26.12.19

A last one in 2019...

Almost end of the year... time to wish you all the best for 2020! Here are some of my photos, illustrating my blog-posts during 2019, most of them from Paris, but a few from Portugal, Sweden... . I hope to continue my blog also next year, but probably in a rather slow pace.  

17.12.19

Exhibitions


In general, I don’t take pictures from different official art exhibitions, even if this is more and more tolerated, allowed. Here are however a few samples from exhibitions I have recently visited: Da Vinci (Louvre)…


… El Greco (Grand Palais)…


… and Toulouse-Lautrec (Grand Palais). 


I have visited a few more – without photos. Right now you can for example see Bacon (Centre Pompidou), Degas (Musée d’Orsay), Le Douanier Rousseau (Musée Maillol), Mondrian (Musée Marmottan Monet), Soulages (Centre Pompidou and Louvre)…


A little problem is the present local transport strike. Most of the metro lines are closed, but there are a number of buses around… and you can of course bike, walk... 


2.12.19

Christmas show windows again, again, again...


As each year since I started this blog, it’s time to have a look at the Christmas show windows, concentrating on the department stores the Printemps and the Galeries Lafayette.

If you wish you can look back on 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

… and there is of course the tree under the fantastic glass cupola of the Galeries Lafayette, different each year.

The flowers we can see in the tree can be recognised in a large part of the Galeries Lafayette show window decorations.


A few of the windows are just showing “things to buy”, of course beautifully presented.

This year you will find all kinds of animals in the Printemps windows…



… whereas at the Galeries Lafaytte there is a concentration on bees.    




25.11.19

"59 Rivoli"


“59 Rivoli” stands for what may be considered as an “artistic squat”. It has been there for some 20 years and has finally gotten some kind of official status, even support from the City of Paris and some other institutions. When it was first "squatted" or illegally occupied, the building, then belonging to a bank, had stood empty for years. As the name of the place indicates, the address is 59, rue de Rivoli.

You are welcome to visit the building, six floors full of active artists. The staircase - with its surrounding walls - is already something to be seen - see also top picture.




  

14.11.19

Place de la Bastille – Revolutions


The Place de la Bastille is of course quite directly linked to the 1789 Revolution - the destruction of the 14th century fortress, used as a prison, which was stormed on July the 14th, 1789. I have written on the Place and the fortress several times, e.g. here and here.

The Place is now under reconstruction, meaning that cars and buses will have to take new paths and that pedestrians will be more welcome. The work is  not finished, but you can already now reach the “July Column” on foot without risking your life (which I once did), as was the case when it was still surrounded by hectic traffic.

Some of the floor slabs around the Column have figures referring to different French Revolutions (there was not only the 1789-one)…

… and different symbols, referring to the Square. The elephant actually stood here beginning in 1813, but only in plaster and in 1840 it was replaced by the “July Column”, still there – using the same circular basin as its base. (The elephant stayed in place another six years.)

Maybe this is a good reason to write a few words about these different Revolutions? 

1789 may not need any explanations. That is the Revolution we all know about, the one which overthrew the monarchy (for a while), passed the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen”, but also created the “Reign of Terror”, the guillotine… 
  
The 1830 one, the second French Revolution, is often referred to as the “Trois Glorieuses” (Three Glorious (days)). Yes, actually, it lasted only three days, July 27-29. Charles X, who was the youngest brother to Louis XVI, had taken a number of unpopular measures, known as the “July Ordinances”, involving the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies, the suspension of the liberty of the press… He called for new elections, but the middle-class could not vote anymore. There were some riots… and Charles X was forced to abdicate. He was replaced by Louis Philippe. The House of Orléans took over from the House of Bourbon and some new rules for the Monarchy, the “July Monarchy”, were established. The “July Column” was ordered… and Eugène Delacroix made his most well-known painting, “Liberty Leading the People”.

The “July Monarchy” lasted until 1848, when it was time for the “February Revolution”. It led to the overthrow of the King, Louis Philippe, and the creation of the Second Republic.  However, the government’s very conservative politics led later that year to the unsuccessful “June Days Uprising”, creating 5.700 victims, and in December the same year led to the election of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (nephew of Napoleon I) as elected President of the Republic. Four years later he suspended the elected assembly and established the Second French Empire and became “Emperor of the French”, Napoleon III, the last French Monarch (1852-1870). We can see the famous caricature (The Pear) of Louis Philippe by Honoré Daumier, dated already 1831. 1848 was by the way a year of upheavals all over Europe, with France beginning in February, tens of other European countries followed with demands for democracy, freedom of the press…

So, we come to the last Revolution (1968 doesn’t count?), in 1871, referred to as the “Paris Commune”. The Franco-Prussian War in 1870 had led to the capture of the Emperor Napoleon III and the creation of the Third French Republic. The armistice with Prussia led to a disarmed Army, but the “National Guard” was there to keep order. The “National Guard” was some kind of reserve force, based on “active citizens”, including all “able-bodied citizens capable of carrying weapons”. The government had left Paris for Versailles and the “National Guard” took over the control of Paris, including most of the ministries. They came in conflict with the government and the regular army. The “working class” was largely represented and many socialist ideas were defended. They tried during their short 60-day “reign” to e.g. establish the separation of Church and State, the abolition of child labour… In the beginning, the regular Army members had no wish to go against them, but … finally, after a lot of barricades, fighting… the official government forces took over. The last resisters were killed at the Père Lachaise Cemetery (see previous post).  The figures vary, but, at least 10.000, maybe 20.000 people were killed between March 18 and May 28, 1871.

Edouard Manet illustrated.  


29.10.19

More open-air art...


I thought that even if I’m not feeling the “obligation” anymore to post as regularly as I used to… it was now about time to post something. What? I went out with my little camera and... just around the corner from where I live, I found all this – a lot of temporarily exhibited open-air artwork. We are on the Avenue George V. The exhibition will be there until mid-November.

The top picture and the ones below, a number of hyperrealist sculptures, are by an artist called Carole A. Feuerman. There is one of a man in a swimsuit, named “The Thinker”, obviously with a reference to another, famous, “Thinker”.

Another artist is Marcos Marin, making use of optical illusions, probably some special kind of “Op art”. There are a number of portraits of well-known personalities and also reproductions of some famous sculptures to be found in Florence, Rio…


The angle from which you look at his artwork is of course of highest importance.

The photos are by a photographer and video maker called Charlotte Mano. She also makes quite different photos, but all very “special”.

The last artist represented is Laurence Jenkell. These “Candy Nations” are bonbons in different national flag colours. They were originally exhibited at a “G20” summit meeting in Cannes in 2011.


21.10.19

FIAC outdoors ... in the rain


FIAC stands for “Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain” (International Contemporary Art Fair). It has been occurring on a yearly basis since 1974 and lasts only some three days. The main exhibition takes of course place indoors, in the Grand Palais, but there is also a lot to be seen in some temporary tents along the Champs Elysées.

Part of the “show” takes place outdoors - here first a few things which you could find between the Grand and the Petit Palais.


So… I made only the outdoor part this year. I didn’t look for “everything”… there should have been things to be seen at the Place Vendôme, but… Well, of course it’s a temporary exhibition.

I crossed the Place de la Concorde and then went into the Tuileries Gardens. It was raining… You may recognise a few artists - César, Calder, Ungerer…



I found also this one, behind the Petit Palais, close to Koons’ Tulips (see previous post). Obviously, it was not officially placed here - the word “Fiac” had been replaced…

Well, I think that I was again, like each year, distracted, attracted by the beautiful autumn leaves.