Denise Colomb

Part of the Hotel de Sully, a beautiful hotel particulier in the 4th, just off of rue St. Antoine, is an off-site for the Jeu de Paume. Tucked off to the side from the beautiful garden is a two-level space devoted to modern/contemporary exhibitions. It was my first visit actually, when I went to check out the photography exhibition of vintage photographs by Denise Colomb taken in the West Indies between the late 1940s-1960s. Colomb, a French photographer(1902-2004) was invited by poet and politician, Aime Cesaire to come to the West Indies for an "ethnographic mission" organized for the centenary of the abolition of slavery. The works are all in black and white except for a slide show at end of the show that shows some work transfered into color in the early 1960s. Colomb does not exoticize nor pity her subjects, but presents a fairly straight forward portrait of life for the citizens of Martinique and Guadeloupe, and the dispartity between the vestiges of colonialism and reality of living on a remote island. It was interesting to see the difference between an image in black and white and then in color. One of her later images captures a woman nude, sitting in the ocean. In b+w, the image is powerful for the isolation, the simplicity of her form and a sense of innocence in nature. In color, you see the skin tones of the bather set in the crystal clear blue waters and you cannot help but think of all the tourist posters splashed around town for cheap flights to the island. She is not a sexy, posing model at all, but she has been replaced by one in today's advertising world. This exhibition coincidentally falls almost a year after the strikes and violence that shook these very islands for a few months, which makes one wonder how developments have been made between the countries in the post-colonial world. www.jeudepaume.org

Raymond Depardon + Paul Virilio

On view at the Fondation Cartier,www.fondation.cartier.com is an exhibition titled "Terre Natale," or Native Land and features a collaboration of sorts between French photographer Depardon and French architectural theorist and sometimes architect, Paul Virilio. The whole thing is very National Geographic and better suited for a Museum of Sciene or Man than a site of contemporary art. The exhibition brings together a slice of their grand vision on the status of man in the world, particularly migration and displacement through economic and environmental reasons, and the disappearance of native peoples.

On the Depardon side we have two non -narrative portrait-films: one is titled "Hear Them Speak," and shows a series of interviews with people from fading populations around the world who discuss, more or less, the status of their people and lands. There are nine different people: two from Chile, Bolivia, France, Brazil and one from Ethiopia. It is beautiful and tragic, or as the description states, "poetic and political." It also seems a little dated and made-for-TV, in 1979. His other films is called "Around the world in 14 days," and shows silent streaming shots of landscapes and people in several international cities. huh? It was like watching bad photographs of a friend's vacation. Pure concept no proposition.

In the basement is the installation by Virilio with the help of architects Diller, Scofido & Renfro, Laura Kurgan, visual artist and sound designer, Ben Rubin and statistician, Mark Hansen. You'd think with this power group we might experience something new, witness new ideas or propositions, but instead what we get is Paul Virilio on video walking on a street in Paris expounding his theories of globalization, about 50 TV screens spread in rows and suspended from the ceiling showing clips from news and nature shows, and in the final room there is a video that shows statistics and their graphic counterparts about such subjects as Population Shifts, Natural Disasters, Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, Political Refugees and Forced Migration, and Remittances: Sending money home. The presentation was all very star trek-y with images moving along the concave wall, including an image of the earth from space that seemed to pass through in between each subject. It was relevant and current information, albeit nothing that seemed very revealing beyond the fact that in 100+ years the earth is fu**ed. Thanks: I think I see that whenever I read the news. I would like to know what these 'genius minds' might propose to do about it-even if far fetched. Give me something beyond what I can google.

It is hard to know how to sum it all up. Disappointing? Flatulent? Lots of regurgatated information stuffed into a $50,000 or more budget? I don't know but I feel like the money could have been better spent by directly giving it to the fading populations and lands then to these installations. On view through March 15th.

