Véro and Thierry are back from a week of cultural visits in Paris.
Here is their photo report. To be enjoyed without moderation.
Here is the first part.
Monday : Centre Pompidou
For the first time, the Centre Pompidou Paris presents a monographic exhibition of the work of the Indian painter Sayed Haider Raza (1922 – 2016) who lived and worked in France from 1950 to 2011. The exhibition, presented chronologically, unveils nearly 100 paintings to follow the formal and conceptual developments of a modern work that is exemplary of transcultural dynamics and their stakes in 20th century art.
Tribute to Germaine Richier,
first sculptor to be exhibited at the
Musée national d’art moderne in
1956, this retrospective at the Centre
Pompidou, brings together
nearly 200 works – sculptures
sculptures, engravings and drawings.
With her anthropomorphic figures of atypical proportions, alternating between spindly legs and geometric torsos, fat and lean bodies, realistic and abstract silhouettes, Germaine Richier’s work undeniably represents a major part of 20th century sculpture. From the Griffu, a demonic sculpture hanging from the ceiling and inspired by the tarasque, an animal from Provençal folklore, to a young woman’s body of striking realism despite missing limbs, Germaine Richier astonishes by her versatility and multiple influences.
Tuesday : museum Maillol, museum Bourdelle and Japan arts centre in Paris.
Two characteristics of Erwitt’s work:
- humor
- the framing of a space and then shooting the picture when something happens in that space.
The reopening of the Bourdelle workshop museum + Philippe Cognée
On the occasion of its reopening on 15 March 2023, the Musée Bourdelle is devoting its most important retrospective in Paris to Philippe Cognée (born 1957). Set in the wing designed by Christian de Portzamparc, the exhibition “Philippe Cognée. La peinture d’après” is structured around the Basel Catalogue, a dizzying array of a thousand pieces by the artist. A painter, but also a sculptor, Cognée is in dialogue with his peers, including Antoine Bourdelle, an assumed tutelary figure.
A freshly redesigned layout at the Musée Bourdelle.
The new tour proposes a chrono-thematic angle, as close as possible to the accuracy and variety of Antoine Bourdelle’s creation, where the works are presented in a context that aspires to translate his reflection and artistic vision. The principle? To provide visitors with as many keys as possible to understanding the challenges of Bourdelle’s life and his contribution to the history of sculpture from his time to the present.
Ken Domon at the Japan workshop museum
Notice to all lovers of realistic pictures! This spring and summer, the Maison de la Culture du Japon in Paris is offering us a beautiful journey to discover the work of Ken Domon (1909-1990). Simply entitled “Ken Domon, the master of Japanese realism”, this free exhibition is the first in France devoted to this great photographer born in Sakata and considered one of the most famous Japanese photographers of the 20th century.
This installation reveals a hundred or so photographs taken between the 1930s and 1970s. It is an opportunity to discover the full range of Ken Domon’s work, from his approach to photojournalism at the beginning of his career to his touching account of Hiroshima, not forgetting his striking portraits of street children and celebrities, and his fascination with ancient temples and Buddhist sculpture.
Wednesday : the quai Branly - Jacques Chirac museum
Songlines, Song of the Australian desert tracks.
The word “songline” refers to a system of knowledge specific to the indigenous populations of Australia. Stories inscribed in the heart of the territories record the ecological, cosmological, topographical and social knowledge necessary for the sustainable development of societies.
Exploring the songlines of three regions in central and western Australia, all linked to the founding story of the Seven Sisters, this book traces parts of this universal story, as the elders of these Aboriginal communities wish to pass it on to younger generations.
The Sisters and their relentless pursuer, a sorcerer with many faces, are thus revealed in a sensory narrative. They continually appear and disappear in the landscape, in the springs, in the hills, rocks, trees – and even in the stars above us.
KIMONO.
An emblematic garment and characteristic of Japan’s identity, the kimono is today a must-have fashion item. From samurai schools to catwalks, from kabuki actors to international pop stars, we take a closer look at an outfit that transcends categories and borders.
Appeared over a thousand years ago, the kimono – literally “that which is worn” – embodies the national culture and sensibility of the Japanese. It was at the beginning of the Edo era (1603-1868) that it became the traditional garment par excellence, worn by all Japanese, regardless of their social status or gender. A golden age that saw the extraordinary development of its production and the birth of a fashion culture thanks to the infatuation of the entertainment world. Celebrities and elegant people of the time – kabuki actors in particular – became the first Japanese fashion icons.
Although it timidly reached European shores at the end of the 17th century, it was in the 1850s, with the opening of Japan to foreign trade, that the kimono was exported to a West fascinated by its exotic character. The enthusiasm aroused by its shape and fabrics profoundly and radically transformed fashion on the continent a few decades later. Subsequently going beyond its status as a symbol, disavowing its traditional and timeless character, it lost nothing of its superb quality between the scissors of the world’s greatest designers (such as John Galliano or Alexander McQueen) or in the streets of the archipelago, revisited in an innovative and sometimes subversive way by young Japanese.
