Frankfurt am Main, and Mantegna painted it in Padoue in 1450, when he was about nineteen.

This wonderful Saint Jérôme in the Wilderness comes from San Paolo Museum of Art and was painted in the same years.

The exhibition follows a chronological path, pointing the artist’s influences, his followers and the contemporary painters he knew, in the first place Giovanni Bellinni, who was also his step-brother.  It refreshens our perception of the cultural and political exchanges and habits in European countries during the fifteenth century. Mantegna’s painting turned the gothic page and opened the Quattrocento, which partly explains why he was so famous in his time.

Christ in the olive trees garden, painted in 1455, comes from London National Gallery.

This gathering makes clear some of the artist’s major topics, how he used the frame, trompe l’oeil effects, the underneath point of view, perspective and various scales, hyper realistic details and fantasmatic visions, which explains why his work interested or inspired many later artists, and is still fascinating.

The exhibition is also made for children. Next to some pictures, cardboards invite them to focus on some detail, to look for a rider hidden in a cloud, for animals, for what’s going on in the background…  ..

We can regret that the absence of the Dead Christ, who stayed hanged on a wall of Milan’s Brera Pinacotheca, but fortunately Madrid Prado Museum has let go this fascinating Death of the Virgin (1461), which actually represents a most beautifully staged portrait of the city of Mantoue (the city of his new sponsor)

This version of Saint Sebastien (1470) comes from Wien Kunsthistoriches Museum.

And this theatrical Judith and Holopherne (1495) comes from Washington National Gallery of Art.

But the Madona of Victory (circa 1596) is a resident of Paris Musée du Louvre.

His engravings, sketches…are fascinating too, and above all  the frescoes that could not be moved, so that we’ll have to go to Italy to see what’s left of them - but who would complain about this ?

Meanwhile, this Paris exhibition is a must, and a delight

Mantegna 1431 - 1506, Musée du Louvre, aile Sully (enter under the pyramid) metro Palais-Royal, tel 33(0)1 40 20 53 17, open everyday except Tuesday 9 to 18, Wednesday and Friday up to 22. Up to January 5. Entrance €9,50  (€13, or €11 at night, if you wish to visit some other part of the museum, but then, take a break, it’s a a very rich exhibition and you don’t want to look at something else right away ).

To buy your tickets previously you may go on : http://ticketnet.com/shop/fr/module.asp?id=34

or : http://www.ticketweb.com/

or: http://www.fnacspectacles.com/

More information on : http://www.louvre.fr/llv/commun/home.jsp

Paris Autumn Festival starting September 13 at “La Maison Rouge”

Beginning next week-end, on September 13, Paris Autumn Festival offers up to december 21  a selection of all kinds of modern artistics productions to be seen in Paris.

It starts at La Maison Rouge, one of the Paris foundations dedicated to modern plastic arts, located next to Paris Arsenal Harbour, built in an old factory.

It’s first exhibition on this fall shows an untitled installation by Marie Cool and Fabio Balducci :

Their work is based on repetitive gestures and videos.

In a dark room, Christian Boltanski opens for us his Archives du Coeur (Heart’s files)

Both events start on Saturday September 13 from 11 to 15, and go on up to October 5, Wednesday to Sunday 11-19, up to 21 on Thursday. During next Paris Nuit Blanche (Wakeful Night), Boltanski’s exhibition will be running all night through October 4 to October 5

Next to the Maison Rouge exhibitions rooms is a bookstore dedicated to plastic arts, and usually a nice cafe, which is closed up to October 5. But during this time, instead of having a drink, you can pay a visit to Andrea Blum’s Birdhouse Cafe.

It’s a birds house where public is staying stuck up  the aviary, looking down at birds who move freely.

La Maison Rouge, 10 boulevard de la Bastille 75012 Paris, Metro Bastille or Quai de la Rapée, tel 33(0) 1 40 01 08 81, entrance € 6,50, €4,50 for over 65, free under 13.

Festival d’Automne de Paris, information and reservation 33(0)1 53 45 17 17 (Monfay to Friday 11 to 18, Saturday 11 to 15) and on www.festival-automne.com

all shades of red in Paris Musée des Arts Décoratifs

In Paris, 2008 celebrates red as a color, and it takes place at Museum of Decorative Arts, located in a western wing of Louvre Palace.

