chezgrace

Stealing Beauty - I

2011-10-26T13:48:00.000+02:00

Sois belle et tais-toi

When I was looking for a videographer in 2006 to record the art openings I was having, Susie Hollands of Ivy Paris (now Vingt Paris) suggested Elena Rossini, an Italian in Paris who was filmmaker, director, and editor. Elena wound up doing several great videos of the vernissages here, and includes one on her website:

http://elenarossini.com/?p=473

I would go to her apartment and sit in on the editing process and was always impressed by her exquisite taste and intelligence, and thrilled with the finished product.

But all good things come to an end (and an end of one thing is the beginning of another) so that Elena became more and more involved in her own projects and less available for extracurricular ones like mine. A few years ago she started speaking of a film she was putting together about the beauty industry.

Around that time I attended a debate about the French presidential candidates at the time, Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy. Why did it rankle that the speaker identified Ségolène, among other things, as "belle," but neglected to mention that Nicolas was "laid"? He mentioned that she was beautiful, like that was important in a candidate if the candidate were female but if the candidate were male, it didn't much matter if he were ugly.

Business as usual.

And so Elena takes on the beauty business in her film "The Illusionists."

It's important for a woman to be beautiful, culture says, and so often that means not as she is in nature. If she's white, she needs to tan, if she's black, she needs skin lightening products, if she's big-busted, she needs breast reduction, if she's small-breasted, she needs augmentation. Same with the nose. Same with the hair. And let us not even mention the whole concept of five-inch heels!

When my youngest daughter was in French kindergarten, maternelle, she came home from school one day indignant because a sly female classmate had lanced the ultimate French insult: "Tu n'est pas belle." My daughter, blonde and blue-eyed, a classic beauty who already knew at age four years old the importance and the duty to be beautiful, the jealousy she would inspire, and disdain, and longing, a little micro example of what Elena courageously and astonishingly attacks in her film.

http://theillusionists.org/

To be continued....

Notes:

"Stealing Beauty" (1996) is the name of a film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci starring Liv Tyler and Jeremy Irons.

"Sois belle et tais-toi" or "Be beautiful and shut up" is a French expression and admonition to members of the gentle sex. I first heard this expression from my French father-in-law who tried to instruct me in culture and cultural differences.

It is also the name of a song by Serge Gainsbourg, a films by both Marc Allégret (1958) and Delphine Seyrig (1981).

Keith Campagna: "Non-fiction"

2011-04-22T16:00:00.000+02:00

The storyline is the material and the emotion

Does every picture tell a story?

For Connecticut artist Keith Campagna, "what you see is what you get." That is the reason he titled the show that opens chez Grace tomorrow "Non-fiction." In twenty-one unframed paintings on paper he evokes leaves, flowers, the sky at night, the heart of a storm.

One wall is given over to a series that is a tribute to Japan after the recent disasters there. A collector of his work who lives in Basel calls his new work shown here "transformational," because he has gone from working on a huge scale to these smaller and more meditative works. He has brought the outside in, and gone inside, "pulling in, taking the essence, really compressing into a small space so many layers of nature."

Indeed, in the show here in June 2008 entitled "Passion and Elegance," Keith's big paintings wowed the viewers with their scale and intense color. Irving Solero's finely detailed photographs of couture masterpieces from the collection of Fashion Institute of Tecbnology in New York lent counterpoint elegance.

"Non-fiction," then, is the real, unadulterated story, the unvarnished truth, the un-sugar-coated facts that will not be glossed over but rather confronted, lived through, dealt with, mourned if necessary, and transformed. This joyful reunion of friends and family for his show at this spring time of year in the sunniest April in Paris in a decade celebrates new life, new love and new understanding of our reality.

Pictured: "Lullabye for a Rainy Night," 2011, acrylic on acid-free watercolor paper, 22" x 30." Price on request.

A Scholar Discusses Printmaking and Matisse

2011-02-04T10:36:00.000+01:00

Multi-lingual

Members of two venerable Parisian institutions got together two nights ago to hear an art historian discuss the current exhibit at the Mona Bismarck Foundation in the 16th arrondissement. Both have their offices there, and so, theoretically at least, have first dibs on what goes on in the gallery space.

The American Wives of Europeans (AAWE) and the Association of Americans Resident Overseas (AARO) were fortunate enough to get deeper insight into the current exhibit "Another Language - Matisse as Printmaker" when Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort explained different printmaking techniques and provided a glossary of French-to-English printmaking terms, fleshed out how Matisse came to making prints along with painting ("By this time he was well-established, wealthy and famous, and so was doing it only to please himself..."), gave us some suggestions for further study, and highly recommended the exhibition's catalog.

Dr. Beaufort has lived in Paris since 1971 and is a long-time member of AAWE. Besides being an art historian who has written articles about art collecting in the U.S., American artists in Paris, and her doctoral dissertation on the French landscape painter Charles François Daubigny, she has made prints herself and so could easily describe the various processes and the effect and results of acid on copper, for example.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York's interactive explanation and description is a good way to understand it all, and fun:

http://www.moma.org/interactives/projects/2001/whatisaprint/print.html

And our speaker also recommended another resource in the Print Council of America:

Print Council of America: www.printcouncil.org/

Shown above, from the exhibit:

Nu dans les ondes (Nude in the Sea), 1938
Linocut 22.1 x 35 cm,
On wove paper with G. Maillol.

