That's quite Noble.

Hello Readers,

Once again, I would take some time and bring you closer to a rather contemporary artist I've grown fond of. His name is Paul Noble and I've come across his work, which is mainly drawing and sculpture back in Switzerland when I had a seminar about Hollands surrealist scene. Noble participated in an exhibition under a similar titel.

Noble is a british visual artist, born in 1963. He lives and works in London and allready had multiple shows all over the world. He's also represented in some galeries,  including the one here in Paris that I visited to see some of his works.

I was in particular interested in this piece, called "The Egg" for obvious reasons from 2004. It is huge and its pencil on jesmonite, a composite material used in fine arts.

It's covered with small sections which, at first sight appear quite cute, because it's mostly animal doing funny things, wearing funny clothes. Like these squares:

But then you look closer and see that the scenes are actually quite horrible. Like the one above the boxing moles, where a human gets shreddered in a mincer. With every look you see these cute animals doing horrible things to people. But only things, that people also do with/to animals. For example grind them up for meat and food or use them as guides, helpers, slaves... Like the fox using a man as, i guess, a seeing-eye-human. 

Noble touches ground with surrealism, is witty, portrays questions of everyday life and double standards in a funny way, that is also quite shocking if you bother to look twice. 

My Childhood King

Good evening children and adults,

Due to wonderful weather, the beginning of summer here in Paris, I haven't been as motivated to follow up on my artfancies. It's just too beautiful outside to spend time at the museums...

With that said, there are other possibilities! For example the "Nuit européenne des musées". It is an event that happens in all the major cities in europe, at least the ones cool enough to participate! The big museeums and institutions keep their doors open until at least 23:00 at night - and you can visit them for free!! Plus it's at night, so you don't miss a beautiful sunny, warm, summery day.

Anyways, me and my friends chose a museum, we all hadn't visited before, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. But mostly we chose it for the current exhibition: "Les histoires de Babar". It was the clear choice, everyone knew who Babar was, eventhough we all grew up on different continents.

So, hooray, we saw a very cute and amazing exhibition about the famous elephant-king in the dashing green suit. I'm sure by now even your memory found the lovely emperor again.

It was fascinating to learn, how the story of Babr and his family evolved and got created in the first place.
One night in 1930, Cécile de Brunhoff, a mother like most, starts telling a story of a small  elephant who has to flee the jungle for the city after a hunter kills his mother. The children of Cécile were so fascinated by the story that they told it to their father, a painter, Jean de Brunhoff - the creator of Babar. The first edition of "Histoire de Babar" was published in 1931.

The exhibition carried alot of the original artwork for the books by Brunhoff, aswell as different letters, notes, sketches and objects of Babar-merchandise. The exhibition also showed how the story of Babar evolved through time, how the royal family grew and how the stories were adapted to new media and a new generation of children. Cartoons and computergames included. There was also a display of the first Babar-stuffed animal and the latest.

The exhibition was so lovely and it made me think back to those days were me and my sister used to cram infront of those colorful books and find out, what Babar and his family and animalfriends were up to now.

For the mothers

Dear mothers,

Since it was Mothersday yesterday, I thought I'd do a post about a picture of one of the most famous mothers in art: Anna Whistler. Or better known as James Abbott McNeill Whistlers Mother or "Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1" from 1871. It also hangs in the Musée d'Orsay at the moment as is one of my favorites!

This very atypical portrait was actually created almost by mistake. From letters we know, that the original model who Whistler was supposed to paint that day failed to show up. Whistler then suggested that he'd paint his mother. But because of her old age she failed to take the originally intended standing pose and Whistler painted her sitting and in profile. A lucky change of events! The "Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1" is the most famous painting by this otherwise less known american painter and founder of Tonalism.

(Tonalism describes an artistic style that emerged in the 1880s in the US where the artists painted landscapes in one overall toned athmosphere and mist)

Ok, so this is the famous mother I thought of, but I also enjoy very much the oncoming summer and warm weather and overall colorfulness and playfullness of the current season, which isn't very well represented in this painting - as it is called "Arrangement in Grey and Black". So when I checked on one of my happy-feeling-artists i found this:

My favorite Balloon-Artist Larry Moss did a replica of the original - but with balloons!! This is way more in the spirit of how i'm feeling these days. All happy! But no, seriously, Larry Moss started out as a streetartist in New York and is obviously amazing and he recreates famous paintings in art history with balloons. He's great if you want to check him out! He doesn't only do art-replicas but also alot of different balloon-art and -objects. Yay!

And I also want to mention my own mom, who is wonderful, lovely and amazing and should also have her own portrait made into balloonart! Happy Mothersday!

Olympia.

Hello Friends,

I must tell you, it is very fun to (sometimes) actually understand art. And to understand what a piece of art you've never seen before is referring to, critizing, meaning, saying etc.

So when I saw this piece at Pompidou I very much enjoyed it, because I knew something about it (which is sometimes hard with the things at Centre Pompidou - sorry)

Maybe you know the original masterpiece on which this quite funny artist is basing his wood and plastic sculpture on? Larry Rivers, an US-artist, created this piece in 1970 under the name of "I like Olympia in black". 