Red as a color has many strong and opposite meanings, such as passion, danger, interdiction, rebellion, power…in popular French, “prendre un coup de rouge” does’nt mean what it’s literal translation suggests : “get hit by a communist”, but just “have a glass of (red) wine”.

Organizing elements of its permanent collection, the museum proposes an exhibition called aussi rouge que possible (”as red as possible”). It’s a series of installations , focused on diferent themes.

Red for power:

sculpture of roman emperor Hadrien (antique restored in French seventeenth century) next to  armchair Big Easy (Ron Arad, Italy 1991) and a portrait of Turgot by Carl Van Loo (circle 1739)

Red interiors:

armchair vermetila Fernando Campana Brazil 1993

couch Bocca Studio 65 Torino 1969, in front of 1950 posters for Lido Review and lipstick Rouge Baiser

Red clothes :

couch Djinn by Olivier Mourgue France 1993 under a tapestry : Return of the prodigal son France 1580

hats (1939/1950) in front of the window where a 1990 Yohji Yamamoto dress stands in front of a Castilian altar piece (circa 1475/1480) featuring Saint Michel beating the dragon, and two servant dresses (France 1820 - 1860)

Hell and Redemption :

Cabinet Enfer by Elisabeth Garouste Mattia Bonetti France 1998 and a poster advertising Anis Infernal by Leonetto Capiello France 1905

Red Alert:

Poster Hiroshima mon Amour (a play by Marguerite Duras) Théâtre de la tête noire, France 1998.

And in the same time and place, Valentino, Themes and Variations, an exhibition dedicated to the work of a fashion designer well known for his “red”.

And it’s also fascinating to wander through this museum’s huge and various permanent collection.

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 107 rue de Rivoli 75001 Paris, Metro Palais-Royal, tel 33 (0)1 44 55 57 80 Closed on Monday, Tuesday Wednesday Friday : 11 to 18, Thursday 11 to 21, Saturday Sunday : 10 to 18.

Exhibition Aussi Rouge que Possible, up to November 1.

Exhibition  Valentino, Thèmes et Variations, up to September 21

Musée Bourdelle : a quiet journey back to old Paris Montparnasse

The current exhibition Rêve Brisé by Alain Séchas also gives the opportunity to discover the Bourdelle Museum.

It’s a brick building of the sixties, on a quiet street close to the noisy avenue du Maine, Montparnasse Raiway Station and Tower.

Along the street, a garden with benches to sit, rest, dream or read among some of the more than 500 sculptures by Antoine Bourdelle that are permanently exhibited in all parts of the museum. Here a neo antique warrior with a modern background.

The arcades on the museum’s building side makes you almost feel you’re in a cloister, with profane statues.

this one is called the Fruits, and this proud young Eve is typical of many Bourdelle’s women figures.

As this gracious silhouette in the dark of the museum entrance.

Many of Bourdelle’s works are exhibited in a large room lighted by a glass roof.

The famous Héracles archer. (1909)

A bas-relief called La Tragédie, made  in 1912 for the Champs-Elysées Theater.

In the back of the exhibition rooms, you get further in the past, entering the studio where Antoine Bourdelle worked from 1884 up to his death in 1929.

It overlooks a backyard with outdoor scultptures, among these, another (bronze) version of the dying centaur that we just saw in the studio. It is really cool out there, even on hot days.

Back toward the street, you can also visit Bourdelle’s appartment, originaly located impasse du Maine, which no longer exists.

It’s cluttered up with statues which certainly were some place else when Bourdelle lived there, and modern metallic chairs and halogen lamp look terrible. But still, you can get an idea of a nineteenth century Montparnasse artist home, focusing on the few pieces of furniture along the walls.

Musée Bourdelle, 18 rue Antoine Bourdelle, 75015 Paris Metro Montparnasse, tel 33(0)1 49 54 73 73, open everyday except Monday 10-18, free entrance when there is no temporary exhibition (currantly Alain Séchas Rêve Brisé up to August 24.

Alain Séchas in Paris Musée Bourdelle : “Rêve Brisé”, a never ending dream

Paris Musée Bourdelle often welcomes living artists (previously, Henry Moore) and for this new exhibition, Alain Séchas has worked in relation with the world and art of Antoine Bourdelle.

