Rich Graffiti Artist, Oxymoron??!

What does Bill Clinton, Bono, chef Jamie Oliver and JR, a 27-year old graffiti artist from Paris have in common? No, idea? Well, all have won the prestigious TED award which is given to exceptional individuals plus a merry little $100,000 to use in a humanitarian project. The award was announced on October 19th. 

JR, who by the way calls himself a photograffeur and not a street artist, has done a very interesting line of work. It all started when he found a photo camera on the subway. It all then spiraled from taking photographs of parisian thugs and importing them on the bourgeois districts to pasting huge photographs of palestinian and israeli people doing grimaces all over the “Wall”. In 2008, he chose Africa, Brazil and Asia, as his next destinations, and for his subjects, women!  He decided to portray their faces and paste them all over the public space, which of course is illegal. Far from finished, JR constantly moves from one location to the next to gather pictures. 

What is truly interesting about his work is that it doesn’t follow the classical rules of art. There is no personality attached to the work, no physical identity per se since he remains totally anonymous. There are no professional judges, no formal exhibition space and there is no price. The people are the subjects and the judges at the same time. The exhibition space is the biggest gallery in the world; the cities’ streets. In this art scene, there is no stage to separate the actors from the spectators. JR’s purpose is to show the world these people from those rural and urban spaces in a very peculiar manner, and he makes sure that these people stories' get heard. In an interview with the New York Times, he said: “If there’s one thing I’ve always taken care of with my work, it’s that it’s never an advertisement for anything other than the work itself and for the people it’s about — no ‘Coca-Cola presents’”.

Ok, so his work is really interesting and appealing but I think that it’s time to talk about what a particular person he is as well. Imagine someone who’s career started with a found camera and no previous artistic learning. Who installs his photographs, with just a bunch of friends to help him out and does it all around the earth. Nice, right?  And just to make him even cooler, every time he appears in public he wears a hat and dark sunglasses so as to remain as anonymous as possible. JR also owns a foundation that sells some of his photographs to museums or private collectors so that his camera keeps rolling. What’s so great about JR is that law and distances do not stop him from producing some shocking works. His motivation, his ideas and his carelessness for the law is what keeps him on the front line of compelling contemporary artists.

So he goes around pasting illegal 20-foot high photographs on your house and says stuff like “You never know who’s part of the police and who’s not”. That is what JR does. Raising eyebrows and stretching smiles.

JR / Exposition Paris 2009 - Ile Saint Louis
envoyé par JR. - Films courts et animations.

TRAILER " WOMEN ARE HEROES"
envoyé par JR. - Futurs lauréats du Sundance.

JR FACE 2 FACE // PARIS // BEAUBOURG
envoyé par JR. - Regardez plus de courts métrages.

Abstraction; Back and Forth

As I think, I abstract myself...

As I feel, I abstract myself...

As I believe, I abstract myself...

And every now and then, I come back...

- Monica Gro Mouret -

This series of photographs done by the Mexican photographer, Monica Gro Mouret invites us to travel. It doesn’t present landscapes you haven’t seen. Neither does it show people you haven’t met. Nor traditional costumes you haven’t touched. It is a journey into abstraction, a journey back and forth from this visual realm.

Monica has been concentrating on capturing close up images of plants, watery surfaces, and soap bubbles with an objective in mind: that future viewers will start to concentrate on lines and colors in objects while forgetting the object’s original form. In other words, it is a focus on form and not content, which thus explains the series title “Abstrayendome”.

As time is being put aside, it is space on which the emphasis is put on. The visual space from far to close, from recognizable to unrecognizable, from figurative to abstract is being put in motion. As you observe the recognizable, slowly unknown lines begin to appear, lines and shapes you didn’t notice at first but that are now unmistakably present. It is a focal movement that makes the viewer linger on details that he may not have seen before, but that are now strongly apparent. 

Grass stops being grass; it becomes lines of a incandescent green, all intertwined. Reflections on water stop being reflections; they become pencil-thin lines without any shape in particular and with no other purpose than the one of being there for themselves. It all becomes lines of different width, spots of different size and different chromatic intensity, and everything else is forgotten. 

Truly, Monica Gro Mouret has sought to take the viewer into abstraction, to create a focal movement from fore-ground to back-ground and back again, showing that these close-up images reveal details about elements that otherwise could not be perceived. Rhythms, parallels appear between the different stems of the cactus and improvisation, uncertainty on the water’s surface. 

This kind of work enables us to see the chromatic beauty and richness of shapes that lie in nature. In this way, objects such as cactus stems can be appreciated for their lines and colors and not for what they represent.