"Another Language - Matisse as Printmaker"
until February 15th.

Mona Bismarck Foundation
34, avenue de New York
PARIS 16

More about the show:

http://www.monabismarck.org/current.html

A Look at the Week Ahead

2011-01-30T14:23:00.000+01:00

Segue into February

Monday: Feldenkreis class with Virginie Avot here in my own living room with three or four other women who appreciate body work that is gentle, subtle and deep. Virginie is a gifted teacher who is also a dancer.

Tuesday: Photo shoot with Chantal Casanova in her studio on the place Emile Goudeau. She is a magician. No more need be said.

Wednesday: The beginning of the Salon des Entrepreneurs at the Palais de Congrès. I've signed up for "Business Angels: mode d'emploi" and also "Quelles sont les stratégies à mettre en place pour conquérir de nouvelles parts de marchés ?"
And in the evening, at the fabulous Mona Bismarck Foundation on the avenue de New York, a talk on printmaking by a renowned art educator and historian Madeleine Beaufort under the auspices of AARO and AAWE.

Thursday: teach English in the morning. Lunch in the 7th with a FB friend. Dinner with Aline Geller of the BOX in Paris, and culture maven and bonne vivante Jill Danger. I think we're supposed to go to someplace cool.

Friday: This is my day to catch up. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. Get ready for the weekend. Clean the house. Pay the bills. Like that. My daughter is going to NYC tomorrow for a week so I just might be needed on the mom front.
Today is also the beginning of Exat Expo at Parc Floral in the Bois de Vincennes. Should be good.

Coming soon: a report on Barbara Gaile's show here (until April).

Our New Year 2011

2011-01-01T17:33:00.000+01:00

The way we live now

I don't go out on New Year's eve. It's because I go out quite a bit year 'round and also because I've a contrarian nature and do the opposite of what everybody else is doing, so last night I stayed home and read for two and a half hours til midnight-thirty and then turned off the light. I'm reading "Life" by Keith Richards.

The scent of pine from the four (!) Christmas trees we have is still oddly touching, but they are drying out and I don't think that I'll be able to wait til January 6th to get rid of them. I am very moved by all the new year's greetings I've received from all over the world. And I wish the same to all who read this: peace, prosperity, joy, and the continued ability to be touched by love and art in 2011.

On the street where I live

2010-11-30T11:10:00.001+01:00

Full of joy

Sometimes I pretend I'm a hermit and don't go out of my apartment for days, or at least out of my neighborhood. The rue des Abbesses has plenty going on, sometimes a little too much (a parade on the weekends, a spontaneous flea market near the metro, itinerant capoeira dancer-acrobats in warm weather, and now a Christmas market at the place of metro Abbesses.)

On the two block walk to the post office, besides passing the butcher, the baker and the candlestick- maker (more or less), I also notice quite a few clothing and cosmetic boutiques that have popped up in the last eight years (and actually are replacing the butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker!)

Here is a sign in the window of a boutique that caused me to stop and take in the sentiment: "A marvelous world and full of joy." Made my day.

Back story: the boutique is Kiehl's, of Manhattan, recently installed on my street, and the poster refers to the Jeff Koons family foundation that is donating proceeds of a certain product to a charity to fight against the exploitation of children. (I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Jeff Koons, no matter what people say.)

He says "It's for the artist to re-organize things, to mix things together like a new chemical composition."

May this always be so.

More about the campaign:

http://helenedenamps.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/kiehl%E2%80%99s-et-jeff-koons-pour-une-noble-cause/

Sweet

2010-10-31T16:56:00.012+01:00

My Favorite Blogger

Carol Gillott was in Paris again, attending the Salon du Chocolat, discovering new bakeries, and photographing whatever struck her fancy. It's usually something colorful or sweet, but usually both.

ParisBreakfasts is the name of her blog which is an ongoing love letter to Paris and its delights: the pastry, Parisians' inimitable style, the serendipity and surprises of an American still starry-eyed about this city after all these years. Her wide-eyed wonder and whimsical take on things never fails to delight me. She is positively zany, humble about the French she occasionally fractures, and is one of the few bloggers who answers you back personally, immediately when you leave a comment! (I hope I am not spoiling a good thing. Carol has five thousand devoted fans, and counting!)

I was able to lure her to Montmartre this time. We met at the bus stop near the Moulin Rouge, and I suppressed a giggle because she speaks the way she writes: stream-of-consciousness, parenthetically, self-deprecatingly. She's so funny. She handed me a jar of a special super-duper chocolate spread that she'd nabbed at the Salon. (Thanks, Carol!) She took pics of a candy stand near metro Blanche, fruit from a primeur, fruit tarts at Les Petits Mitrons, cupcakes at Berko, and the crowd in the Amélie Poulain café, Café de Deux Moulins. Her mascot Bear sat on the table quietly watching her eat her salad. I was not surprised at her bracelet: a chunky ceramic affair with cookies and candies, and her t-shirt was a hommage to multi-colored macaroons.

