Memories: Nick Cave at Hirshhorn

The opening of Mammoth from Nick Cave at the Smithsonian American Art Museum during the Mardi Gras season is a timely launch for the exhibition "featuring an immersive, large-scale installation and the museum's largest-ever commission by a single artist". Influenced by the Mardi Gras Indians from New Orleans, Nick Cave's signature Soundsuits, an ongoing body of work, were created as decoys to hide identity, gender, class and race following the lynching of Rodney King in 1991 and made him famous. A few are found hidden in the show offering a reflection on lineage and American history according to the artist. Installations, sculptures, and wall pieces occupy two galleries and a large opened space housing a prolific display on the third floor of the venerable institution. 

A wall text at the entrance defines the content of the show drawn from Cave's personal memories closely linked with "countless unnamed individuals" and encourages the visitors' participation. Stacks of booklets labelled "Field Guide" provide a map of the exhibition, descriptions of the works followed by pointed questions to nudge the visitors into recollecting souvenirs triggered by the display, with additional blank pages to record thoughts and emotions.

Roam (2026), a video performance projected on the four walls of the gallery features actors wearing costumes made of metal armature-skeletons covered with synthetic fur hides, long tusks, trumps and tails. A specimen is on display in the room. A lone shaggy figure lost in a white haze approaches until its fur covers the walls in a close-up to the beast. The succession of images accelerates until they become kaleidoscopic drawings. A new tribe of masked characters wearing colorful lavish clothing appears, picks up the carcasses and carries them along Lake Michigan in a long procession followed by celebratory dances. A continuous background sound of jingle accompany the  twelve-minute show about the mammoths' resurrection, a dizzying experience for the visitors surrounded by the carnivalesque crowd. In contrast, across the hall, the mortuary stillness of the room occupied by a central sculpture generates contemplation and reflection in front of the life size bodies of two males in their street clothes lying on the floor, one face up, the other face down clutching his hands behind his neck in surrender. They stay anonymous with their heads stylized as simple cones. The down cone anchors the bronze sculpture coated with a black finish as the other facing up is filled with a bunch of flowers spilling on his clothes. Decorative doorstops are gathered like votives on one side of the sculpture and bring a personal touch to the piece. They belonged to Cave's grandmother who left the door ajar during funerals to allow the dead's departure and the entry of grieving visitors. Amalgam (Plot) (2024) is paired with Graft (2024) a quadriptych covering one of the walls. The flowery assemblage is made of needlepoint samples, painted tole and vintage trays including a needlepoint portrait of the artist, stitched together in a patchwork reminiscent of quilts. On the left, hand-crafted flowers cascade from the panel in a luxuriant bouquet. The piece refers to the depth of social divide between upper classes occupied with leisure activities like needlepoint while the subservient class of domestics is represented by the trays.  

A Lit History (2026) is a ginormous installation made of thousands of objects arranged on a lighted table surrounded by five life guard chairs decorated with wire mammoth heads, pairs of tusks and vintage gramophones' horns. This is a short description of the extravagant accumulation of eclectic objects arranged on the stand: beaded flowers, canes, pair of skates, antennas, children toys, bicycle... evoking surrealist compositions or the clutter of a hoarder. Two installations stand out. A group of sound suits quintessential to Cave's practice towers over the display as a cluster of long threatening nails arranged in a circle around a sculpted black upward fist, symbol of unity and resistance, is found on the other side of the table. One of the walls is entirely covered by Palimpsest (Promised Land) (2026), a collaborative work with Bob Faust, Nick Cave's professional and personal partner. The heavy curtain made of colorful pony beads strung on shoelaces completely obscures a collage of photographs from Nick Cave's grandparents' farm, alluding to fading and lost memories. 

Throughout the exhibition Nick Cave shares his personal and family memories and encourages the community to revisit its history. The artist grew up in Missouri where fossils of the huge mammals are  found and in a symbol of revival he "resurrects" the extinct mammoths. His idea is not far fetched as bioscience labs are already working on the de-extinction of the colossal animals posing some ethical challenges. The show which will include live performances at some point encourages the visitors' participation through a series of personal questions fit for school assignments or talk therapy. Among them: "If you were brought back to life after being extinct for millennia what would you expect to see? What might the experience feel like physically and emotionally?" or in front of thousand of objects gathered to trigger our souvenirs: "Which objects are you more curious about Do any of them bring up stories you would rather leave untold?" etc.... The comments trivialize the show which could appear filled with crafty ingredients and a pile up of soulless objects to some visitors. In a public spirited gesture, the multidisciplinary artist exposes his nostalgia for "communal togetherness and simple joys and activities" and promotes objects as a bridge to the future. 

Nick Cave's future looks bright as he was invited to participate in the 61st Venice Biennale opening in May.

Photographs by the author:

"Roam" (2026)

"Amalgam (Plot)" (2024)

"A Lit History" (detail) (2026)

"A Lit History (detail) 

"Graft" (2024)

Big Things at Hirshhorn

 

"Immersed in art" is not a figure of speech at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. It sums up the visitors' experience at the latest exhibition Big Things for Big Rooms. The straightforward title describes ten installations set in a succession of galleries on the third floor of the museum, a collection of diverse works spanning from the sixties until today, representing art movements from color field to land art and more. 