Exhibitions around town

A few shows worth taking a look at this weekend:
"Le Futurisme a Paris," at the Pompidou Center, closes on the 26th. Timed around the 100th anniversary of the Futurist Manifesto by Italian poet/artist/facist and masochist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published in Le Figaro (February 20th, 1909), this thorough exhibition brings together the a selection of the "classic works" from the Futurist movement and how it spread into France/London/Russia and of course within Italy. The paintings are amazing windows into history and the passion of the early 20th century. Man and machine, politics, architecture, urban planning...it was macho, pompous, sincere but short-lived due to the advent of WWI. Most of these burly men so in love with machine and war all enlisted only to very soon die or become traumatized and trivialized by the reality of war and death. It is perhaps a small lesson about the need for balance and of course, women--whom most of these men felt were irrelevant and painted either as prostitutes or being engulfed by machines...a subject typically overlooked in the general study of Futurism but clearly worth pointing out...which they do not in the brochure.

A couple of gallery shows of note:
Fiona Rae-a London based, abstract painter, who was linked back in the day with the Young British Artist and was a Turner Prize nominee. At Galerie Nathalie Obadia.
Kay Rosen-an American artist who explores the possibilities of text and language in her paintings and prints and wall installations. very poetic and smart. At Yvon Lambert,

Maison Rouge

"Mexico:Expected/Unexpected. The collection of Isabel and Agustin Coppel," is on view now at the Maison Rouge. The exhibition is a small selection of this vast contemporary art collection, and consists of some interesting pieces by contemporary artists from Latin America including Jorge Mendez Blake, Pablo Reyes,Maruch Sàntis Gomez and Miguel Calderon, while also highlighting some artists from a generation earlier including Gabriel Orozco, a few great films by Ana Mendieta, strange paintings by Francis Alys, and works by Helio Oticica. There is also work by US artists John Baldessari, Pae White, Gordon Matta Clark and Ed Ruscha. Well, this is just a selection. It is a nice exhibition of good work by leading artists--nothing beyond this, but that is fine. The Coppel's are great collectors and this gives us a chance to see that. The real treat here is to see some good work by Mexican and South American based artists who are not often shown in Paris. Maison Rouge, 10, boulevard bastille, 75012 www.lamaisonrouge.org

Le Laboratoire

About a year ago I visited Le Laboratoire, a new art space which opened in October 2007. The space was still undergoing construction but the concept of Le Labo was immediately intriging--as a place where science art would converge in installations and multi-media projects. I finally got back there last week. The space is beautifully finished, staff welcoming and helpful with information (and free coffee). The current exhibition is between Japanese electronic composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda, and Benedict Gross, professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. As in this case, the founder of Le Labo, American novelist and scientist, David Edwards, brings artist and scientist together to develop an idea, which is then featured in the museum.

The exhibition is visually minimal. In the first room, the space is darkened and two long, rectangular photographs are suspended about a foot above the ground. At first glance it appears to be just black and white tiny checkerboard print but when looked at with magnifying glass or really close up, you see that in fact it is a long series of random numbers. The other photograph consists of prime numbers. Mathematical minimalism. In the next room, also dark, is a very brightly florescent lit chamber of sorts that has a humming vibration. It felt like a UV sun bed and on the foggy day helped brigten my mood, though not sure if that is the point. Ikeda states that he has here conceived a work where the definition of the sublime blends with the immateriality of infinity.

When you leave the exhibition rooms, you are invited to browse the media center filled with books and a couple of videos related to the installation. Coffee is offered and it is a really nice, comfortable space to take few extra minutes to learn about the show and Le Labo's mission. Definitely worth keeping on the radar.
www.lelaboratoire.org. 4, rue Bouloi, 75001. Open Friday-Monday 12-19h.

John Armleder: Jacques Garcia

A unique, collaborative project between John Armleder and Jacques Garcia is on view at the Centre Cultural de Suisse. Armleder, is a contemporary artist based in Switzerland, who applies conceptual methods to his large-scale installations. For Armleder, the artwork can be finished conceptually before ever being produced. Jacques Garcia is one of the top interior designers in Paris, working on such projects as the Hotel Costes and Laduree in Paris, and has private clients including the Sultan of Brunei.