We climbed the three flights up to my apartment which looks pretty snazzy when the sun is shining in and I beamed too because we both agreed: Carol's Paris watercolors would look great in a show here! (to be continued!)
http://parisbreakfasts.blogspot.com/2010/10/salon-du-chocolat-2010.html

Pictured: my laptop's keyboard, including the letters "C" and "G" for Carol's initials. I had wanted to include the drawings on the postcard-invitations she gave me for her show at Alliance Française in Philadelphia on November 5th (see blog for details) but my photos of them just do not do them justice!

I heart To Be Happy

2010-09-22T19:03:00.002+02:00

Getting Back on Track

Duane Gautier of Honfleur Gallery in Washington DC is in town for a few days and as is his wont, told me to make reservations at whatever restaurant I wanted. Le Chateaubriand was booked up, so we went back to Drouant in the 2nd.

Always a lot to talk about, because he is running Honfleur plus another gallery, called Vivid Solutions, which is a photo gallery and lab, plus renovating inexpensive artist housing, plus the job training program ARCH, all east of the river in Anacostia.

For me the summer meant taking a little break from having shows, except for the architecture students from Lawrence Tech showing their senior projects here comparing 'terrain vague,' or vacant lots both in Detroit where they are from, and Clichy-sous-Bois. When Professor James Stevens explained their projects to me I knew I couldn't say no.

That was mid-August. More recently, because it was the ninth anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001, I decided to get a roomful of people together to see just how we have all digested the trauma and how much more healing we have to do. The amazing collection of 911 memorabilia of Al Herter and his recollections were at once moving and uncomfortable.

The artists Nassim al-Amin, Vincent Alran, Tom J. Byrne, Dimitri Fagbohoun, Alexis Peskine, and Antony Peskine contributed work and shared about their own experience of that fateful day. Marcus McAllister, who is in Nimes for the salon Art'Nîm brought four of his artist notebooks including the one preceding September 11th called, in eery inadvertent prediction,"Le Tour Blessé par l'Eclair." (The Tower Struck by Lightning).

The paintings and installation will be here for another week (by appointment.)

No more shows scheduled til the spring when Keith Campagna will return with his new work. Til then I plan some travel and when not travelling, hibernation on the rue des Abbesses.

http://www.honfleurgallery.com/about.html
http://www.ltu.edu/architecture_and_design/

Photo: A shop window on the rue du Quatre-Septembre that I passed on my way to the 95 bus late last night. I Love To Be Happy. Pretty much the way I was feeling.

(Many thanks to Jill D. for her comment, which made a quick edit necessary!)

Can Erotic Be Untitled?

2010-06-10T10:26:00.003+02:00

It's a mystery

A title adds context to a work. It gives a clue to the work's content. Or it can lead you in a completely different direction.

When you see that a work is "Untitled," that means you are on your own.

And so each of Richard Keo's photographs in the show here called "Ex Eau Set," which closes Saturday, is untitled and so each must be taken in, and regarded, and contemplated and appreciated divorced from any help that the maker might offer.

In the petit salon, a series of a little toy boat slowly sinking. The boat's base is red, the sail is white, the water a bright turquoise blue. The progression into the void is what first attracted me to his work. And made me dream.

The most numerous images are in a series that document a little girl playing on the beach. She is between child and teenager and her cavorting in the waves and posing on a chair or with a surfboard illustrates a freedom and liberty that this young age embodies. It is all innocence and movement.

But after two weeks of living with these images, it is the erotic series, that we hung in my bedroom, that I realize are the "pièces de résistance." (I just may take them out of the bedroom and put them in a more prominent position.) A beautiful blonde, with her arms above her head, tied with cord so her left breast is supported by the rope. A black and white image of a dark-haired beauty on an overstuffed chair: her limbs are at angles, and her stocking top graphically delineates her thigh.

The very beautiful model for this photo, with the very beautiful name of Océanne, assisted Richard in hanging the show and attended the vernissage, wearing the eroticism lightly, accepting attention to her beauty in a dreamy way, not saying too much, except with her eyes, guarding the mystery, and in a certain sense, adding her own style of "Untitled" to her image.

"Ex Eau Set" limited edition numeric prints by Richard Keo, prices on request.

Closing party cocktail this Saturday, June 12th. Please email for details: grace.teshima@gmail.com

Souvenirs of Alsace

2010-05-02T20:44:00.000+02:00

It's personal

What happens when two ideas of vacation collide?

I like the beach and lolling in the sun. Since we were going to Munster, I thought it might be fun to sit some place and watch the frenetic activity of...cows. But my companion and guide had other ideas. He planned a route through Alsace with activities and the requisite picture-taking. I don't own a camera. I hate souvenirs. Once it's over, it's over. (But I do buy postcards, and sometimes even write them and send them. But that's another story.) We had only one rule: no choucroute. He hates it and since I am lukewarm, I thought it would be funny to go to Alsace and eat around the specialty of that region.