An explosion of colors at the entrance comes from a huge painting-sculpture, Light Depth (1969) from Sam Gilliam. A commission from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, it is a quintessential work of the artist's Drape paintings and a fitting start to the exhibition. Sam Gilliam born in Tupelo, Mississippi, spent his adult life in Washington where he became a prominent member of the District's arts community and was nicknamed the "Dean" in recognition of his influence. In contrast, Untitled (1969) from Robert Irwin is a sober piece made of shadows created by four white spotlights shining through a frosted clear disk, drawing organic shapes on the white wall. The flower-like pattern reaches a perfection found in nature with a dark band in the center like a pistil. The recently deceased artist (1928-2023) was part of the Light and Space movement prominent in California in the sixties and seventies. The following installation, Carrara Line (1985) from Richard Long could be a model for a land art piece set in the great outdoors: the narrow rocky white path running almost the whole length of the gallery invites the visitor for a walking meditation. The pure line of Carrara marble enhanced by the grey floor may lead to nowhere or to eternity. Minimalism and light art define the work from Dan Flavin (1933-1996) represented by "monument" for V. Tatlin (1967), one of the thirty-nine versions of the series started in 1964 ending in 1990, tribute to a beacon of the Constructivist movement Vladimir Tatlin. Set at floor level along the wall, the reductive neon sculpture splashes white light reflecting on the shiny ground. A blinding white, Théia 1, A (1979/2025) from Lygia Pape is a small piece representative of her Ttéia series. The ethereal corner piece made of tenuous gold threads seems to appear and disappear in a shifting interaction with the viewer walking by. A monumental spidery installation from the same series Ttéia 1, C (2003/2025) was recently on view at Bourse de Commerce/Pinault Collection for her first solo show in France, appropriately titled Weaving Space. Lygia Pape was a prominent member of the neo-concrete movement in Brazil. The natural light coming through a row of windows and the view of the neoclassical buildings across the Mall compete with Cloud (H2O) (2006), the installation from Spencer Finch suspended from the ceiling of the vast "Lerner Room". The ninety-five "water molecules" (white light bulbs arranged in a horizontal “Y” shape, with trios composed of two smaller bulbs and one large bulb connected by black metal rods as described in the brochure) are engineered to form a cloud-like construction easily mistaken for a decorative lightning. In contrast, Moon Dust (Apollo 17) (2009) brought dreams and poetry to the lobby of the Baltimore Museum of Art for several years. Installations can be overshadowed by their surroundings.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Following the intermission, part two of the exhibition starts with Round Rainbow (2005), a work from Olafur Eliasson set in a smaller dim gallery. Through a machinery (tripod, light, glass ring) easily disregarded, the magician of light creates fleeting shadows of orbs, spirals, volutes, resolving in rainbows, mirages on the walls, ways to reach a realm beyond time and space. The quiet visit is interrupted by loud sounds coming from a huge wooden shipping crate in the next gallery, its opening facing away. Inside, an absurdist video with a humorous twist features an endless loop of "chew, pass, wipe, pass back, receive, pack" between female protagonists in a satire about human physical labor and female exploitation in a capitalist economy. The commodity is human sweat and saliva, the final product, lemon-scented wipes. Boxes of "Tropical Breeze", their commercial name, are stacked high outside and inside the container, ready to be shipped. The installation Tropical Breeze (2004) from Mika Rottenberg is more than twenty years old and may not sustain the passage of time in a new age of robots. The refreshing site specific installation from Rashid Johnson is like a tropical island made of a metal skeleton filled with an exuberant greenery, homey props, and decorated with minimalist white light fixtures. The Changes (2025) offers a healing place, a refuge where the visitor can be vulnerable, a home. The conceptual piece can leave you indifferent or filled with empathy triggered by the live plants, the artist's goal. The last "big thing" is Third Light (2006) from a series The 7 Lights (2005-2007) about the seven-day creation narrated in the Bible. Paul Chan's installation combines sculptural elements, a rustic wooden table on sawhorses in the middle of the room, and animation with shadow silhouettes of objects and human figures floating on rectangular puddles of varied colored lights coming from a projector. The third day of the creation is about the apparition of life on earth. The fourteen-minute show leaves plenty of time to meditate on light or its absence, on enlightenment or lack of it. 

The ten works require more than the average thirty seconds usually allotted by visitors to view a piece of art. The selected diverse installations require a total physical and mental immersion to be fully taken in. Slow Art Day is April 11 this year. Here the only way to interiorize the art is a slow visit. At the end of the show, a small comfy room with deep armchairs is an invitation to browse through books and read quotes from each artist posted on the walls like Robert Irwin's "Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees" or Dan Flavin's: "I am not interested in creating objects, but rather in creating experiences."   

