The Pompidou Center and Empire State- Contemporary Art Overload in Paris

When next we popped our heads out from our hotel room ( we stayed at a fantastic little hotel called the Peletier Haussmann Opéra which is on the rue Le Peletier and one block away from Haussmann. It is incredibly well located for getting around the city and very close to markets, banks, you name it. The staff is extremely helpful and friendly and we loved staying there. We would do all of our site seeing then walk to the markets to get our nightly food and wine and be in till the next morning.) we changed the game a bit and went to see some contemporary art. Our first stop was the Pompidou Center.
The Pompidou Center is a monstrous building surrounded by giant transparent and colored pipes. It dwarfs most art centers I have been to. The center was designed by Italian super architect Renzo Piano and it shows.
OK. Enough of the intricacies, I am far behind in writing these posts and much is happening in the present so I am going to breeze through the next Paris posts with less attention to detail.

At the Centre Pompidou we took in the exhibition Le Surréalisme Et L'Objet.

This exhibition investigates Andre Breton's imperative to create a "physics of poetry" with examples from the earliest surrealist works to contemporary artists working in similar ways.

Andre Breton's Poem Object impressed me in a way that some of his writing does not. This strange collection of textures and colors in a glass case surprised me. It almost seems like the ancestor of a Damien Hirst piece.

An Alberto Giacometti- Beautiful and mysterious.

Théo Mercier's wall of artificial aquarium habitats in the spirit of the readymade.

Hans Bellmer's Doll. Something I have appreciated for decades experienced first hand!

Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux's mischievous sculpture which, if you look closely, has one of The Residents hanging from the ring finger.

A room full of Joan Miro sculptures.

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Next we walked through parts of the permanent collection. There was so much to see that it is only possible to give a small sliver of what washed over us.

 Alfonso-Angel Ossorio " The Continuous Face"

Jean Dubuffet

Behjat Sadr- Painting using a wood grain rocker.

And in the lobby a sprawling Joseph Beuys.

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We left the Pompidou for the outskirts of Paris and the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac where the exhibition "Empire State" was on display.

Empire State was originally curated for the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome but, lucky for us, it's second incarnation was here in Pantin.

Here we have a room full of Schnabel. Although I usually dislike Julian Schnabel's production, this set of paintings was quite palatable.

The monumental scale of the sculptures in Empire State works very well in the Ropac Gallery. Shown above are Rob Pruitt's megafauna.

Above all I came to see Keith Edmier's Penn Station Ciborium. This majestic work fuses architectural reconstruction with references to lost resources in a way that is truly haunting. A proud declaration of entropy that is complex in its phrasing. The sculpture is modeled after the razed Penn Station's architecture ( Penn Station was demolished 1963-1966 ) and this demolition is widely considered to be one of the most wasteful chapters of New York's history- the destruction of a civic masterpiece.

The supporting columns of Edmier's sculpture are peppered by cast oysters. A reference to the lost oyster industry that flourished in New York in the 19th century. Below is a link to a great article about this fact.

http://www.nypl.org/blog/2011/06/01/history-half-shell-intertwined-story-new-york-city-and-its-oysters 

At the center of the base of the sculpture is the ciborium. This glass covered space houses what seems to be fragments of casts of multiple color and material which I imagine may be from the artist's studio.

Finally, Jeff Koons playful and brutal as always. These bronze pieces, like the Hulk above, are uncanny in their obfuscation. A very clever game to be sure.

Medellin through pictures 22 days and counting

Twenty two days in Medellin Colombia and most of what I have seen is the worksite that I have been consulting on (as well as doing a large amount of work with my own hands- this has made it much more bearable). However, for one brief afternoon recently I was free to take in more of the cultural side of Medellin. Not that a work site doesn't instruct on the culture of a place- it is just that I wanted to see the crown jewels as well.
Our first stop ( I was traveling around with a scenic professional from Bogota who speaks excellent English and made it much easier to navigate- Thanks Ricardo! ) was Parque Lleras which is a nice little park surrounded by restaurants and bars.

We had lunch at a little Mexican place on the corner and then headed out by taxi to the Museo de Antioquia.

The first thing you see when you arrive at the Museo de Antioquia is a courtyard filled with huge bronzes by Fernando Botero. Botero is perhaps Medellin's most celebrated artists and the Museo has a fantastic collection of his work.

Across from the Museo de Antioquia is the very beautiful Catedral la Candelaria. I was struck by the unusual checkerboard stone work of this building.

The Museo de Antioquia was once I gather a library and looks very institutional. We got to see two floors which included the Botero collection, an exhibition called "Horizontes 100 anos" which is a celebration of 100 years of an independent Antioquia, and the international collection. Below are a few of the highlights of the "Horizontes" exhibition.

Detail of painting by Fredy Serna "Sin Horizontes"

Installation by Santiago Velez- very clever use of material. The open boxes were sealed and held water which was so still it looked like resin... until i stuck my hand in one to feel the surface I would have sworn it was clear casting resin.

Beautiful work on paper by David Manzur "Tribute to a White Wall"

The Botero section has very nice work as well. I am not a fan of the huge sculptural figures but I like some of his drawings and painting. Here are a few examples from the collection.

"Head"

I think this one is called "Black Bishop" which has inspired me to make a drawing in my sketchbook called  "NegroHumptyDumpty"

"Hand"

"El Noche"

This last drawing held me for some time "Dying Bull" is a master work in my opinion.

On to the International collection which had an unpleasant surprise at its end. I can not really give an opinion of this collection as we were literally being chased out of the wing by security as the museum closed ( lights being turned off and everything like a club at 3am) (except in the club the lights come on). They did have one Picasso drawing-

 And then I entered a room after breezing by a Stella and a Rauschenberg and there it was. A giant canvass with an obscene frame holding a spilly splash of pigment. Without even looking at the tag I knew the author of the horror before me.

Another monstrosity from Julian Schnabel. I have titled it "No Energy"

Next I hope to get to the Museum of Modern Art Medellin. More to come from Colombia!