Looking back over the six days spent in Alsace, the département called the Bas Rhin, some visual memories stand out: crossing the Rhine River for the first time. The fields of bright yellow colza in great swaths of color next to squares of green. The steep sides of the hills planted in the grapes that make Riesling and Gerwertstraminer. The 'colombages' timbered little dwellings so quaint, old, and not French but German-looking.

Also a different sort of breakfast: ham, cheese and a very heavy dark bread. The last morning in Riquewihr, Jacky Merius, the proprietor of the hotel, Le Dolder, and the fourth generation of his family to run it, came to chat with us, cheerfully remarking on our good luck with the weather and in answer to our question, explaining that it was still too early for the geraniums that spill from the window boxes giving certain towns the appellation 'ville fleuri,' or 'flowering city.' But those months of flowers also mark a quadrupling in the number of tourists.

I thought of the hours on the road ahead of us. Those fields, the monotony, the radio. His left hand on the wheel, his right hand on my thigh. I looked at the remains of breakfast, and the heavy brass key to our room. A tiny spot of honey had dripped onto the paper tablecloth. I made my way to the car to go back home to Paris.

Postscript: I have left-over postcards from the trip. The photos of the wallpaper in the last blog post were taken of the postcards from the museum by an iPhone. I wrote two postcards to friends in Paris, but somehow they got mislaid and were never mailed. Please stay tuned for "The Postcard Project," a report of my blitz-like postcards-from-Paris experiment.

We stayed at Le Dolder: http://www.dolder.fr/

Walllpaper's Beginnings

2010-05-02T19:49:00.000+02:00

Rixheim

What to 'do' on vacation? Since my suggestion of farniente was voted down, we took off for a butterfly farm in Hunawihr not too far from our hotel. In the hot, humid, greenhouse like atmosphere live hundreds of butterflies flying freely, landing on the many flowers in the enclosure, and sometimes on the visitors themselves and living their ten days of lifespan. Apparently in nature, where there are predators, their life span is even shorter.

In the gift shop of the butterfly house I picked up a guide to the area and saw that there is a Museum of

Wallpaper which was created by the very old and famous house of Zuber. So on the last day of April we started out for Rixheim, a rather non-descript village except for the Zuber premises, which also houses the Hotel de Ville (!)

The old machines are on display and the history of the manufacture of 'papier peint' (wallpaper) is explained on the museum's first floor. We watched an excellent short film about how wallpaper is made, and learned that the patterns from the 1700's and 1800's can still be reproduced because Zuber has kept all the woodblocks, all the stencils. It's a painstaking and unforgiving process, the quintessence of artisanal work.

I hurried through til the third floor where the panoramic wallpaper is on display. Here in well-lit rooms are displayed scenes from history, from exotic places like Brazil and India, and even an American wallpaper that Jacqueline Kennedy chose for the White House that depicts soldiers at West Point, the Boston Harbor, (illustrated, right) and Niagara Falls. (And, theoretically, this wallpaper can be reproduced today, but I guess if you have to ask how much it would cost, you can't afford it.)

www.museepapierpeint.org/

Top: detail of wallpaper called "Les vues d'Amérique du Nord," the port of Boston. From a drawing of Jean-Julien Deltil. Manufacture Zuber & Cie, 1834, reproduced in the XX century.

Bottom: "Fleur Second Empire," repeating motif, unknown manufacture (French) circa 1860.

Out of Paris

2010-04-30T14:48:00.000+02:00

A week in Alsace

It was time for a vacation and since we were booking flights in the time of the volcano, decided to stay in France but to try something a little exotic, and we chose Alsace. Perhaps Strasbourg could also be named the 'Venice of the North' along with Amsterdam. We stayed in a little inn in Germany just over the border and visited Strasbourg over two days.

It's a vibrant and beautiful city, Strasbourg. I kept thinking I was in Germany, or Amsterdam. The French have a word for it: "dépaysé" which means feeling out of one's country. The cathedral is one of the wonders of the world, or should be. To look up at the spire from the ground is to get vertigo. It is a masterpiece to flamboyant Gothic and to faith.

The illustration is of the town of Kaysersberg, a short drive from Strasbourg and where we had a lunch of a kind of cheese pizza, flamkeuken, a specialty of the region. This place is completely out of time...

Makin' copies...

2010-03-31T14:36:00.004+02:00

WH Smith book store on the rue de Rivoli near the Louvre carries the Sunday New York Times and so on Monday, knowing what I knew, I went by metro, plunked down €16 for all those pages of newsprint, and saw for myself that I really was on the first page of the "Style" section, as my brother from N.J. had called to tell me (although it was my daughter Lucy in NYC who first alerted him to the fact.)

Since the article appeared, I am amazed at just how many people who don't live in NY actually read the Times! But it's the internet, Jake. They read it online.

And so I have made a couple of resolutions: to answer as soon as possible anyone who writes to comment on the article; to actually go to "O Chateau," the Hidden Kitchen, Chez Nous, Chez Vous, and any other concern that is mentioned in the article.

The next day, I went to my favorite printer at M° Jules Joffrin, ABG Réprographie, who have made postcard invitations of art shows in the past for me, and made color copies of the article to send to people who might like to have the hard copy.