                                                        

photographs by the author:

-Rashid Johnson "The Changes" (2025

-Mika Rottenberg "Tropical Breeze" (2004)

-Sam Gilliam "Light Depth" (1969)

Guston meets Picasso

 

Philip Guston (1913-1980) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) could have met. Guston discovered Picasso's work while visiting the Arensberg Collection in the 1920's in Los Angeles and later in 1937 when the famous Guernica (1937) reached the American shores and toured several cities to bolster the aid for Spanish refugees. The same year, Bombardment (1937) from Guston and The dream and Lie of Franco (1937), a series of prints from Picasso hung close by in the exhibition organized to support the Spanish people and world democracy in New York City. The Irony of History, the latest exhibition at the Musée National Picasso-Paris housed in Hôtel Salé, emphasizes the link between the two artists through their politically engaged works, mainly the influence of the elder Picasso on Guston. The display set on two levels of the museum includes mostly satirical paintings and drawings from the two artists, and offers an overview of Guston's career. 

For the visitors less familiar with Philip Guston, a detailed biography introduces the show next to one painting, Sleeping (1977), a "gustonesque" self-deprecatory portrait of the artist in a fetal position hiding under his blanket, waiting for inspiration. The drawing of a cubist Picasso in his studio facing an empty canvas (The Artist before His Canvas,1938) is paired with a smoking, hooded Guston surrounded by his familiar props, clock and light bulb, painting a self-portrait (The Studio,1969).We can almost hear him mutter his famous quote: "The idea of evil fascinated me. I almost tried to imagine that I was living with the Klan. What would it be like to be evil." Another quote from Guston conveys his internal conflict as an artist confronted with a troubled political landscape. "What kind of a man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going frustrated fury about everything - and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?" Both appear lost for inspiration in the context of war atrocities during the Spanish Civil War for the former and the Vietnam War for the latter. The Painter of the Hole (1947), a watercolor from George Grosz who witnessed the horrors of two world wars would be a fitting addition. Two figurative works next to each other in a similar neoclassical style: Jeune fille au chapeau les mains croisées/ Girl in a Hat with Her Hands Clasped (1921) and an early work from a seventeen-year-old Guston Mother and Child (1930) hint to the influence of Picasso as well as Renaissance Masters on the burgeoning artist. Three small studies for murals commissioned through the WPA allude to his connections with Mexican muralists like Siqueiros, Orozco and Rivera then active in California. Close to a collage of enlarged newspaper clips about the bombing of Guernica, Bombardment (1937), a tondo from Guston appears of modest size for its content. A response to the destruction of the Basque town by the Fascists, the composition features harrowing scenes including a mother and child hurled by the blast, buildings reduced to rubbles, a figure wearing a gas masks, all spinning around an explosion crater as airplanes hover in formation above. Nearby the sketch of the head of a terrified agonizing horse by Picasso is the only reference to his famous cubist painting Guernica (1937) now housed at the Reina Sophía Museum in Madrid. 

Guston's political engagement through his art started early with his hooded figures about the KKK appearing in the 1930's but his satirical work blossomed in the 70's. Poor Richard, the series of seventy-three caricatures about Nixon and his administration, released in 2001 after Guston's death, was made in 1971. He was then close to his neighbor in Woodstock, the novelist Philip Roth who wrote Our Gang, a political satire about Nixon. His books and publications are exposed in a glass case under bright spotlights with Guston's drawings nearby displayed in a double raw along the wall and Picasso's Plate I and II of Dream and Lie of Franco (1937) which inspired Guston. Picasso's eleven ink and gouache caricatures of famous people (from 1905 to 1959) are found close to sixteen such portraits from Guston made around 1955 with ink or pencil on paper. The only color is brought by a portrait of Nixon titled San Clemente (1975). The square painting depicts the former president who found refuge in California after his resignation. Doubled over with his swollen left leg wrapped in frayed bandages, he appears miserable and also laughable with his phallic nose and tears of self-pity. Guston's obsession with Nixon supplied most of his material for his political caricatures in the 70's. The austere display is followed by two vibrant paintings from Guston's abstract expressionist period in the 50's as the exhibition turns into an abbreviated chronological review of Guston's career. After a short brake from painting, Guston shocked the art world when he released his first cartoonish figurative paintings in 1970 at the Marlborough gallery. Seven well-known paintings sum up his production, all quintessential Guston, accompanied by wall texts providing their context. Guston's caustic wit transpires in all of them from the earliest Dawn (1970) with its hooded shady figures to the latest, East-Coker Tse (1979) about the artist himself, on his death bed. The short display ends abruptly to be continued in the basement where twelve of his late paintings are lined up around a room. Of small format they were made following Guston's heart attack and offer a sample of his iconic symbols in ink and acrylic on paper.    

Philip Guston is the latest artist invited for a temporary exhibition at the Musée National Picasso-Paris, most of which are organized to emphasize the influence of Picasso on their guests' work. The highlight of the show is the display of rarely seen caricatures of both artists in the same space. In spite of belonging to different worlds and times, their connection is striking and underlines the power of political satire in visual art. It is challenging for the visitor to look at more than one hundred small drawings, each with a story and implied historical references. Guston's works on view are carefully selected, and the show allows to see in a new light well-known pieces included in Philip Guston Now, an exhaustive exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in 2023, this time short and to the point in "Picasso's temple". 

photographs by the author:

1- Philip Guston "Sleeping" (1977)

2- Pablo Picasso "L'Artiste devant sa toile/The Artist in front of his canvas" (1938)

