Fondation Cartier

The “Fondation Cartier” has existed since 1984 and moved to the present premises in 1994, in a glass building created by Jean Nouvel (also creator of the “Institut du Monde Arabe” and the “Musée du Quai Branly”). The foundation is of course linked to the famous jeweller and watchmaker, but nothing of this is for sale here; this is a place to promote contemporary art by temporary exhibitions.

The present exhibition (soon finished), “Born in the streets – Graffiti”, covers the movement that was created in the streets of New York in the 70’s and since has become worldwide.

As you can see above, during this exhibition, temporary walls outside the building have allowed anybody to "create". The outside decorations change every day. (It seems that a van parked there has been included in the surface for some "artists".)

Some 20 artists expose representing a number of countries, basically the US, South America and France, among them "Obey Giant" (creator of the Obama portrait), "P.H.A.S.E.2", inventor of the typical "softie" or "bubble" lettering...

Some of the works are presented in the garden behind the building.

Here you can see more in detail what the outside wall looked like a couple of days ago.

Also in the basement, some corridors (and the toilets) have been left free for anybody to create. The walls are well covered; the exhibition has been going on since July - see also top picture.

I made my visit accompanied by Catherine, "THE 5 OF US". She has also made her post; please check her version!

Rue Campagne Première...

On my way elsewhere yesterday, I suddenly saw a building close to Boulevard Raspail which attracted my attention, the one you see above. So I stopped.
I found that this ceramic building of a mixed “art nouveau” and “art modern” (big windows) style was designed by an architect called André Arfvidson and that the ceramics have been done by Alexandre Bigot, who was also the creator of the decoration of several other ceramic buildings which I have already posted about, including for architects like Guimard, Lavirotte and Perret. This one was built in 1911. The street is called rue Campagne Première and is close to the crossing of Boulevard Raspail and Boulevard Montparnasse. It was intended for artist studios. The neighbor building is a hotel, called Istria with a plate on the wall, indicating the names of famous guests. Parallel to rue Campagne Première is another street, today pedestrian, called Passage d’Enfer (Hell Passage). The buildings partly share front and back side between these two streets and have been the home and studios for personalities like Man Ray, Foujita, Picabia, Rimbaud… Elsa Triolet and Aragon met at the hotel Istria. Modigliani had a studio close by and spent a lot of time drinking and fighting in the cafés here - there were some famous ones - paying with his paintings.Walking down rue Campagne Première, looking into some small side streets and courtyards you find a lot of artist studios. Rainer-Maria Rilke was one of the inhabitants. Next surprise for me was the building just across the street, on the opposite side of Boulevard Raspail. I met with an architect in the street who now worked in this building. He let me in and I learnt the Picasso had his studio here 1912-13. Picasso then moved to another place a minute’s walk away where he stayed until 1918. You can here see his self portrait and some paintings from this period. In the neighbor house to Picasso’s second place, Simone de Beauvoir spent her last thirty years, overlooking the Montparnasse cemetery, where she now is buried together with Sartre.





Of further interest here is the Camondo School for interior and product design (see also my post about the Camondo museum), connected to an Architecture School with students like Mallet-Stevens, Auguste Perret … and Farah Diba Pahlavi, ex-Empress of Iran. A last thing worth mentioning: If you again cross the Boulevard Raspail, you will find the Fondation Cartier for temporary art, designed by Jean Nouvel. It was worth making a stop here.

Some of these pictures can be found on my photo-blog.