A note about the photo: Owen Franken took the photo, and has posted on his website many, many more of our afternoon in early March: www.owenfranken.com

The artist Christian Gorget is to my right. His paintings are on the walls. The other people are my friends who are too shy to have their names mentioned in print!

On to the next thing: The Almost Spring ART ROuNDuP here on Saturday, April 10 when we will take a look at art shows, openings, happenings and every sort of doing, coming or going coming up in the very near future. In Paris and all over the world. Send me your suggestions.

Do you want to know a secret (Paris)?

2010-03-27T13:54:00.003+01:00

Yesterday's New York Times article that includes chez Grace as part of a secret Paris:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/fashion/28hiddenparis.html?ref=style

Thanks to Seth Sherwood for damn good reporting - except for Aline and Olivier, all other secret places were unknown to me!

Thanks, too, to Owen Franken for his luminous, luscious photographs and for bringing a sense of fun to the assignment.

My phone numbers have changed. Please note that the landline is now +33 1 42 52 85 06 and the cellphone +33 6 61 81 76 74. But please email me at grace.teshima@gmail.com with your comments about the article. And also any secrets you might want to tell...

Operation: Pictures for the Times II

2010-03-06T08:56:00.006+01:00

The Story of the FLASH Closing Party Sunday Pot-Luck Brunch chez Grace tomorrow

One of the delights of life in Paris is having the time for continual discovery. Discovering new artists and venues and meeting new people makes my life here a joy. Aline Geller created the Box as an art space in a home setting and it is the summum of both discovery (of new artists and also the fact that her little place is on a countrified lane right in the very tawdry Pigalle) and an example of secret Paris that you might not find on your first trip here. She gives a dinner every month and the last time I went I met a journalist who was interviewing her for a piece in the travel section of the New York Times.

The show coming up here was Louisa Dusinberre's big paintings and Seth Sherwood, the New York Times journalist showed up, sat me down on my bed, and pulled out a tape recorder. I have no idea what I said because in the heat of the moment (and Louisa did interrupt because lo and behold, there had been a sale in my absence), I did rather babble. Several weeks later, the Times sent a photographer to take photos for the article.

By that time it was Jacqueline Desarmenien taking down her show and I had an eyepatch on my eye because of an injury. I also brought artist-in-residence Carl Labrosse into the pictures because I am very taken with his spray-painted stencil work (called "pochoirs" in French). The photographer spent several hours here and ever since the article was supposed to come out I have been checking the NY Times travel section online twice a day.

But the photo editor at the newspaper deemed that the photos were not dynamic enough and since the article was about a vernissage, they needed photos of a vernissage.

What do do? The problem of getting those photos was that the next vernissage is at the end of May - two months away.

The job of taking the photos has fallen to another Times photographer, Owen Franken, who is a friend and big fan of chez Grace, world traveller and canny political analyst whose photos of food and drink belie the fact that he really went to MIT to become a physicist. But he is a problem solver too, and when we put our heads together we came up with the logical solution to getting vernissage pictures: have a vernissage! (Tomorrow!)

Since Christian Gorget will be coming next week to take down his show, the next right thing seemed to be to have a closing party here and hope that everybody wasn't completely booked up on a Sunday afternoon. As I write, besides the the photographer, the artist, and me, there are two "maybes." Ha! We have a quorum.

I will end with an edited paragraph from Wikipedia's entry for the word "labyrinth":

"In colloquial English labyrinth is generally synonymous with maze, ...but maze refers to a complex branching puzzle with choices of path and direction; while a...labyrinth has only a single, non-branching path, which leads to the center. A labyrinth...has an unambiguous route to the center and back and is not designed to be difficult to navigate."

Life might seem to be a maze, but really, it is only a labyrinth.

In the picture: friends at Christian's vernissage. Among the paintings shown: "Rouge brun," "Ogre bleu," "Assemblage cyclopéen," and "Cancer 97."

Operation: Pictures for the Times

2010-03-06T08:17:00.008+01:00

A Labyrinthine Path

Christian Gorget's paintings - twenty-four of them, and three tiny ones, one of which was sold to a dear friend and neighbor of mine - have been on show here for a month and a half. It is work done over the past thirteen years and is a unified, compact work in oil that illustrates Christian's own evolution, and I am beginning to see, my own.

I have described the work as "luscious," and it is. But it is also complicated, difficult, and I have admitted in private, tortured. Christian named the show "Labyrinthes Psychedéliques," and more and more I see that visual imagery and connection to the psyche that is his work. It has grown on me. It has taken all this time to accept the elements in his canvasses that I am skittish about admitting in myself: the way that things do not always proceed in a straight line, and how the mind has a way of amusing us, but also fooling us. Me. The way that eroticism is a part of life and informs every decision we make. Mine. I.

The title of the painting shown is "Le Sens de la Vie." In French that has a double meaning, both The Direction of Life and The Meaning of Life. The whole show brings together meaning in all its senses: what it is to be a man or a woman and even why choose one? How do we get meaning? Do we look to astrology and esoterism? Mythology? How can we be mature, stay young, find our way through life's twists and turns?