3- Philip Guston "San Clemente" (1975)

4- Pablo Picasso "Songe et mensonge de Franco/Dream and lie of Franco" Plate I (1937)

5- Philip Guston "Bombardment" (1937)

Variations in black

 

In 1952 the Museum of Modern Art acquired a painting from Pierre Soulages then thirty three years old. Better known in the United States in the fifties and sixties, Pierre Soulages is famous in France where in 2014 a museum dedicated to his work was opened in Rodez, his hometown. He was also commissioned for the glass windows of the nearby Romanesque church of Sainte-Foy in Conques. He coined the term "outrenoir" (beyond black) to define his practice and is known as the painter of black and light. “Soulages, another light”, the title of the latest exhibition at Musée du Luxembourg is followed by a subtitle "Paintings on paper" which reveals the content of the show dedicated to a less known side of Soulages's career. The artist recalls that as a young boy he drew trees in the winter and painted the snow black. He adopted abstraction early on and never wavered in his quest for the light reflected by the color black. He passed in 2022 at the age of one hundred and two. He is survived by his wife and life-long companion, Colette, who was involved in the selection of the one hundred and thirty paintings on paper among more than eight hundred, representing the production of the artist from the forties until the early two thousands when he abandoned paper and media like walnut stain, charcoal, India ink or gouache for the exclusive use of acrylic resins on canvas. The chronological retrospective fills the entire space of the museum with works on paper and includes two videos featuring interviews with the artist. 

In the early forties while still a student the young artist inspired by Old Masters like Le Lorrain, Rembrandt, adopted figurative and sfumato techniques as seen in two drawings of portraits laid behind a glass casing at the entrance. Giving up art school in Paris, back home, he experimented with walnut stain and carpenter's tools readily available in his surroundings. Without transition it seems, he adopted abstraction to paint spontaneous ideograms on paper, bringing into play the nuances and transparency of the dark brown to golden walnut stain. A line up of his charcoal and walnut stain paintings represent his production in the forties, as recognition came early for the artist. In post-war Germany, he was not only invited to participate to a yearlong travelling exhibition (1948-1949) with ten other abstract French painters, but also one of his work was selected for the exhibition's poster. His name appears on a number of these, advertising solo or group exhibitions, proof of his growing fame in France. The next room dedicated to works from the fifties feels confined. The walnut stain takes a darker tone and veers to black with thicker intersecting lines mainly straight sometimes angular and even forming swirls, filling the entire pieces of paper. An inner serenity oozes from the paintings evoking Far Eastern  calligraphy. The following works from the sixties are of bigger size and feature large expanses of China ink contrasting with the white paper, black made alive by variations in thickness and fluidity. Abstract expressionism comes to mind. In 1957, although already shown in the United States, Soulages made his first trip to New York City where the movement was flourishing. There he met a number of artists, among them Robert Motherwell. In other paintings, the artist favored the wash technique for his subtle pale blues or light greys transpiring through the black geometric designs. Back and forth from paper to canvas, in 1977 he experimented with color in large-scale gouaches on paper represented by four loud blue paintings displayed side by side. We can follow his attempts at thick black "zips", linear ragged lines with ink, or scribbles with graphite. His return to the organic walnut stain in the late nineties and early thousands produces a series of quiet primordial landscapes made of earth colored strata interrupted by bands of light projected by the white paper, evoking the harsh land of his youth, his everlasting source of inspiration.

In a video of his interview with the journalist Pierre Dumayer in 1969, Soulages professes his natural passion for painting, a calling he describes as a necessity. A second interview with the art historian  Pierre Encrevré relates how he discovered inadvertently the light in the color black after a day of hard work, followed by a nap. 

Tachism, abstract expressionism, geometric abstraction, ..., Soulages never did fit in a movement, pursuing his own path. The exhibition underlines the artist's decade-long experimentations through his paintings on paper for sixty years (1940's until 2000's). Even glued to a support, paper limited the size of the works, often somber behind the glass, smothered by their frames. The artist shared his thoughts: "I always liked paintings to be walls rather than windows. When we see a painting on a wall, it's a window, so I often put my paintings in the middle of the space to make a wall. A window looks outside, but a painting should do the opposite—it should look inside of us". This statement gives a clue to his radical move away from paper to thick layers of acrylic resins on large canvases sometimes hanging from the ceiling which allowed him to sculpt the paint and find the light. The retrospective at Centre Pompidou in 2009 revealed the achievement of the then ninety-year old artist. Immersed in the "Ultrablacks", under the spell, the visitor  (I was one of them) could appreciate the culmination of his lifetime's quest. 

 According to the artist, his works on paper were not preparatory studies for his larger paintings but were part of a practice evolving on its own. We can discover his early use of the walnut stain, a media he mastered. From black to brown to golden, from a transparence found in watercolors to a darkness in charcoal, the organic stain is alive, lustrous and radiates a luminosity worthy of Old Masters like Le Lorrain through an abstract language. The spontaneity of the gesture animates the untitled works. They do not need a story or a context: they are. 

