Art Of The Day Weekly
#255 - from 19 April 2012 to 25 April 2012
View of the exhibition Seven Windows by Christian Marclay, windows of Tokyo Eat, Palais de Tokyo (Paris). © Photo: André Morin.
IN THE AIR
Paris offers itself a new fair
The reopening of the Palais de Tokyo, now that it has been renewed and enlarged (the areas available have gone from 8 000 to 22 000 m2) will of course be a great media moment. It deserves to be. It will undoubtedly be one with spectacular interventions on the building, signed by Jean-Michel Alberola, Peter Buggenhout and Christian Marclay among others. It will also be the case with the launching of the new “Triennale”. It already had two past aborted experiences at the Grand Palais, called “La force de l’art” (The strength of art), but this new venue is more in tune with its contemporary vocation and should ensure a much larger audience… and give Paris an event of the type of the Biennale founded by André Malraux in 1959. The event is led by Okwui Enwezor, a veteran in these types of manifestations (documenta 11 at Kassel, biennales in Seville, Gwangju and Johannesburg), and has already chosen a motto, “Intense Proximité/y” that reflects the dilemmas of identity and of globalization.
• Le Palais de Tokyo will reopen to the public on 20 April 2012
. The Triennale d'art contemporain will be held from 20 April to 26 August 2012.
EXHIBITIONS
Piranesi, Carceri, plate XII.
Piranesi in 3-D
MADRID – He was a bountiful inspiration for the Romantics with his Prisons imaginaires fantastic architecture, over-dimensioned abandoned catacombs, and his Roman Antiquities, that give a magnified interpretation of the ancient patrimony. These nearly 300 prints by Piranese (1720-1778) give the viewer a rare opportunity to get initiated to this stone jungle, especially since recreations in volume, created through modern video techniques, allow the public to easily penetrate it, virtually of course. Photographs by Gabriele Basilico are a modern countrepoint to these visual extravagancas.
• Las artes de Piranesi at Caixa Forum, from 24 April to 9 September 2012.
These exhibitions also open this week...
The remarkable decades of German art
COPENHAGEN – One of the richest periods in German art is the one that corresponds to the first third of the XXth century, between Expressionism and Constructivism. In German World Images, the Statens Museum for Kunst gives the visitor an idea through drawing and engraving, from Kollwitz toà Nolde. From 20 April to 12 August 2012.
A deluge of photos in Nancy
NANCY – The Biennale internationale de l’Image has allowed the public to discover over the last three decades unknown photographers in unusual places (bus depot, the former Berger-Levrault printing firm, the former Alstom factory). It will hold its 17th edition from 21 April to 6 May 2012.
Atget, the poet of Paris
PARIS – Le Paris d’Atget: the title of the exhibition at the Carnavalet museum seems almost like a tautology since the photographer - whom the French ha forgotten and whom the Americans rediscovered - has linked his name to that of the city of lights. 230 images document this special report. From 25 April to 29 July 2012.
AUCTIONS
Lot 337 : Paul Colin, Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro, Paris, Joseph Charles. Estimate: €6,500-13,000 €. Courtesy Néret-Minet & Tessier, Paris.
Colin, the art of the poster
PARIS - While he is not well-known by the general public, Paul Colin (1892-1985) is an unbeatable star in the field of posters. The sale of the Chassaing collection on 2 October 2003 at Swann in New York, marked his brilliant position on the market. The original poster for the Black Birds review at the Moulin Rouge, done in 1929, was sold for 167 500$! His liaison with Joséphine Baker pointed at him as the perfect interpreter of the famous Bal nègre but he was also excellent in other fields than scenic arts. The sale on 23 April is just a sample with this head from Easter Island for the musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro (that could go for €10 000),his steamers for the Compagnie générale transatlantique and even his buffalo from the African savanah to illustrate the routes of Air France.
• Affiches at Richelieu-Drouot (Néret-Minet & Tessier) on 23 April 2012.
ARTIST OF THE WEEK
Julien Salaud, Grotte Stellaire, Room Alice Guy, Palais de Tokyo (Paris). © Photo: André Morin.
Julien Salaud, Lascaux-Tokyo
Julien Salaud (born in 1962) interprets our society starting with the animal, with the transformation (death seen as a "metamorphosis" rather than as a "state") of his image, of his energy. First the artist has stuffed animals, transformed them with pearls, threads, varnishes, felt pens and egg shells. He now overcomes a threshold with his intervention in the Alice Guy room at the Palais de Tokyo. He has recreated a Stellar grotto, inspired from the works of Chantal Jègues-Wolkiewiez according to whom the animals painted in the caves of Lascaux reproduce the position of certain stars. Made of nails linked by white thread, this installation invents another cosmogony in which the constellations of the little goat or the dipper are immediately identifiable…
• Julien Salaud, Grotte stellaire at Palais de Tokyo, from 20 April to 31 December 2012.
OPENINGS OF THE WEEK
BOOKS
Small Parisian heritage
There is such poetry in the old gaslamp and the tire protector! Such charm in enameled plates and brass knockers! For once, ignore the descriptions about Notre-Dame and the Invalides: this guide offers to make us discover or re-discover the "minute treasures" of the city of Paris, those that neither the tourists nor the residents notice anymore. Twenty-seven themed chapters allow us to identify the last operational gaz street lamp, at the sentier du Tir, in Malakoff; one of the 358 wells (there used to be 30 000!) or one of the 83 water pumps that are still visible. The final chapter, "What is it for?" gives details on increasingly mysterious elements: sand boxes, the slabs to access quarries or the five lava stones on which the scaffold was placed for public executions, rue de Charonne…
• Curiosités de Paris by Dominique Lesbros, Parigramme, 2012, 240 p., €22
IN BRIEF
BARCELONA - Art Libris, the international art and design book fair, will be held from 20 to 23 April at Arts Santa Monica.
BRUSSELS - The modern and contemporary art fair, Art Brussels, will be held from 19 to 22 April 2012.
GLASGOW-The International Festival of Visual Arts will be held from 16 April to 7 May 2012.
LORRAINE -The 3rd edition of COP'ART, the festival of art in companies, will be held from 20 April to 16 June 2012 in the rgion of Revigny.
MEXICO -The contemporary art fair ZonaMACO will be held from 18 to 22 April 2012.