(to be continued)

"Le Sens de la Vie," 2007, 16 inches x 16 inches, oil on canvas, price on request.

Waiting for a Baby

2009-12-18T06:44:00.012+01:00

Insomnia

When Manuela Luchtmeijer and her husband decided to adopt a child, the long process of paperwork and waiting began. And so too began her response as an artist to the emotional, raw energy produced by waiting and wanting to know if they would be approved to be parents. She couldn't sleep, so she painted. And when their bab(ies) arrived, she conceived of a series to commemorate this time.

Sixteen out of the twenty-six canvasses in the show that closed here last night are black, and indeed, the name of the show is "The Colors of Black." Out of Manuela's insomnia came a body of work that plays with that "color," "the perfect absorber of light," symbol of darkness and depression that goes deep into it and comes out a triumphant play of movement and a meditation of texture.

Some of the black canvasses have blue in them. Indigo adds hope and the swirling strokes in one tryptich called "Insomnia" recall a view of the earth from space. And some of paintings, even though they read "black" have a mixture of many colors and layers of oil that took months to dry, she says, and I noticed living with them here for two weeks, are ever-changing depending on the light. The built-up paint creates a "relief" - peaks and points of paint that is like a topographical map.

The second part of the show is called "Annunciation," or the announcement, in Manuela and Thomas's case the acceptance of their application to adopt a child. In English, a euphenism for pregnancy is "expecting a baby." In French, "attendre un enfant," means literally, "waiting for a baby." Their waiting was rewarded when they learned that they were to be the parents of twins!

And so they travelled to meet their new babies and bring them home to Paris. Manuela jokes that even though her insomnia theoretically ended, she had to be awake nights with the twins and so she still was sleep-deprived. But very grateful.

The third part of the show is named "Madonna," and differs from the rest of the show in that they are figurative and done in acrylic. To express the last part of the series and the feelings that were so overwhelming, she felt the need to work more quickly and moved away from abstraction to a more impulsive way to depict her new reality.

Pictured: "l'Immaculée Conception," a tour de force of red, black and depth and a sly take on what adoption is. This conception was immaculate, there was no original sin involved, nothing but pure motives here and this purity shone through in Manuela's face when she told me her story when I visited her atelier three Fridays ago.

The twins, a boy and a girl, are almost three years old now. They speak French and Dutch and came with their French grandmother to the vernissage, recognized their mother's paintings and enjoyed the attention they got from the crowd. They won't understand til they grow up that unborn they were the muse of their mother's best work to date.

"l'Annunciation," 120 cm. x 150 cm., oil on canvas. Price on request.

http://manuelaluchtmeijer.com

In a friend's kitchen

2009-11-01T19:08:00.005+01:00

Interiors

Louisa Dusinberre came to Paris from London in the 1980's and started to paint in the mid-nineties after a career in communication. Her show here chez Grace opens this week and is so named because the subjects of her canvasses are her kitchen and those of her friends, her own studio, and her husband's collection of tea tins and pots.

Louisa also does portrait work - she paints her friends and her husband, her mother's garden in the south of England and the details of where they live.

Now that her paintings are hung, I understand more where she is coming from. She wanted, in her own words, "to bring to the viewer an emotive understanding of her environment." And her canvasses have a glowy warmth that is like a swallow of a very nice Cognac.

The first two shows of hers which I saw (at the Visconti Gallery in the 6th arrondissement and Artstarte in 7th) were of outsize people, children and pets (the two Yorkshire terriers of a mutual friend).And so infatuated was I with a portrait she did of her mother, and also a self-portrait she did (very dark!) I sat for Louisa who produced a painting that I am very fond of and which will make its public debut at her opening here. (See "Lady of a Portrait," an earlier post.)

Pictured: "Fetish Kitchen II," 2005, acrylic on canvas, 80 cm. x 100 cm. €500.

The Photography of Robert Ogle

2009-10-31T21:46:00.007+01:00

Desolation Row

What do you get when you transplant a native Minnesotan to the lush life of the streets of Paris?

You get someone who brings the cold with him.

Photographer Robert Ogle found himself drawn to living here and set out to illustrate the works of Walter Benjamin, the German theologian and philosopher (1892 - 1940). He poo-poos this idea now as perhaps pretentious and if there's anything that Robert is not, it is pretentious.

He doesn't glorify, idealize, pander to the Paris's past, even that of Montmartre where he lives, because he is just a plain-speaking man from Fargo, North Dakota, with a great eye and "un talent fou." An intellectual in spite of himself, he teaches photography part-time at the American University of Paris.

Robert Ogle takes his camera with him and has an unerring eye for street life and the odd reflection in a shop window. Take a look at the photo above. Now take another look. I have exhibited his photographs here twice, have collected them for three years, and know that there is an endless satisfaction in seeing something new every time. And also that his photos have increased in value (!)

Walter Benjamin writes: "Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories."

Perhaps that's it. Looking at his work I see the loneliness of childhood long ago, but also longing, decay, desolation. He says "I want art to change my life. Or change the world."

