les expositions dans paris

now that i've had time to come back down to earth, i have a bit of time to tell you about some of the great shows and galleries i saw while i was in paris.

last time i was there (in 2007), i was quite surprised that finding independent, funky, contemporary art stuff was a bit more difficult than i thought. granted, i was right at the end of 6 months overseas, had €40 for 5 days and was hangin' out with dear friends, but still.

anyway, this time around i knew where to look, it seems, 'cos i saw some fantastic stuff and happened upon some wicked galleries, shows and museums - more than i had time to check out.

marian goodman - tino sehgal

a chorus of "welcome to this... situation" was the first thing that was said to me, as i stepped through the doors of marian goodman gallery on rue du temple. i was so fuckin' excited 'cos i rarely happen upon performance and/or situationist works. plus, where better to happen upon it than france.

the gallery space was 'occupied' by a group of artists/performers, all discussing political and social issues (as far as my bad phrasebook french would allow me to understand). as a new conversation started, or a new person entered the space, the 'circle' would rotate in the other direction. all the members adhered to a particular way of moving - slowly - as a rejection of the 'fast paced' attitude to contemporary life.

i had a lovely moment when a little way into my stay there, one of the artists addressed me, in english, saying how much she delighted in seeing my initial (excited) reaction to their situation and that it must be a lovely way to approach life, open to all kinds of surprises. it is and all i said was thank you. although, had i been able to speak with them, i would have probably let her know that some of my joy was borne of a particular interest in situationism, rather than a pure, unbridled openness to life. that i've probably got running at 65%, which i guess isn't too bad :D


cite de l'architecture et la partrimoine



this was a great find. after really enjoying the AzW in Vienna, i decided to actively seek some architecture galleries/spaces this time around. i hit the jackpot with cite chaillot. i was there for about 4 hours, visiting the temporary exhibits, permanent collection, staring out the window at the amazing view and really looking at the endless galleries of models and plans. plus i got to check out the 1:1 recreation of le corbusier's housing scheme appartment. the one that worked/failed/worked - depending on your viewpoint. heh.

the temporary collections included the impressive collection of lacaton & vassal, the display of (what felt like) a thousand models of the venice biennale pavillion/awards, generocity, which included some really impressive and innovative models. my personal favourite - BLOCK: a block of wax atop a block of lead, with a 'ramp' scraped out the top of the wax, as the 'transformation of a bunker' (I didn't make a note of the intended outcome, sorry)

there was also an interesting display on facades/skins/exterior techonological advancements, called peau (skin) as well as their permanent collection





not to mention the absolutely divine view from the modern architecture hall. i thought the view from the pompidou was ace, but this shat all over that. especially at about 4pm on a winter's afternoon with the sun glinting of the fleche d'or of saint-michel and all of paris bathed in that pinky white light. phew! lucky i didn't have a camera with me ...

Présentations et Tests Panasonic Lumix G1 @ Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris | 30.09.2008, originally uploaded by Rod | Le-hibOO.com.

palais de tokyo. again. (bangin' on about it)



i know i already talked about the palais de tokyo, but i keep thinking about it as an art space. and when talking about it the other day, i spoke of it as finding a wide audience because the space itself being the lowest common denominator, not the shows or the audience being LCD to appeal to as many people as possible.

it had so many points of access that appealed to a wide variety of needs and ways of engaging, without being patronising: food (fancy restaurant), alcohol (bar), books, things to see and touch and listen to (the shop with the music listening station), self-obsession/identity (photoautomat), a range of entry prices and a wide opening time frame.

anyways, i just had to mention the space again. especially as i'm shortly going to give nicholas bourriard (who was instrumental to establishing the place) a drubbing for his altermodern show at the tate. who ever says i'm imbalanced is wrong :)


oh, and i have to add how much i lusted after hotel everland (above), which is the fantastic work on top of the gallery at the moment. being auctioned off on ebay for a cool €1000 per night. phew!


la galerie des galeries - ludivine caillard.

hotel encore, by french installation artist caillard, was in the amazing space on level 1 at galeries lafayette. for the australians, imagine a hot contemporary white-cube-ish space in myer. it really was awesome and the show was a combination of flavours: knitted forms, including one of my favourites for self-centered reasons, red dress - a knitted cover for a tree (red knitting is kinda close to my heart at the moment). plus some great video/collage works which show the sexualised poses of make-up/fashion models copping the money shot from tubes of make-up and cosmetics. it's pretty hott.


le plateau [centre for contemporary art]: notorious



i raced up to plateau belleville on my last full day in paris, to check out this group show, only to have the gallery not open until 2pm. d'oh! so i went and saw a bunch of other stuff, then came back, skating in 10 minutes before closing. great show. really awesome theme using hitchcock's film 'notorious' as the departure point and a whole bunch of 'noir' kind of works. the image above is a still from a german film by keren cytter (of which i understood the dialogue auf Deutsch better than the subtitles allez français), playing with the idea of imagined vs real violence/murder. i attempted something similar a few years ago and did a pretty crap job of it, so it was great to see a good outcome of it.

the spinning light/spotlight was fun as well - circled the room so that you got to appear as hitchcock in his credit sequences. the space was pretty cool too - quite a way from the hip'n'groovy part of town, but worth the 'trek'.


xippas galerie
well, what i thought was xippas, turns out was not. however, xippas is at 108, rue Viellie du Temple. the space looks amazing online.

yvon lambert
Bu-ut, in looking for xippas, I went to another space on Vielle du Temple, Yvon Lambert, which had an exhibition of works by a new love of mine, Lawrence Weiner, 1/2 empty, 1/2 full; as well as a stack of publications that i coveted. There was also a fantastic quote from Mr Weiner, which i didn't get a chance to properly transcribe, but it went something like..
"Public art has two roles, to honour alienation and to create for the people a place in the sun"

... or along those lines anyway. my notes:
Public art has two roles
- alienation
- place in the sun.

Thorough.

There was also a small project space, where the conceptual artist, Giulio Paulino had a work, which looked at perspective - reminiscent of Ferini. The gallerie was invigilated by a couple of hipster cuties, with the cliche skinny jeans, ernest conversation and rollies cigarettes. i got shy really quickly. heh.


hotel/passage de retz
the time i was there, the passage du retz didn't have an exhibition on, but is still a cool space and has some great production work for sale, including a very Sticky-esque french love letter dispenser for €2 per piece. of course i bought one - it was so close to valentines day (which i spent with about 400 others on a plane, or in a queue for luggage), it would have been criminal not to.


Galerie Karsten Greve, on paper



in the same area, in the marais, off rue debelleyme, there were loads of commercial spaces i discovered, mostly ho-hum kind of shows, except one with an exhibition of works on paper, brilliantly titled on paper. featuring beautiful drawings and prints by Louise Bourgeois, Joseph Albers, crazy mask-like drawings by Alexander Gorlizki and the beautiful rolls of Pierrette Bloch (above).


i also have to fill you in on the show at hotel du monnaie - david lachapelle, my time at the pompidou [x 2] and a cute little show with black'n'white cubes in a little street on Rue Pecquay, near the Pompidou/Hotel du Ville. But I'm a bit tired, and i think this post is long enough already.



image credits:
Architecture gallery by Gaston Bergeret
View from Cite du l'architecture et du patrimoine by le-haboo from flickr
Nightmare, 2007, Keren Cytter from Le Plateau site.
Untitled, Pierette Block from Galerie Karsten Greve - Paris