In this installation, Armleder takes his conceptual practice one step further by inviting Garcia to completely decorate the interiors in the upper floors of the institution. For Armleder this is a conceptual study into Ornamentation. Garcia constructs a dining room, salon and bedroom using elements of ornamentation and design ranging from Orientalism, neo-gothic, minimalism and ancient Egypt. The result is a surreal walk into a another universe- one fears of the reality of this existing in a serious manner somewhere in the upper east side of Manhattan or in along the outer reaches of the 16th in Paris. It’s gluttony revisited from the tiger rug that still has it’s head on, Helmut Newton photographs, a big, sumptuous bed (which we are told not to lie before we enter the space), and decorative objects all around. Visitors are invited to sit in the chairs and read the selection of art books and auction catalogs that are scattered around. As the press release states, “ Armleder uses the signature style of Garcia like a ready-made, nothing that it is “the observer who makes the work,” while Garcia responds with a mirror note saying it is “the client who makes the décor.”

Centre Culturel de Suisse, 32 et 38, rue des Francs-Bourgeois, www.ccsparis.com

Peter Doig

Peter Doig at the Musee d’Art Moderne. The exhibition is composed of nearly eighty paintings + drawings, spanning the late 1980s-2008, basically the beginning of his career until present day. Recently the Musee d’Art Moderne has been surprising with some interesting shows but I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I went on Sunday to see the exhibition. I liked the few Doig paintings I had seen prior, but you never know when they are all lumped together. In fact, the exhibition is intriguing and engaging and well worth a visit.

The work is installed more-or-less chronologically because for Doing, his work very much represents place-more to the point-the place where he is currently residing. Born in Scotland, raised in Canada, grad school in London and since 2002 living in Trinidad. He is very much taken with man’s relationship to nature. Representations of solitary man in the landscape make frequent appearances whether they stand by a lake, sit in a canoe, or poke through the forest. I don’t know his technique (although most paintings are oil on canvas), but the paintings have a blurred, layered quality—like he is doing a type of rubbing or transfer. It gives the paintings, especially the very isolated, almost haunting images, heightend effect. Though I think it is super cool he moved to Trinidad, for whatever reasons he did, I have to say that I think his later works, those that have been made on the island, go a bit to far in their Gauguin-esque aesthetic, from imagery to color scheme.

Peter Doig, 30 May-September 7, 2008. www.mam.paris.fr

Traces du Sacré

Traces du Sacré is the mega, multi-disciplinary exhibition that opened on May 7th at the Pompidou Center, www.centrepompidou.fr. Curated by Jean de Loisy and Angela Lampe, this grand endeavor brings together over 350 works of art by nearly 200 artists beginning from the 19th century up to present day and as diverse as Casper David Friedrich, Hilma Auf de Klimt, Malevich, William Burroughs, Barnett Newman, Mounir Fatmi and Maurizo Cattelan. The exhibition is arranged thematically under such subtitles as “Apocalypses,” “Nostalgia of the Infinite,” “Doors of Perception,” and “Resonances of the Archaic.”

Throughout the ages there have always been connections/influences between art, religion, spirituality, philosophy, but this became less and less so throughout the 20th century as the world modernized and globalized. As the press release states, “The goal of the exhibition is thus to explore the significance of the survival of such questioning throughout the twentieth century, and to show that it continues to fuel the invention of contemporary artistic forms, and as such represents an essential key to the understanding of modern art.
” The one easy critique to make is that the curators took liberty with the subject matter, stretching interpretations to include work that doesn’t really fit into the context, the most obvious of which, in my opinion was the inclusion of the Hans Namuth films of Pollack doing his drip paintings. But it is a rich and intriguing exhibition and be sure to allow yourself a good couple of hours to make it through.

Alec Soth-Jeu de Paume

On view at the Jeu de Paume is an exhibition of photographs by Alec Soth, www.alecsoth.com a New York based photographer, who joined Magnum in 2004. The show is titled "L'espace entre nous," and it presents selected images from recent series of work including "Sleeping by the Mississippi," (2004) "Niagra,"(2006) and selected images from his ongoing "Portraits," which capture the beautiful, sentimental (But not in a kitchy way), honest and colorful face of America. The photographs are documentary-he travels frequently around the country and asks people to take their picture. Other series on view are Dog Days in Bogota,"(2007), an hommage to the Colombian capital for his newly adopted daughter who was born there, and a series of photographs developed in 2007 for Fashion Magazine, which include shots of Karl Lagerfeld and other fashion types. It's an engaging and thoughtful presentation of images.