Unnatural History

2009-10-26T12:45:00.009+01:00

Dead Monsters and Bleeding Objects - II

The monsters of Thomas Suire's show are a collection of animal heads at once whimsical, comical and fierce. Each creature is mounted as a trophy with a detailed description of its provenance written in the style of natural history. His droll look at man's devastation of the animal world is only slyer and funnier knowing that many of these animals only exist(ed) in his imagination.

There are thirteen in all (three were on display here in July, and it's great to have them back!) Pictured at right is "Calamar dentu."

Thomas's description:

"Cette espèce de la mer Méditerranée, disparu depuis une soixantaine d'années, a été découverte pendant la seconde guerre mondiale par des résistants français. L'animal, qui avait déchiqueté le gouvernail de leur barque, fut aussitôt appelé "poisson-traître", ou encore "poisson-collabo". Il devint l'objet d'une traque incessante, et disparût dans les années qui suiverint la libération de Paris."

Loosely translated:

Toothed Squid

This species native to the Mediterranean Sea, now extinct for about sixty years, was discovered during the Second World War by some members of the French Resistance. This animal, which tore their boat's rudder to pieces, was immediately dubbed "Traitor Fish," or even "Collaborator Fish."

It was hunted mercilessly and disappeared in the years following the liberation of Paris."

Others in this unlikely menagerie include a spider, a shark-like animal,, a slug, a rat, a walrus-like animal, an anteater-like animal, and a snake/cat-like animal.

(Photo courtesy of Douglas Brodoff.)

Price on request.

On view till October 31, 2009.

Talent

2009-10-20T07:55:00.006+02:00

Dead Monsters and Bleeding Objects - I

Thomas Suire's show which opened here Saturday is divided into two parts: "Le Safari Imaginaire," mythical, whimsical animals, their heads mounted like trophies, which have all been wiped out thanks to man, and "L'art Eco-vert" sculptures made from found objects recycled into art.

The poster child for the show, (pictured right) the piece called "My New Wife Loves Football" hints at a sinister, Stepford wife-like reality, and in fact, Thomas's comment about the piece confirms "Une légère operation, sans aucune danger, qui peut sauver bien les couples." That is, "A minor operation, completely safe, that saves marriages."

If only marital bliss were that simple.

Each of the fifteen pieces in this part of the show display an imagination that is at once dark, unfettered, wild, ironic and deeply, deeply humorous. The artist is an actor and musician whose gentle, self-effacing mien belies the fact that inside resides a monster talent. He resorts to pieces like this when only three dimensions will do. He plays the cello and the theramin and has an entourage around him of artists and musicians. Yesterday his album with Adeline Loiseau - together they form the group "Mismerizer" - debuted in stores around town, and when he works solo, he creates under the name "Infecticide."

The photographer Laetitia Laguzet took the photo above. Another friend, Jacques de Candé added gramophone music for the vernissage, and it is thanks to artist Jimmy Vep (who lives in California and wasn't able to make the opening night) that we met.

Some of the pieces will go to the town of Lille to be part of a show of monsters. http://vimeo.com/7068343

Here chez Grace til October 31st. Prices on request.

A Southerner in Paris II

2009-08-18T17:41:00.002+02:00

Going for Broke

Gee, I've never had an artist who started his own movement before, but here I find myself being the mid-wife of a movement, the artist Richie Fine's art philosophy. And so I publish it in toto, without comment but ask you to please comment.

And join us!

RIDICULISM

Born of the Mind of the American Artist Richie Fine
In the Spring of 2009 in Chicago, Il.
Premiere Exhibition in August of 2009 in Paris, France

Ridiculism- A new Art Movement that focuses upon the absurd nature of life within
the Contemporary Global Society that has been created through
Economic and Social Imperialism implemented by Western Culture.

The Chief Principals of Ridiculism

1. EVERY-HUMAN IS AN ARTIST! EVERY STROKE IS SACRED! EVERY MOMENT IS HISTORY! EVERY STORY IS WORTH BEING TOLD!

2. The rejection of conceptual art that is devoid of craftsmanly technique. If an artist
has an idea and does not have the technical expertise to execute that idea, it is his or her responsibility to learn said technique.

3. To approach Life and Art through the lens of humor. For through true laughter,we can unlock the door to our global interconnectivity, and perhaps offer insight to very serious issues.

4. Ridiculism sets out to Ridicule the overwhelmingly serious tone that dominates contemporary art at this moment in the progression of Western Art History. Also, there is a need for the resurgence of critical thought, and Art is now the only weapon remaining in the arsenal of the revolutionary. We must Ridicule the social systems that enslave us before all knowledge of another way of life is lost, and Corporate ideology overtakes the minds and souls of humanity.

5. In an age when Billions struggle for basic subsistence; is it not RIDICULOUS that artists dead and alive merit millions of dollars for rectangles of wood, covered in fabric and lathered with viscous pigment...or worse yet SKULLS COVERED IN PLATINUM AND DIAMONDS...For the love of God! DOWN WITH CAPITALISTIC ART THAT IS PRODUCED SOLEY FOR THE MARKETS! DOWN WITH HIRST! DOWN WITH KOONS! Capitalistic art is mere decoration, and it's influences are diluting the power of art and the aesthetic sensibilities of the populous.