The magnificent cat in the poster, sitting in front of a Bourdelle’s nude bronze might sign an important evolution in Séchas universe, up to now mostly composed of stylized white cats.

As in this 2002 installation in Salpétrière church, called les Somnambules (the sleepwalkers)

Since I have seen these half human cats wandering in circle around the frozen canopy bed of a wide awake catlike princess, I kept being interested by Séchas work.

And this last one is worth visiting.

In the museum ’s great hall, among Bourdelle’s sculptures, Alain Séchas white centaur stands like on a scene, brighty lighted every fifteen minutes. It has taken the usual place of one of Bourdelle’s Dying Centaurs, which is waiting in a nearby room with a clock called Gong, showing hour and date since the beginning of Séchas exhibition.

The Dying Centaur is a major mythological figure in Bourdelle’s work, and in the museum, you may find another one in Bourdelle’s studio, and another more in the inner garden.

They do look alike, for Alain Séchas’centaur is made of white polyester, from the moulds made for the bronze versions of Bourdelle’s scuplture. It’s not called Dying Centaur but Rêve Brisé (Broken Dream). Broken dream of a creature not only half human, half animal but half human, half god too.

So every fifteen minutes, after light has come on the white centaur, it starts slowly collapsing.

It comes more and more to pieces as it falls.

And at the end of the process, its head bangs against the ground.

But after a while, it starts rising from the dead.

Until it’s completely up and restored.

And then light fades out, and fifteen minutes later, the centaur dies and comes back to (still) life.

Though of course, it is the movement (in circle) which sighs the artist’s singularity in his tribute to Bourdelle.

In other rooms are shown pastels, pencil, paintings made by Séchas without preliminary drawing, in a continuity of time, on a rotating support. Like le plaisir, four acrylic paintings on cartboard :

Or Criterium, named after a famous pencil pen trademark :

or Ping Pang Pong :

All titles testify of the artist’s sense of humor.

Alain Séchas, Rêve Brisé, Musée Bourdelle, 18 rue Antoine Bourdelle, Metro Montparnasse, everyday  except Monday 10 to 18, entrance 5 euros, up to August 24. Tel : 33(0)1 49 54 73 73.

It might be worth while calling, for the first time I came to visit this exhibition, the centaur’s mecanism was out of order, and could be fixed only the next Monday (while the museum was closed).

Young talents at Paris Jeu de Paume : Alec Soth, Valérie Mréjen, Angela Detanico & Rafael Lain

Paris Jeu de Paume museum is now showing works of various talented artists under forty.

On the upper floor, the already famous American photographer Alec Soth continues in his own way the work of the great Walker Evans.

Untitled 02 Bogota 2003 from series Dog Days Bogota Alec Soth Magnum

This exhibition is called “space between us”. And it refers not so much to space between a photo and visitors looking at it as to space between the artist and his model.

Two Towels 2004 from series Niagara Alec Soth Magnum

The poster shows Charkes Vasa, Minessota 2002 from series Sleeping by the Mississipi

About the exhibition’s title, “space between us” : I often say that when I am making a portrait, I don’t “capture” the other one’s being. If photography represents anything , it’s the distance between me and the subject.

Downstairs, a French artist, Valérie Mrejen, who is writing novels as well as shooting films, presents a series of videos called place de la Concorde, after the museum’s location.

She works a lot on stereotypes, as in Capri, a video made on purpose for this event. The title already suggests a cliché of romantic issues. A man and a woman are having a couple’s quarrel in a living room, using words taken from films and tv series lines, and changing names during the argument’s course.

To get a brief example of Valérie Mréjen ’s work, go to : http://www.jeudepaume.org/?page=article&sousmenu=&idArt=532&lieu=1

On the entrance ground and in the basement, Angela Detanico & Rafael Lain, two Brazilian artists living in Paris, use several medias to express their questioning of language and communication codes.

Midi à Paris 2008 Angelica Detanico & Rafael Lain courtesy of galerie Martine Aboucaya Paris.

They also present a virtual work on the museum’s web site : http://www.jeudepaume.org/?page=article&sousmenu=&idArt=622&lieu=1

More on their own website : http://www.detanicolain.com/

Jeu de Paume - Concorde, 1 place de la Concorde 75008 Paris metro Concorde, tel : 33(0) 1 47 03 12 50 open Tuesday 12/21, Wednesday to Friday 12/19, Saturday and Sunday 10/19, closed on Monday. Entrance 6 euros.