 

        

photographs by the author:

-walnut stain on paper, 1950

walnut stain and oil on paper, 1947

-ink on paper, 1961

-walnut stain on paper, 2003

-gouache and China ink on paper, 1951

Adam Pendleton at Hirshhorn

 

A visit at Hirshhorn for one more look at Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860-1960, a landmark exhibition closing in November, is the occasion to see Adam Pendleton's solo show in the circular gallery on the second floor. Adam Pendleton: Love, Queen assembles about forty of his most recent mixed media paintings and a nine-minute video. 

With little previous exposure to the artist's work, I welcomed the informative wall text introducing the show, followed by an alignment of large canvasses grouped by two or three, interrupted by signs with titles and dates for each one, in a conventional display. All the canvasses have a black background with variations brought by shapes of monochrome colors on top. The white, red, green, blue... compositions evoke abstract expressionism, geometric abstract and street art. They result from an elaborate process starting with drawings and paintings on paper photographed to create screen-prints applied on a black-gessoed canvas. The layering of shapes creates depth and story. The succession of  works along the slightly curved walls of the gallery becomes monotonous and ends with thirteen pieces of smaller size from the series Composition, courtesy of the artist. Using the same visual language of drips, sprays, splashes, peppered with Arial Bold letters or graffiti-like text, they are confined in thin black frames, cheapening their content. All the works are part of  five series: Black Dada, Untitled (Days), WE ARE NOT, Composition and Movement. At first confused by the name Black Dada, an ongoing series started in 2008, I acquired the voluminous book published at the occasion of the exhibition Blackness, White and Light at the MUMOK (Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien) in Vienna, Austria in 2023 to shed some light about the work from the conceptual artist. In her essay, the curator Marianne Dobner describes the birth and maturation of the series: "When Pendleton began making Black Dada paintings, in 2008, they were based on excerpts from Sol LeWitt's Incomplete Open Cubes (1974), a work that explored all 122 ways the framework of a cube can be incomplete. For each painting, Pendleton selected a single line from LeWitt's photographs to use as the composition's foundation. He then positioned the words "BLACK" and "DADA" over them in Arial Bold type before printing some of the letters onto the canvass in black, leaving viewers to extrapolate the missing ones. In the new Black Dada paintings, Pendleton's own painterly gestures have taken the place of LeWitt's geometric forms. Drips, sprays, and splatters from his studio, documented in photographs, provide the new visual index on which the paintings are composed. With inks including green, blue, yellow, gold, and silver, they also introduce a chromatic element not found in his other paintings." The description of the elaborate process left me with questions about the conceptual significance of the works. The journalist Hanno Hauenstein who interviewed Pendleton writes: "he explained the working hypothesis behind his art, Black Dada. In his view, this term encapsulates the relationship between blackness, abstraction and avant-garde art... It also encompasses theoretical outlooks that have shaped his practice, including those of philosopher Fred Moten, queer theorist Judith Butler, and filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard." In Pendleton's own words: "It was initially a kind of conceptual position that I function from as an artist... As a concept, Black Dada is generative, even generous. It opens up the same freedom and flexibility for the viewer as it does for me as an artist." The name Black Dada comes from the 1964 poem "Black Dada Nihilismus" by Amiri Baraka. Pendleton states that the two words merge into two ideas: "Dada meaning 'yes, yes' and Black as an open-ended signifier."  

Overwhelmed by a  rapid succession of images and voices drowned out by loud sounds, subjected to epileptogenic strobe lights and flashes, I missed the video's message blurred by the artistic effects of superimposed geometric shapes. Even its title Resurrection City Revisited (Who Owns Geometry Anyway?) (2024-2025) left me wondering about its content. Again, the wall text provided some light. The images come from archival documentation about Resurrection City erected in 1968 on the National Mall shortly after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. The short lived tent city, part of the Poor People's Campaign, was built to underline social and economic inequities. The voice is a recording of Amiri Baraka reading his poem: "I Love Music: For John Coltrane." 

It is clear that the conceptual artist is also an activist deeply involved through his multidisciplinary practice. The exhibition is only a sample of his artistic activities which include performances, videos, installations, photography, paintings, movies, poetry... His eclectic sources from French philosophers like Deleuze or Guattari to poets, filmmakers, diverse visual artists, muffle his own voice and his multiple references transform conceptual art into an elitist cryptic discourse. 

Has conceptual art run amok?... confused at Hirshhorn. 

                                                

photographs by the author:

"Untitled (Composition)" 2024-2026

"Black Dada (L)" 2024-2026

View of the series "Composition"

Famous trio in Paris

The recently renovated Grand Palais in Paris hosts diverse exhibitions, among them, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Pontus Hultén in the Galeries Nationales. From different backgrounds, the trio collaborated on numerous projects and its members became prominent personalities in the art world. Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) born in an aristocratic family had a traumatic childhood which shaped her career and, of modest origins, JeanTinguely (1925-1991) grew up in Switzerland, the country of automatons. The Swedish Pontus Hultén (1924-2006) was an artist early on and became a renown museum director and art collector. Their personal and professional relationships were so entangled that mentioning one inevitably brings up the name of the two others. The famous couple Saint Phalle-Tinguely lived separated for years, but even death could not sever their bond as following Tinguely's demise, Saint Phalle took care of his legacy with Hultén's support. The major exhibition set on two levels of the building is organized in ten chapters to present the abundant material including paintings, sculptures, drawings, archival films, letters, photographs, reliefs, models, catalogues, books, posters, diaporamas, mainly from the collection of the Centre Pompidou enriched by loans from major institutions.  

