Guerilla Gardening

Check out this ambitious and most delightfully subversive movement happening across the globe: www.guerillagardening.org and in a recent NYTimes Magazine article http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/magazine/08guerrilla-t.html?ref=todayspaper

Roe Ethridge

On view at Sutton Lane Gallery, www.suttonlane.com, 6, rue de Braque, is an exhibition of photographs by Roe Ethridge. The show presents a selection of mostly c-prints, produced between 2006-2008, about ten images in total. For the last eight-ten years Etheridge, an American artist, has been exhibiting with some frequency and his images always seem to be a pleasure to look at. He has a great eye and captures that perfect, soft, sometimes fleeting moment, as with his landscape images, and in his portraits seems to pull out the best-sometimes weirdest- features of his model. In the Sutton Lane show he includes a 50 x 40” ink-jet print of the Moon. Perhaps a rather romantic if not mundane object for a professional photographer, yet the image is beautiful and attractive. He pulls it off with grace. The best photograph in the show could be “Oysters,” 2008, which is in the office space next door to the gallery. A plate of six oysters, glistening and gleaming in their shells is at once erotic and simply poetic. The exhibition is on view through June 28th.

Discovered: Fiona Paxton

A review caught my attention today from the latest JC report, www.jcreport.com, a fashion industry newsletter, about the necklaces by Fiona Paxton. Paxton graduated from the Royal College of Art in the early 1990s and worked for years at major fashion houses including Cholé and Armani. She has now set out on her own, creating beautiful, hand embrodiered and textile based necklaces and draped accessories. She combines the use of ancient threading and embrodiery techniques with silver and metal chains and beads to make unique, eye catching pieces.The scarves are full of color and pattern, an influence of India can be detected. The necklaces tend to stay more neutral with white, gray and black accented with the metal pieces. Check it out, www.fiona-paxton.com

Discovered: Le Petit Atelier de Paris

Le Petit Atelier de Paris, www.lepetitatelierdeparis.com, located at 31, rue Montmorency is a beautiful boutique filled with clean, white porcelain pieces, as well as a small selection of jewelry and furniture. Le Petit Atelier de Paris is owned by two French designers and their atelier, where they design and hand make the series of unique work, is downstairs in the shop. On entering the store, it feels as if you have walked into a Zen-like sanctuary. There is a lot of natural wood accented with the delicate, creamy white objects that seem to inspire just by resting on the table. I wanted to move in and live there. The space is softly lit by fixtures of their own design-a ceramic light bulb shaped vessel that fits over the actual bulb and strung by a white cotton cord that looks vintage. This can hang directly from the ceiling or be attached by wood supports to transform into a sconce that would look fantastic by a bed.

Items from the collection include a white espresso cup in a style reminiscent of typical water glasses served at French brasseries. They are presented alone or set on a wood tray with flat stirring spoon. Other pieces include porcelain bowls which are half shiny, half matte; dessert plates in the form of a ridged pie pan with stamped wishes in French such as sante; ceramic magnets, letters, and one of my favorites- the ceramic pitcher with stenciled impression of a measuring tape running vertically along one side. The work is perhaps of an aesthetic that may be seen in other design stores, but the handmade, unique impression of the objects makes Le Petit Atelier de Paris a true find.

Monoprix + Me

I guess you could call it a dirty, little secret, but Monoprix makes me happy. It rarely fails to put a smile on my face due to some rather unnecessary item purchased such as a Pyrex bowl or a lacy camisole for 5 Euros. I don’t buy food there—that is not what I am referring to. Rather, I am talking about those Beauty Monop’s or the Monoprix stores with the selection of clothing, household items, and beauty products. Maybe it is the closest thing to Target, where every once-in-awhile you go in and binge buy all your shampoo, underwear and maybe a new set of sheets all in one stop. Typically the event starts with a simple need like toothpaste. This was the case yesterday when I stopped in to pick up a discount 3 pack of Colgate and left spending 60 Euros on a new, white, linen skirt (yes its rainy and cold again but I know I’ll need it), a pair of socks for M, printed napkins, and a random supply of grooming products like Organic coco scented body soap. Despite the money spent, it seemed to take me out of my gray mood and put a smile on my face. A classic shopping therapy success story. Thanks Monoprix.

DVD release

Last night at the Pompidou Center there was reception for the release of a Dvd compilation of films by the artist Mounir Fatmi. www.mounirfatmi.com Ttitled "Tete Dur" or "Hard Head," the DVD includes a selection of eight videos produced and created between 1999 and 2008. Political, provocative, spiritual and poetic, these complex works bring to light the artist's ambiguities, doubts, fears and desires relating to our world's current events. Using playful language inspired by islamic art, the Koran and European authors such as Artaud and Montesquieu, his videos toy with contextual relationships by blurring the notions of a here and there. Check it out at the Librarie Flammarion at the Centre Pompidou.

ANNE +

ANNE+ Art Projects is an impressive, sleek new contemporary exhibition space located in the off-the-beaten path of Ivry-Sur-Seine. The first of its exhibitions, titled “A Listening Room,” opened last night. Curated by Manuel Cirauqui, “A Listening Room,” is a group show that deals with issue of sound and sound-based sculpture and installation. As the press release states, the exhibition “is based on a principle of reflexivity: as much as a space to listen, it is a space that listens.” Sound here is used as a raw material or an object that is used in creating the work on view. At the opening, a performance by Frank Leibovici titled “A mini opera for non-musicians,” presented a group of untrained, non-professionals (a call for a singers was sent around by email), singing a cappella, text from the 2003 Colin Powell speech to the UN for going to war with Iraq. Other artists include, Inigo Cabo, Matthieu Clainchard, Tal Hadad, Bettina Samson, Vittorio Santoro and Eric Stephany. www.anneplus.com.