It's funny, because most artworks that quote another piece do not make it that obvious. Ok, I'll solve the mystery for you if you still don't know which piece was the inspiration for this. It was the very famous Edouard Manet, who painted the famous "Olympia" from 1863-65 (which currently hangs at Musée d'Orsay here in Paris).

As you can see now, Rivers clearly took Manets painting as basis for his own work. The woman, olympia has the same posture, the bed is the same, and also the servant. The great thing is, that he duplicated the entire thing he built in wood and turned the colors around - hence the title of Rivers' piece. Olympia isn't white anymore, shes's black and is now being served by a white maid. Even the cat in the right bottom corner had to switch colors. It is obviously a statement against the skincolor-bias between servants and employers, or the skincolor-bias in general.

A really witty example of turning something old in something contemporary in a new way! 

Let's get musical

Bonjour Mesdames, Messieurs,

Lately I've passed by the Opera of Paris, the Opera Garnier, several times. And the building always impressed me soo much and I always wondered how it must look like from the inside. Of course I know that Chagall painted the ceiling in the grand opera hall and that it must be one of the most beautiful things ever.

So once, I passed by the impressive building again and it just started to rain so I thought "Ok, so I'll check it out." I went in, paid my entryticket and headed to the main entrance. Magnificent. But that's not what I want to tell you about today...

The Opera also has exhibitionspaces and the current exhibition was on "La Belle époque de Massenet".

Jules Massenet was one of the most famous french composers and best known for his operas. During his lifetime (1842-1912) his works were very popular, since melodic music was very much in style. Massenet ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. He reached to create an unique combination between art and music, since he wasn't only in charge of the music but everything that needed to be created for an opera. Costumes, sets, scenery etc.

The exhibition tried to give an overview of everything that Massenet had created, an entire new way of how opera was made! Scripts, notes, costumes, jewellery, stages and much more were displayed in a wonderful way! I always like it when alot of differnt things are shown to give you a complete view of a perticular thing. And I'm also alwys blown away by a persons ability to write music. It is a thing that I can not understand but I think it's the most amazing thing when someone can actually imagine and then write down entire operas. Incredible.

Here some pictures of my favorite pieces. As a woman I was of course drawn to the jewels, tiaras, crowns and beautifully embroided costumes. They were truly beautiful!

These are all parts of costumes for operas by Massenet and belong to Inventory of the Bibliotheque-Musée of the Opera Garnier. Especially the last picture, showing the helmet of Bacchus, the mythological god of wine and drunkenness, of the opera with the same name left me standing in awe for a couple of moments. The detail of the carvings and the detail in the form was amazing. Massenets love for melody and harmony isn't only manifested in his musical works, but also in the detail of every other aspect in his operas. And I think the exhibition did a great job displaying that. I loved it, and I love Massenets music!

Come very close!

Oh hey there you are,

I just want to tell you about an artist I discovered for myself real quick. His name is Oscar Camilo de las Flores and he is a mexican artist born in 1974.

I saw his works in the Collection of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen which is on tour right now with their contemporary surrealistic drawings.

There were four independent works that made a series. They were drawn on paper with a regular pen and ink. The works range from 2008 to 2009.

So first of all here is how it looks from far away:

Then like this:

And now some details:

Obviously I took details of comics - because I love comics. But you can really see the skill and time the artist used to create these works. The detail, the finesse and the style is just incredible. You can really see the surrealistic tendencies since your automatic imagination gets triggered the moment you look at the drawings of de la Flores. The themes are linked to the history of his country, art history and modern societies problems. It's very dark and grottesque which fits perfectly to the trend of art right now whilst the works are in the surrealist tradition. Very interesting, this artist.

Flemish.

Hey there,

So after all this modern art, I thought I needed some more accesable art. And by that I mean paintings. Paintings are probably my favorite medium of art, since they are the most traditional.

So I've heard about this small exhibition about flemish art at the Institut  Néerlandais, the Netherland's Cultural Institution in Paris. It was called "Un Univers intime. Tableaux de la Collection Frits Lugt" and it was A-MAZING!! First of all it was the perfect sized exhibition so you could totally enjoy and take all of it in. Second it was kind of a secret tip, so there weren't as many people. Very pleasant. Third - the space was absolutely beautiful and put to good use. And then, fourth, I have never seen an exhibition guide be so good. Seriously, it was one of the best organized, planed, executed and best explained exhibition I ever had the pleasure of visiting! Plus I really enjoy that era of painting so that was a bonus aswell. Frits Lugt mostly collected flemish and dutch paintings and artists of the golden age and gives a wonderful overview of painting in that time and area.

One painting that especially caught my eye was a tableau "Festoons, Masks and Rosettes of Shells" by a so far unknown artist to me, Jan van Kessel Senior in 1656. It a very peculiar display of alot of differnet kinds and types of seashells. The shells in the picture are arranged so they build different kinds of festoons, masks and rosettes. It is the only known work that represents so many different kinds of decorative and anthropomorphe assemblies of shells at that time. You have to imagine, that at that time it was not easy to have a full knowledge of different kinds of domestic and exotic shells. The artist probably had to collect and find and make sketches of shells for a long time to aquire such an extensive collection of shells. It made me be amazed and giggle at the same time! 

Of course there were alot of traditional flemish landscapes and peasant-life themed paintings and also some portraits. But the oeuvre by Kessel Senior was my favorite one.