A lonely painting and two films in black and white from Pontus Hultén at the entrance sum up his career as an artist, while one of the series of Méta-Malevitch, Relief méta-mécanique (1954) from Tinguely awakes every ten minutes nearby. They started to collaborate in the mid-fifties, bound by a common interest in kinetic art. Gismo (1960), one of the five assemblages of wheels, discarded metal pieces, rubber, which were paraded in May 1960 in the streets of Paris takes half of the room, inert, in the way of the crowd of visitors slowly moving along a wall covered by photographs about the festive event. Letters, postcards, drawings, tell the story of the trio as their relationship evolves. From another series, Baluba (1961-1962), an amusing sculpture made of a drum and diverse objects is about a serious subject: a tribe caught in a political upheaval in Congo. The pink feather duster swaying on top was suggested by Saint Phalle. Their association goes both ways as Tinguely encourages Saint Phalle to pursue her idea of shooting at the canvas. The Shooting Paintings were born in 1961 and made her famous. One of them is hanging on the wall complemented by a video showing her in action. Among the overwhelming material (each piece is accompanied by videos, archival films of gallery openings or other social events) Tinguely's sculpture Meta-matic n° 17 (1959) allies ingenuity and aesthetics. It spews abstract drawings in a parody of abstract art and hints at the new threat from robots. A smaller version, the first of the series can be found nearby, close to a very "tinguelyan" sculpture, Sculpture méta-mécanique automobile (1954) decorated with geometric shapes of primary colors. More works on display among them L'Accouchement rose (1964), Le Monstre de Soisy (1966) from Saint Phalle or a wall relief from Tinguely, attest to the frenetic activity of the artists which flourishes with two collaborative projects, Hon-en katedral in 1966 at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and Paradis fantastique in 1966-67 for the French pavilion at the World's Fair in Montreal. These required not only creativity but also huge and complicated logistics. Here comes Hultén who facilitated the realization of the projects and secured also a resting place for the Paradis fantastique at the Moderna Museet. The next room is occupied by one work: Meta n°3 (1970-1971) first displayed at Centre Pompidou, a monstrous machine worthy prop for a sci-fi movie with added jarring rattles and clatters when activated for a few minutes.  

Moving to chapter three of the exhibition, visitors meet a panel of photographs from the Musée Tinguely then and now (1996 and 2025), a remnant of the famous Homage to New York (Klaxon) (1960) which autodestructed, movies, catalogues, a news reel from 1971, Meta-Kandinsky I (1956) and several sculptures from Tinguely coming alive one at a time. Missing the action can be frustrating with a ten to fifteen minutes wait for the next show. Le Soulier de Madame Lacasse (1960) takes a Dada flair with its proud toilet plunger and blue circle hanging from a fishing rod (a wink to Yves Klein). Across, Le Ballet des pauvres (1960) startles with its noisy non sensical accumulation of objects hanging from a large shaking metal piece for eight seconds every thirty minutes. 

The next three rooms are each focused on memorable collaborative projects, starting with HON-en catedral (SHE - a cathedral). The gigantic immersive installation at the Moderna Museet had a lifespan of three months (June 4-September 4, 1966) and we can look at the abundant archival material of the well documented exhibition and a few remnants like the head. Idem for Le Crocrodrome de Zig & Puce, another playful installation which included numerous attractions at the Centre Pompidou in 1977. Both were conceived and constructed under the aegis of Hultén who brought a new vision for the museums, from a passive viewing of art to forums with interactive activities open to a diverse public. The third project,  The Cyclop (1969-1994), an outdoor sculpture, took twenty-five years to build and involved the collaboration of numerous artists with various expertise due to its complex structure. The sculpture can be viewed in the Milly forest and is now preserved by the French state.

 The walk up a flight of stairs to the upper level provides a break before entering a dark space where we find a selection of works from Tinguely's retrospective organized by Hultén at the Centre Pompidou in 1988. They include four sculptures of a series of thirty Philosophers, each with an attribute like feathers for Jean-Jacques Rousseau or a snail for Jacob Burckhardt, facing a self-portrait made of a wheel, long chains, pulleys, a gruesome mask and a stuffed black bird. Tinguely is loosing his humor and dwells in the macabre, as confirmed by a last showpiece: L'Enfer, un petit debut (1984). Hell, a Small Beginning is a large installation made of the accumulation of heteroclite pieces on a platform, activated at the same time, producing a discombobulating sight and a mechanical unpleasant noise, a world in chaos. On the way to the last chapters of the exhibition dedicated to works from Saint Phalle, one more sculpture of Tinguely, Rotozaza I (1967), a machine  devouring and spitting balloons, attempt to deride the capitalist system, is just a quiet monster surrounded by a few benches offering a place to rest for the weary visitors. We can agree with Hultén that: "Tinguely's mechanic is not of good taste and is not attractive, it is often more frightening than beautiful." (my translation).  