Up to June 15:

Richard Serra in Paris : a walk in Grand Palais and Tuileries gardens

Monumenta is a special artistic event in Paris, confronting art and architecture : it shows a work specially created by a contemporary artist to match wit the huge and beautiful Grand Palais glass roof . This glass and steel cathedral was built by architect Henri Deglane for the 1900 universal exhibition. It has been recently renovated, and the first Monumenta occurred last year with an installation by Anselm Kiefer.

For Monumenta 2008, Richard Serra created Promenade

Though it was raining cats and dogs yesterday afternoon in Paris, it did not prevent tourists to take pictures sheltered under their umbrella. So, as you can see, I did the same.

And what better place to take a walk than the Grand Palais nave ?

The artist’s idea was to work on uprightness, so he has erected five huge steel rectangles aiming to the glass roof, disposed along a median line, though they are not exactly perpendicular to the ground. And visitors walking around look tiny.

If you get closer, perspective changes, and you discover that the surface is not plain nor even, but veined with different shades.

As Richard Serra says : “My work mostly deals with wandering and looking, but I can’t tell anyone how to walk or how to look.” Some like to touch it too.

Monumenta 2008 closes on June 15, but should you miss it, you still have the whole summer and fall to experiment another walk with Richard Serra’s work. You just have to go down the Champs-Elysées avenue, cross place de la Concorde and enter Tuileries gardens.

You go through Clara-Clara, which was designed in 1983 for this particular location, but had been removed since. 25 five years later, visitors seem much more receptive to this experience. And this is good news.

Its curbed lines enhance the straight perspective from Arc de Triomphe to Louvre. Just as Promenade, it is both a sculpture and an installation, and the movement, scale and changing point of view of the visitor is part of the work.

Monumenta 2008, up to June 15, Nef du Grand Palais, Main entrance, Avenue Winston Churchill, 75008 Paris metro Champs-Elysées-Clémenceau. 10 to 19 Mondays and Wednesdays, 10 to 23 Thursday to Sunday. Closed on Tuesday. Entrance 4 euros. Special events on Saturday nights : Saturday June 7 at 19.30, concert : Etudes and other works for Solo Piano by Philip Glass. Saturday June 14 at 19.30, sound surrounding by Motus. More information on : http://www.monumenta.com/2008/

Clara-Clara will be part of the outdoor modern sculpture exhibition in the Tuileries gardens, up to November 3, entrance place de la Concorde, metro Concorde (way out towards Jeu de Paume and Orangerie museums). Free entrance, open daily up to sunset.

Paris May 17: A night at the museum

May 17 will be the fourth edition of “la nuit des musées”. In Paris, from 18 up to 23 or midnight, you can spend your Saturday night walking in museums after hours.

Nine of the Paris Museums open their door for a late free visit of their current exhibition, with some surprises : Concert at the Museum of Modern Art, Persan music and art of arranging flowers at Cernuschi museum, poetry and dancers in the dark in Zadkine museum garden, songs and tales at Victor Hugo’s house, a dreamy installation “moon dresses” at Galliera museum, lights effects and three night watches at Petit Palais, a tour of his exhibition by artist Alain Séchas at Bourdelle museum…

Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris : 18 to midnight, 11 avenue du Président Wilson 75116 Paris Metro Iéna, 33(0)1 53 67 40 80 and www.mam.paris.fr/ -

Galliera, musée de la mode : 19 to midnight, 10 avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie, 75116 Paris Metro Iéna, 33(0)1 56 52 86 00 and www.galliera.paris.fr

Musée Cernuschi, musée des arts de l’Asie : 18 to 23, 7 avenue Velasquez 75008 Paris Metro Monceau, 33(0)1 53 96 21 72 and www.cernuschi.paris.fr/

Petit Palais : 19.30 to midnight, avenue Winston Churchill 75008 Paris Metro Champs Elysées-Clémenceau, 33(0)1 53 43 40 36 and www.petitpalais.paris.fr

Musée de la Vie Romantique : 18 to 23,16 rue Chaptal 75009 Paris Metro Saint-Georges, 33(0)1 55 42 31 95 67 and www.vieromantique.paris.fr

Musée Carnavalet : 19 to midnight , 23 rue de Sévigné 75003 Paris Metro Saint-Paul 33(0)1 4459 58 31 and www.carnavalet.paris.fr

Maison de Victor Hugo : 19 to 23, 6 place des Vosges 75004 Paris metro Saint-Paul or Bastille, 33(0)1 42 76 75 84 and www.musees-hugo.paris.fr.

