A French Story

While reviewing my note books, I found twenty six pages written about the exhibition L'Art en Guerre at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Closed in February, it is now on view at the Guggenheim in Bilbao till September. The scope of the exhibition which assembles a large amount of material including not only rarely seen or previously unseen paintings, drawings, sculptures but also documents, posters, hand written notes, diaries...goes well beyond art.
Starting with the opening day of the first international surrealist retrospective at the "galerie des Beaux-Arts", January 17, 1938, the exhibition gives a review of the art created in France till the onset of the Cold War, covering almost ten years reflected in four hundred works from one hundred artists, some well-known, others anonymous. It tells the story of the shattered artists' lives, interned in French camps, exiled or hiding in clandestinity and its influence on their creativity and how their fate during that tragic period shaped the art in France.

Works from Surrealist artists, well-known (Duchamp, Tanguy, Dali, Eluard, De Chirico...) or less-known  (Delvaux, Denise Bellon...) and series of "Cadavres Exquis" from 1931 signed by artists like Breton, Sadoul, Eluard, Man Ray, Tzara are representing the pre-war period. Escapades from reality, humor, cynicism, they are facing rarely seen pieces made in captivity by Max Ernst, Bellmer, Wols, interned in camps in the South of France, or Freundlich who died in deportation.

A list of the artists and their works would be fastidious and pointless. The curators organized mini exhibitions to show well-known artists ( Picasso, Matisse) or movements (religious art, art brut), while presenting lesser artists in the context of the time with numerous documents, photographs, posters,  providing a thread to the main exhibition.
Picasso remained in Paris during "l'Occupation" and kept working in his Left Bank atelier where he had painted Guernica. Ostracized by the Nazi regime, he kept a low profile and most of his production became public after the war. Matisse also well represented with paintings and famous cutouts, was in the South of France and had to deal with the arrest of his daughter by the Gestapo. Elderly and in fragile health, he kept a daily work schedule and published Jazz in 1947.

The art in France reflected a divided country with artists like de Vlaminck, Van Dongen, Derain, de Segonzac collaborating with the Vichy government and the German occupiers, artists who chose to stay in Paris, working in the shadow like Picasso or artists who took refuge in the South like Matisse, Bonnard, Rouault. Others like Chagall fled Europe for the United States.
In Paris, attempts to "art as usual" punctuated the war time with events like the exhibition at the gallery Braun in 1941 which introduced the "Jeunes peintres de Tradition Française", the opening of the "Musée d'Art Moderne" in 1942 or the exhibition at the "Galerie de France" in 1943. But freedom of creativity was thwarted by the Vichy regime headed by the Nazis, which denounced degenerate art and promoted a return to "real art" (banned abstract, encouraged the use patriotic colors and themes centered on family, work...).
Few artists like the Alsacian Joseph Steib were discovered after the war. His satiric colorful paintings denouncing Nazism and Hitler were realized in his kitchen and exposed once in his town hall under the name The Salon of Dreams.
But many artists did not return from the camps and left only few works to remember them like Myriam Levy, Charlotte Salomon, Nussbaum and some stayed anonymous. For them, art became a mean to escape the reality of the camps and they unleashed their creativity on any material they could spare: matchboxes, cans, cardboard boxes, fabric. If sometimes technically weak, the pieces are of great historical interest and the poignant memories left from the camps are emotionally overwhelming.
In contrast, the story of the gallery Bucher, a safe heaven for artists is heartwarming. Her director, Jeanne Bucher who ran her gallery discreetly during the war, brought the outside world to Paris,  promoting works from "avant-garde" artists like Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Robert Motherwell, Nicolas de Staël.
A following outstanding display is devoted to religious art, art brut and primitivism spearheaded by Dubuffet during the period following the war but it feels off the subject.

The exhibition is the occasion to remember a history which is still haunting France. The art world changed after the devastating war and artists discovered the United States, abstract expressionism followed by minimalism.

no photographs allowed at the exhibition

photographs by the author:
"The Look of Amber", Yves Tanguy, 1929
Detail of a Cutout from Matisse
Wikimedia
"Guernica", Picasso, 1937

Larry Clark in Paris

The latest exhibition of Larry Clark's works is creating a heated debate in the media and the art world in Paris. The city of Paris which owns the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, has decided to forbid the entrance to minors ( below 18 years old in France.) In an interview for Beaux Arts Magazine, the artist himself states that he was stunned by the decision and that he has no problems showing his photographs to his own children.

The exhibition titled "Kiss the Past Hello" starts with a display of photographs made by Clark's mother. She had some talent, documenting dog shows, family events, a homey, warm world with a Rockwellian flavor.

Without transition, the viewer is plunged into the dark world of drugs with "Tulsa" (1971.) The photographs, all in black and white and of a small format, line up the wall and the procession is slow, every viewer wants to be confronted with the images. We take turns to look at these scenes, taken in Tulsa, Oklahoma, documenting Clark's friends shooting drugs: a dark background, bright lights, needles.
The second room is lined up with bigger format photographs with "Teenage Lust" (1983) and are mainly related to sex: close photographs of phallus's and vagina's without surrounding, just anatomical pieces or sex acts sometimes perverted like in "Brother and Sister" (1973). The pictures, without poetry, like a documentary, hit the viewer.

