Monumental MONUMENTA 2012

Art-Fans, 

So ever since I saw the beauty that is the Grand Palais at Art Paris, I kept my eyes wide open for more opportunities to visit the grand hall of the Palais. 

I had heard of the yearly Monumenta exhibition before. Since 2007 art-legends like Christian Boltanski or Richard Serra had been invited to create something special for the Grand Palais specifically.

This year Daniel Buren was asked and he accepted. He named his exhibition „Excentrique(s) Travail in situ“. I know, not much comes to mind with this titel, but I wanted to see it anyways. 

I was stunned!! Especially coming into the exhibition through this weird unusual entrance, I was not prepared for the amazingness that was infront of me. You come into this massive space of the Grand Palais through this tiny entrance and the whole room just opens up! And in the vast space Buren created a wonderful installation. On white and black iron pillars there were hundreds of multicolored round transparent foils in different sizes. As visitor you wandered under them, they were just about 3 meters high. It gave an even more asthounding impression of the actual overwhelming size of the Palais. And it also captured another very important feature of the huge hall - the light! 

Buren himself said, that even more beautiful than the Grand Palais and its architecture itself was the light in it. And that is what he intended to point out. He didn‘t want to create something that would not have anything to do with its surroundings but rather something that compliments it. So he decided to keep it quite simple and just find a way to make the people see and think about the hall itself through his installation. 

It definetely worked. As I was walking under the orange, yellow, green and blue transparents, feeling different under every color, all I really thought was how amazing the Grand Palais is. The architecture, the light, the athmosphere... it was wonderful! In the middle of the room were several mirrors on the floor on which you could walk on and see the huge dome of the Palais, which Buren changed a little for the Monumenta. 

And as I walked up on the balcony the view was magnificent aswell. From the balcony you got a view on the installation - before you had just walked under it, feeling like an ant in the grass. Now it seemed like you were seeing a beautiful colored pond with lots and lots of waterlilies. Then you walked down the other side and continued by being an ant again. 

It was truly one of the best exhibitions I ever saw. I managed to see it 4 times and I would have gone more, if I had had the time. Amazing. Well done, Daniel Buren!

Dark Art Paris 2012 in a Light Grand Palais

Hey Fun-Friends,

This year the Grand Palais was host to one of the most famous artshows in France and maybe the world. Art Paris was/is back in town!!

A place where the leading galleries and institutions display the current trends and the upandcoming new artists! What a marvel. Plus, the Grand Palais is just unbelievable in beauty of construction! Me and my enthusiastic friend managed to find a time where we both could make it so we ended up going two hours before it closed. That decision ended up to be very smart since almost everyone had gone home allready and the eveningsun flooded the entire glass-covered Palais.

The beauty of the setting wasn‘t displayed in the works though. The art was mostly very gloomy, dark and scary with a strong hint of voyeurism. At some point you even get turned into one yourself:

You felt observed and followed and the works were dark and frightening. There was a lot of deconstruction of images aswell and ugly materials like trash and old iron made into new pieces of art. If you really want to call them that.

There were some colorful and pop-arty works, which makes sense because neon-colors aren‘t only in style in fashion right now, but also in art, but there was always a certain edge to them. For example this galery who displays an artist who took violant themes, like guns and munition and turned them pretty.

But overall it was still a beautiful artfair with beautiful pieces and a strong fotorealism and sculpture trend.