Niki de Saint Phalle had a solo retrospective curated by Hultén then Director of the Centre Pompidou, almost a decade before Tinguely, in 1980. The two-month-long exhibition included significant works like "Shooting Paintings"," Nanas" and large scale sculptures. The sample selected here reflects her engagement for the feminist cause with several "Nanas" who made Saint Phalle famous. Among them, Crucifixion (ca. 1965) the most provocative is a distressing sight: a powerless puppet without arms, legs open, debased by her garter and hair curlers. La Mariee (1963) of the same technique with plaster than L'Accouchement Rose seen earlier, is a clear reference to women's condition, smothered by the social pressure to conform. King Kong 1963), a large bas-relief and two light humored pieces L'Aveugle dans la prairie (1974) and La Promenade du dimanche (1971) complete the display, with added movies and archival material. 

The last room brings a tinge of nostalgia and gloom with photographs of Tinguely's grand funerals (1991), letters from Niki de Saint Phalle to Tinguely in 1993, after his death, evoking "cannibalism", "communion". "I am taking your strength, your soul joins mine." Indeed, she incorporates movement in her series of  Tableaux éclatés (Shattered Paintings) like Ganesh II (1992) or Jean II (Méta-Tinguely) (1992) dedicated to Tinguely. Her ties with Hultén stay strong and fruitful with the establishment of the Musée Tinguely in Switzerland, a solo exhibition in Bonn in 1992, preservation of the Tarot Garden in Italy and The Cyclop near Paris. Niki de Saint Phalle spent her last years in California.

The abundance of works and archival material, at times overwhelming, makes the show a landmark exhibition. Collective projects overlapping for years even decades render a chronological presentation futile and contribute to iterations. No museal display will recreate the excitement and fun generated by installations like Hon or the Crocrodrome or reenact the Tirs Paintings, however it provides an intimate view of the synergetic relationship between the members of the trio, even when separated by distance or worse, death. The unique setting allows the display and activation of an astounding number of works from Tinguely, bringing them to life one more time for the exhibition. Hopping from sculpture to sculpture to catch the action, we almost forget that Tinguely was not only a gifted machinist, he was a leader of the Nouveau Realism movement and the group ZERO from Düsseldorf. Niki de Saint Phalle, a self-taught artist, encompasses several artistic trends, from art brut to pop art, action painting, collective art and giant interactive installations as she engaged with the feminist movement. Pontus Hultén, the facilitator, provided an unwavering support to the two artists as he pursued his own career. In this statement, Niki de Saint Phalle acknowledged his role :" They are few essential people who cross a life. Pontus is one of them for Jean and myself" (my translation). 

The trio brought crowds to the museum then, and now, one more time, entertains visitors of all backgrounds, from hardened art connoisseur to children on school trips.     

photographs by the author:

- Jean Tinguely "Méta-Kandinsky I"(1956)

-Niki de Saint Phalle "La Promenade du dimanche" (1971)

- Jean Tinguely "Sculpture méta-mécanique automobile (1954)

-Niki de Saint Phalle "La Mariée" (1963)

-Niki de Saint Phalle "Jean II (Méta-Tinguely) (1992)

Léger and the New Realists

The exhibition "Léger and the New Realists" at the Musée National Fernand Léger, Biot (June 2024-February 25) has taken a more casual and playful title at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris. "Tous Léger", meaning "All light" a word game on the artist's name, features Fernand Léger's works as the backbone of the show underlying his influence on the Nouveau Réalisme movement which flourished in the sixties, almost a decade after his death. If Ferdinand is a name fit for kings, Fernand has a  proletarian overtone more suitable for Léger who never forgot his working-class roots and joined the communist party for a while. From Cubism, the prolific artist evolved to his own Tubism, and later to a highly personal figurative style characterized by heavily stylized thick black drawings covered by bands of bold colors floating on top, "la couleur en dehors". While living in Montparnasse, he became a fixture of the Parisian art scene and mingled with younger artists labelled Nouveaux Réalistes by the art critic Pierre Restany in 1960. The show which features about one hundred works including paintings, sculptures, short videos and photographs, emphasizes his legacy as he influenced artists beyond borders and time. 

The themed exhibition starts on a metaphysical subject about the four elements of life represented in art. Léger added a fifth element, color: "Man needs color to live; it's just as necessary an element as fire and water". Pairing works from Léger with his younger peers, The Birds 11 (1981), a wall relief from Arman, accumulation of metal clamps transformed in a flock of birds is found next to Composition aux deux oiseaus sur fond jaune (c. 1955) from Léger, Venus bleue (c.1962)  a monochrome sculpture from Yves Klein close to a painting from Léger La Danseuse bleue (1930), or La Baigneuse (1932) along La Source (1965/2044) from Alain Jacquet. Each element (plus one) is represented: water, earth, air, fire, and color. The straightforward connection between the works makes for a pleasant display.