The next room has photographs in colors, depicting poor Latino neighborhoods, and introduce us to the world of poverty and marginalisation.

Clark's subjects do not inspire pity. He brings up the conflicts of teenagers experimenting with drugs, sex and guns. Their acts are not perversions, they are confusion, search and sometimes just games.


The question remains, censorship, yes or no? Should we forbid teens to go to the museum? The Mairie de Paris is afraid of being sued. What about putting a disclaimer at the beginning of the exhibition and warn the viewer? Parents could decide if they want to bring their children. Teenagers would be also warned.
Teens are not allowed to look at a document showing their peers living through their darkest times. I can imagine teens running out of the exhibition to shoot drugs and have sex! Instead, it could be a great starter for discussions between generations.

The great retrospective, fifty years of the artist's work with more than 200 photographs brings the crowd to the museum. Pornography or paedophilia? These words have been used. I do not agree, the photographs are a testimony, photojournalism.

Larry Clark is a mere observer... like his mother. Just different subjects!


the photographs of Larry Clark are available on numerous sites

The King of the streets

Waiting for the opening of the FIAC tomorrow, I could not miss the exhibition "Basquiat" at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. A retrospective of Jean-Michel Basquiat 's works (1960-1988) planned for his 50's anniversary.

The story of his short life is centered mainly around Manhattan where he became known for his graffities signed SAMO. The early graffities begin the exhibition, with their primitive symbols and drawings, arrows, suns: cave art in the street. As we progress along the rooms, the technique changes and the colors become brighter and brighter, until they reach a Caribbean flavor, with the subject often drawn in black on sharp reds, oranges, yellow, blue backgrounds. The paintings are violent and the language becomes personal with symbols like the crown. The artist paints everything including old refrigerators, wooden panes, bags, with ferocity. He is translating the violence of the street on the canvass and becomes the voice of the anti-establishment and presents himself as a paria. Through his paintings, he makes the kings of the street become part of the art world.
A number of paintings refer to the anatomy of the human body, like "Skull", 1981. The artist describes the horror of being, a skull with black content and bones like a cage or a prison. Using what he calls his "cultural memory", he offers a glimpse into the underworld where kings get their heads cut off and pictures himself as a young derelict.
The works of Jean-Michel Basquiat are noticed and soon are hanging on the walls of the galleries. His message becomes political, the words are changing: liberty, skinheads, asbestos, negroes... He creates "Slave Auction", 1982, "Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta", 1983 and "Revised Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta". The only light painting is "Self-portrait with Suzanne", 1982, with pastel colors and a happy subject.
The works loose their spontaneity. The association with Andy Warhol is not a success for Basquiat. He has become a member of the new establishment but his voice is chocking. One more time, he tries to reach his roots and compose paintings with subjects related to Voodoo, African masks. The result? an advertisement like "Zydeco", 1984 or the caricature of an African-American on gold background "Gold Griot", 1984. His preoccupation with death becomes overwhelming and he composes one of his last piece called "Eroica II", 1988. The colors are flat, heavy and the composition has lost all energy.
The king of the street is no more.
The retrospective is very extensive with 100 paintings, drawings, objects. But some viewers cannot be reached. The German couple next to me shakes their heads, and the lady from the 16th arrondissement honestly declares that she will never understand. The giant fishhook on "Revised Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta" is not a threat to the catfish, but to African- Americans who used to be hung from trees. How can we understand the graffities without walking in some areas of NYC?

Jean-Michel Basquiat was so young when he died twenty two years ago, if...

photograph by the author: ENOB, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1985 at the FIAC

Deadline

I could not miss the exhibition called "Deadline" at Musee d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris.
From Martin Kippenberger to Joan Mitchell, Robert Mapplethorpe and others, the message is moving. The exhibition is presenting pieces they created after being diagnosed with terminal illnesses.

Starting with Kippenberger, in the first room, are the portraits for "Das Floss der Medusa". This is the boat he chose to cross from life to death. Poignant self-portraits with expressions of great suffering are lining up one side of the room while on the other side, the portraits are showing the back of the artist who already left us.

The exhibition also presents Absalon with one of his cell- like apartment, all white, small, like a cocoon.

Hans Artung is showing great energy and appears taken by a colorful frenzy to produce , like Wilhem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell.

Robert Mappelthorpe's room is chilling: a parade of black and white photographs including a skull. Presiding over these, a photograph of the artist's face and a hand holding a cane with a skull, floating on a black background. He is looking intensely at ...me. The other photographs are Greek statues from Apollo, Hermes and other young gods, glowing in their eternal beauty and helping us reflect on our own mortality.

Several works from Chen Zhen are presented, one of them is quite unnerving with sounds of women giving birth, sick people moaning, coughing, vomiting.These sounds are coming from a coffin made with two hospital beds wrapped with bandages , pieces of torn hospital gowns.
More artists can be found on the website.

This exhibition is of great quality and is opened till January the 10Th.