Musée Bourdelle : 18 to 23, 18 rue Antoine Bourdelle 75015 Paris Metro Montparnasse, 33(0)1 49 54 73 91 and www.bourdelle.paris.fr

Musée Zadkine : 18 to 22, 100bis rue d’Assas 75006 Paris metro Vavin, 33(0)1 55 42 77 20 and www.zadkine.paris.fr

All information on all events on that night on : musees.paris.fr

Magic Méliès : a magic exhibition at Paris Cinémathèque

It is a good opportunity to go to Paris Cinémathèque, enjoy its beautiful architecture signed Frank Gehry and its pleasant surroundings in the modern east Paris.

Just started on April 16, a new exhibition “Georges Méliès, magicien du cinéma“. Even if you’re not particularly interested in film archeology, you’ll be amazed and amused, and so will be your kids.

You can watch about eight films, made by Méliès between 1896 and 1912.

Here a man watches le mélomane (1903) next to a panel showing the illusion of motion made from still pictures of a walking woman.

a magic lantern

and Méliès first camera.

The ice monster in A la conquète du Pôle Nord (1912) on screen over a scale model of the studio, with the giant monster figure.

the vessel to travel up to North Pole, the link between theatrical machinery and film.

A television crew filming le voyage dans la lune (1902)

A photogram showing the scientific team visiting the moon.

A colorized film, les 400 farces du Diable (1906)

a dancing skeleton hanging next to Une partie de carte (1896) on screen. Melies humorous fantasy is mostly based on devils, skeletons, chopped heads…(laugh with death and fear).

Besides films, scale models, dresses, props and cameras, story boards, drawings and paintings of film sets are wonderful.

La cinémathèque française, 51 rue de Bercy 75012 Paris, metro Bercy Information : tel 33(0)1 71 19 33 33 and http://www.cinematheque.fr/

Exhibition Méliès : Monday to Saturday 12/19, up to 22 on Thursdays, Sunday 10 /20, closed on Tuesdays and May 1. Price 5 euros.

To see films by Georges Méliès, three programs : April 25, at 20, salle Henri Langlois, program 1 : colored pictures, May 4 at 16, salle Henri Langlois, program 2 : Méliès the enchenter, May 25 at 16, program 3 (untitled). With piano accompaniment.

Special programs for children “illusion in films” every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon at 3 PM, from April 30 to June 14. Also on Saturday May 31 and June 7, a workshop “illusion”, for kids between 6 and 8. More information on http://www.cinematheque.fr

Paris Museum for kids : Galerie des enfants in Beaubourg

There is a specific place dedicated to kids in Paris Centre Pompidou entrance hall, just under the design shop :

Here seen behind “Mother” by Louise Bourgeois, it is called “Galerie des enfants”, and as for adults, it shows temporary exhibitions and activities.

Going on now : l’oeil sur l’échelle (the eye on scale) is both a photo exhibition and a playground signed by Edouard Sautai, a young artist who in his photos and videos mixes by optical techniques urban or country landscapes with scale models or small junk materials which seem larger and fit in their surroundings.

Children pick up pieces of toys and junks from boxes to make their own construction in front of an urban “trompe-l’oeil”,  exactly the same way this image was made.

Exhibition “l’oeil sur l’échelle” up to June 30 everyday except Tuesday 11 am to 19, reception for workshop 14.30 to 16.30 (for children from 6 to 12) Centre Pompidou, place Georges Pompidou, metro Hôtel de Ville or Rambuteau. Price 10 euros for one child and one adult. Information :Tel 33 (0)1 44 78 12 33 and on http://www.centrepompidou.fr/enfant

More about Edouard Sautai on : http://www.edouardsautai.com/

And of course, if the weather is fine, go for a walk around on the fountain with mobiles by Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely on place Igor Stravinsky, just nearby.