Well it was high time for the Reporter to get some culture in.
So armed with her usual great courage, she walked at dawn out of the little camping place to get on time to the Musee du Jeu de Paume and see some serious stuff.
There was a bit of a line but nothing like at the Grand Palais where she had stopped before to try to get inside the Helmut Newton show. That had a line which was 2 and 1/2 hours long, and she gave up on that one.
So instead the line at the Jeu de Paume was shorter.. and it was moving !!!
So she got in along with her Tall friend and got to see three different photographers, first Jimmy Robert, which installation show was small and nice. Then she went upstairs and checked into Ai Weiwei's show.
That was a heartbreaking show.
Ai has been for the last ten years or more documenting what is taking place in China and often with the greatest courage and at great risk. He ended by posting on his blog daily what was tormenting him about what was taking place daily there.
The show covers several parts:
His life in NY from 1983 till 1993, then the Beijing photographs from 1993 till 2009, the landsapes series from 2000- till 2008, then the different series like Beijing terminal, the fairytale portraits, the study of perspective, then we come to the blog photographs from 005 till 2009 [ when his blog was stopped by the police and its entire archives seized, at the same time, his seires on the disaster earthquake in Sichuan where 15,000 schoolchildren were decimated and the list of their names deleted by the police, and then then the cell phone photos and the dectruction of his studio leading to his arrest in earlu April 2011. After 81 days of inhumane jailing in degrading condtions, he was realeased but forbidden to leave China and his whereabouts are unclear, on one knows where he is right now.
The photographs are amazing both by their beauty and sorrow, coldness and humanity. You come out of this exhibition distressed, to say the least.
Then we went downstairs to see the photos of Berenice Abbott who used to be an assistant of Man Ray in 1926. Her photos are beautiful, amazing , compelling. She will remind you a bit of Lee Miller.
Very Very amazing show too.
Then we went to the Museum of Arts Decoratifs to see the Louis Vuitton show, collections of the first old trunks, then evolution and exhibition of some of the creations by Marc Jacobs.
There was a nice little 2 Cv shown too...
Then since we were on a quest for more culture we walked to the Salon du Dessin Contemporain,
and there a Belgian gallery :
And there we found an artist who seemed to have found the right alternative solution :
And then this lovely artist had picked up the prize :
And indeed his pen and ink piece was somewhat amazing :
and then there was this piece too which was arresting :
And then we walked all the way back to the Grand Palais to try our luck to the Helmut Newton show, but no way, it was still 2 & 1/2 hours long to wait to get in. so we gave up and the next day, bright and early we were there :
and we got in and there with a peek at the roof
and then we got in, and to tell the truth, though quite different from Ai Weiwei, Helmut Newton was as moving with his beauty and intelligence and elegance and creativity, Truly an awesome show, we couldn't take any pics but we decided to order the books [ heavy ] online !!!
And then to celebrate all of these multi varied views of humanity... the Reporter took her loelvy friend for a small meal
but delicious:
And this was the end of the cultural days for the Reporter, but all those images and the self protrait of Ai Weiwei will stay
with many thoughts and wishes sent to him, wherever he is right now.
With all Love
the Frog
No comments:
Post a Comment