6. Art should be accessible to all people, regardless of their economic status. To use Art as a means of reinforcing one's place on the ladder of wealth is to reinforce ancient monarchical mentality. This mindset has no place in a modern and equal society.

7. Ridiculism is ever changing. As each artist takes up the call to arms of Ridiculism, he or she should add their own sensibilities and knowledge to the collective concepts. This is the way of liberty , and therefore it is the only way to pursue true freedom before it is only a memory in the minds of those already gone.

RISE RIDICULISM RISE!

A Southerner in Paris I

2009-08-18T17:13:00.006+02:00

Thank God for Abbesses

Artist Richie Fine hails from the great state of Alabama from a peanut-farming family, and started working very young. He went to New York City and worked as an actor as a child, and found himself working in costume design in the theatre in Chicago. He has spent his summer on the rue des Abbesses here and has been working with artists Troy Henriksen, Gary Farrelly and journalist-turned artist Denis Robert at Eric Landau's Galerie W.

He has also been painting non-stop.

In broad, colorful parody of a Southern family, he has created "La Famille Risque-Tout" and from the titles of the paintings (which he supplied yesterday - the show goes up this Thursday) I can tell that Gothic-meets-the-French is the order of the day!

Painting and also assemblage: Richie's One Hundred Signatures a sublime piece comprised of old town records that he found on the street, it is part of "Thank God for Abbesses," his hommage to a creative summer here. He returns to the States at the end of the month where he will work on his MFA in Portland, Oregon.

Pictured here is "Le Grand Monsieur Kentucky Bourbon XI," to be auctioned this Friday evening chez Grace in a performance piece.

Something different is tried - and succeeds

2009-07-25T12:23:00.007+02:00

Champagne Summer Soirée #1

It's the summer, it's a recession, it's time to try new things. I envisioned people getting together here, sharing the art on the walls, networking as usual, and corks popping. And charge money for this. I decided that the first one would be the show that is still up since the 14th of July (for those who hadn't gotten to the vernissage), the second one (August 7) would be my own collection, and the third one (August 22) would lend the walls to a new young artist (originally from Alabama) who is in town for the summer helping out at Galerie W.

So the first installment took place last Thursday evening. I got ready by outsourcing the canapés to my dear American neighbor Beth and bartending duty (to above mentioned young artist, Richie Fine), waxing the floor, and making lots of ice. First guest at the door, the irrepressible Terrance Gelenter of Paris Through Expatriate Eyes. He was on his way to a dinner party, but came to check out the art and support my little experiment meanwhile cracking jokes and meeting the next guests, neighbor Dick d'Ari and author Susan Israelson and her friend Philippe. We went back and forth between English and French.

Soon enough there were Pamela Grant, of Paris Perspectives, Nancy, an editor at Agence France-Presse, a software engineer/trainer who speaks four languages and his French teacher wife, two Americans from California doing the museums and galleries here for three weeks, an art appraiser, an antiques dealer, an artist who paints on the cobblestones of Paris, Stéphane Jaspert, and Irish artist Tom Byrne who is working on the second bird painting, this one he says, is an allegory for Christ.

Critical mass was reached at about twelve people, when the group broke into smaller conversational units and chat ranged from work to summer vacation plans to gossip about Michael Jackson. New friendships formed, email addresses exchanged, and for those who were all talked out, I'd left a book on the coffee table of the prize-winning photographs of the "Prix de Paris," Hossein Farmani's artistic baby, whom I'd seen the night before at Espace Dupon. Duane Gautier of Honfleur Gallery in Washington DC had also left a book with me of the work of Spanish artist Gustavo Días Sosa, who'll have shows there and in Paris next year.

I got a chance to enjoy my guests too, which was an aim, and not usually something do-able during an opening when too many little issues keep popping up! But Thursday night, a delightful buzzy energy abounded and consensus was - success! (Thank you to all who came.)

Pictured above: Walkind Rodriguez's three paintings (here til the end of the week).

Below: Geneviève Flament's "Mousses" which will appear in a forthcoming book on contemporary French painting.

Some websites to peruse:

Terrance: http://www.paris-expat.com,

Susan: http://www.over-it.com/author.htm

Pamela: http://www.parisperspectives.com/

Stephane: http://jaspert.free.fr

Tom: http://www.tombyrne.com/

"Quatorze Juillet" + 4

2009-07-17T21:21:00.002+02:00

Dandelion Fountain
Originally uploaded by Photeinos

The vernissage Tuesday showed work of three artists: Geneviève Flament, Paul Grayson, and Walkind Rodriguez. We were celebrating the 220th anniversary of modern France, a day that commemorates the bloody revolution, and also liberation of the French people.

Eighty or so people came to celebrate and enjoy the art although one had to squint to really see these connections. (Artist and neighbor Troy asked diplomatically, "Is there...a theme??" Nevertheless, all the artists were besieged with questions, comments and feedback and put paid to the idea that everyone was away for the weekend!

Pictured: Dandelion Fountain by Paul Grayson, one of the evening's favorites. Price on request.