The next room is plastered with quotes from artists and their portrait photographs on one side and a chronological history of the Realist Movement on the other. An abbreviated timeline sums up key art events with a verb, starting in 1956 "assembler" (to piece together) about Niki de Saint Phalle's "assemblages". 1960 is labelled "s'autodétruire" (to self-destruct) alluding to Tinguely's first self-destructing machine, 1961 "brûler" (to burn) and "tirer" (to shoot) referring to the Fire Paintings from Klein and the Shooting Paintings/Tirs from Nikki de Saint Phalle. It ends in 1965 with "nana-fier", a word made up with the famous Nanas from de Saint-Phalle. Brief comments (in color) provide more information, if they can be read. The confined space is crammed with visitors and it takes some patience to reach the first row. A video showing Yves Klein live in the process of burning a canvass with a firefighter in full gear holding a hose at his side brings a smile and some nostalgia. Across, reading the quotes from the artists on the busy wall is another daunting task. None of the texts are translated in English. 

Moving on, "La Vie des Objets" (The objects' life) assembles a collection of works underlining the new status of the object as a source of inspiration and becoming the main subject of the compositions. Gloves, scissors, tools or even debris are arranged in a new kind of still lifes by Léger and Nikki de Saint Phalle. Arman adds an emotional connection to the object in his Colères, here a furniture in the Henri II style, antique greatly prized by the bourgeoisie, destroyed in a presumed fit of rage. For Palette Katharina Duwen (1989) Daniel Spoerri "fixes" his companion's tools, found objects at the flea market. No need to visit The Louvre to find beauty, beauty is everywhere proclaims Léger. In La Joconde aux clés (1930) a beautified set of keys takes over the painting as a miniature Joconde watches in the background. Everyday objects are a visual treat. Seita (1970) from Raymond Hains, a giant used matchbox alludes to the cross-pollination with the Pop art movement born in America as Interior with Chair (1997) from Roy Lichtenstein is spotted close by. 

Beauty is also found in the streets. Artists soak in a new visual urban environment filled with posters, stamps, letters, numbers, lights. Raymond Hains and Jacques Villeglé  tear posters, Robert Indiana makes posters, Fernand Léger a still life with letters (Nature morte, A.B.C., 1927). A blown up photograph of César visiting a junkyard to collect material is the background for one of his sculpture made of compressed metal displayed like a precious art work on a pedestal. The machine is taking over and the anonymous portraits stay emotionless. Nikki de Saint Phalle collaborates with Larry Rivers for Tinguely's portrait, an assemblage of pieces of machinery. Léger discovers ceramic and Martial Raysse introduces neon. 

"L'art c'est la vie" (Art is life) introduces the next display, a room filled wall to wall with colorful works of modest size. The Nanas from de Saint Phalle appear in serigraphs: they play football, volleyball, ride bicycles and go to the circus. Their curves are not sensual but celebrate women's liberation from the constraints  of society. Early on in the fifties Léger paints the proletariat's new life enjoying leisure time like in Le Campeur (1952) or Circus (1950). In a giant photomontage Flower Worship (1982), Gilbert & George  profiles a relaxed half recumbent subject almost smothered by a pile of vibrant colored flowers generating an overwhelming state of happiness. "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful" would say  Mae West.

Art and architecture intertwine. Blown up photographs of monumental works wallpaper the last room: the façade of the church in Plateau d'Assi decorated with a mosaic from Léger or details of de Saint Phalle's giant sculptures found at the famous Tarot Garden. "Art est partout" (Art is everywhere) and sculptures are dreamed for public spaces like Wall Street (c.1975) from de Saint Phalle or La Branche Rockefeller (1952) for Léger. A massive glittering sculpture of Miles Davis and his trumpet (de Saint Phalle) fit for the entrance of an amusement park overshadows a discreet and nostalgic painting from Léger Les Musicians (1930) bringing back a pre-war time of music and dance in the streets of Paris. On the way out, Untitled (n° 2557) (1986), a large graffiti work from Keith Haring is a reminder of Léger's far reaching legacy. 

In the forties and the fifties, on the American side of the Atlantic, Abstract Expressionism was booming as Léger was refining his figurative style to address themes about a new social order born from a growing class of workers called proletariat. In the sixties, America's art scene was bustling in New York City and California with Pop art, Minimalism, Conceptual art as New Realism was thriving in France. The art critic Pierre Restany coined the name "Nouveau Réalisme" in 1960 and published a manifesto summed up by this statement: "New Realism-New ways of perceiving the real." Meanwhile, the crowd of philistines would ask, is this art? Compressing, tearing, burning, shooting, self-destructing,.... Back to Léger, the show emphasizes his new art addressed to folks favoring figurative to abstract and themes about everyday life, his way to democratize art. Léger shunned emotions and intellectual pursuits and emphasized the healing power of colors. Little metaphysical preoccupations transpire from the works exhaling a whiff of political awareness. The exhibition makes a point about Léger's far reaching influence, sometimes stretching its case. Following the visit Léger's legacy takes a new outlook: at the crossroad of art history, he started to bring the street to the museum and the museum to the street. 

Upon leaving I felt unburdened by heavy thoughts, just carefree, cheerful... light. Joy is contagious. 

 

photographs by the author:

-Fernand Léger "La Joconde aux Clés" (1930)

-Nikki de Saint Phalle and Larry Rivers "Jean III (Méta-Tinguely)" (1992)

-Nikki de Saint Phalle "Nana Santé" (1999)

-Arman "Colère (meuble de style Henri-II)  (1961)