Etienne Bolze

Children Are Not that Innocent Anymore.

Children Are Not that Innocent Anymore.

John Hobday, a Canadian Toronto-based art director and photographer is now having an exhibit at the Gale Smith Gallery in Ottawa where he assembles dramatic real-life-based scenarios with children.  The exhibit, which started on September 17th and will last only until October 10th is called The Playroom and its composed of a dozen photographs  of children reenacting historical events such as 9/11, torture scenes from Abu Ghraib, and our own Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean eating a seal’s heart. Useless to tell you that it caused quite a stirr.

Yet, Hobday claims that his whole intention is far from wanting to shock children but more to show the world that childhood is not as innocent and blinded from the outside world as people might think. “People always ask me if I’m setting out to shock people, and I’m not. I think the shock comes from people being forced to acknowledge that kids experience these events, or are witness to them.”

The exhibit points out to the fact that children are aware of what’s going out in the world because of the banalisation of this sort of events and their massive presence in our everyday life through television, newspapers and magazines. “The playroom is a metaphor for the impossibility of a protective space from the world,” Hobin says. “It’s a metaphor for all the things that kids experience in the world, and how it’s all in their heads. This is an exaggeration of how it might come out.” Don’t blame the player, blame the game he seems to proclaim.

I remember myself playing with the images I saw on TV, which was Dragonball Z or Speed Racer. I would grab a carboard box and pretend it was my own race car. These children will eventually put into their imaginary and play with these images of dramatic events seen on television and magazines without understanding the consequences of the act just as I never thought that ramming my cardboard box down the stairs could have broken my leg. During the photoshoot of the 9/11 scene, one of the children aged 4 or 5 at the time, jolted “It’s the plane that hit the towers”. He definitely was aware of the event. 

Despite his intentions, which could remain doubtful, Hobin say’s he’s been widely criticized and called everything from a pervert to someone with prejudice against twins! “I want people to acknowledge the fact that kids see the scariest things that are out there.” he says.

Nevertheless, some blog-users and some parents remain optimistic and open to such practices.  Richard Verreault’s 7-year-old son Justin posed for “A Boo Grave,” modelled after the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture at the hands of U.S. military police.Verreault said that his son, who is a professional child model, was undaunted by the morbid set. “It was work, and he was there to do the shoot,” he said. “He had a good time — and he got to eat a few lollipops.”

Murakami “decorates” Versailles

Three expositions have now been organized in recent years at the majestic Versailles Palace. In it’s time, it used to host some of the most important people such as Louis XIV “The Sun King” and Marie-Antoinette herself. Now, it hosts some of contemporary art most prolific artist’s, Jeff Koons, Xavier Veilhan and since September 14th, the japanese mogul Takashi Murakami.

For those who don’t know Murakami’s work intimately, you might remember Kanye West’s album cover for Graduation. Or maybe Louis Vuitton’s new design of an eye with three eye-lashes on some of their handbags. Both of those, the college bear, the weird creature and the cartoony eye are both of his making. If I remember well, one of his paintings also appears in one of Jay-Z’s video clips, Blue Magic to be more precise. Overall, Murakami works with manga inspired images and styles in order to create his million-dollar paintings and sculptures.  Mr. Murakami was born in Tokyo in 1963 and is now one of the world’s most talked-about contemporary artists. 

He is now exposing, or invading as some might argue, the Versailles Palace located 20km south of Paris. He will be presenting 22 works, including seven new sculptures throughout different rooms and the exterior grounds as well. Nevertheless, there is a considerable amount of opposition to this exposition. Clearly it is a controversial show, in aesthetical as much as for it’s political significance. More than 11,000 people have signed petitions claiming the show is degrading and disrespectful. Royalist activists, convinced that it is also illegal, have protested outside the palace gates to oppose  Murakami's outlandish – some say pornographic – art introduced in the 17th century surroundings of the Sun King's palace.

Nevertheless, Laurent Le Bon and Emmanuel Perrotin are both convinced that putting some manga-like sculptures makes sense. Laurent Le Bon, curator of the Versailles exhibition, says that “the allegories and other myths of Versailles carry on a dialogue with the dreamlike creatures of Mr. Murakami.”  In aesthetical terms and for its imaginary context, I’d say it makes more sense to expose such works than to say that his exhibited works are degrading or even illegal. The works that are already in the palace, were done by such painters, sculptures and gifted craftsmen such as Antoine Coypel to create an imaginary world around this french aristocracy. They sought to create imaginary worlds of great beauty in order to put them in a dream-like reality. That is where manga fits in the sense that is is a product of imagination in order to create a world that permits total freedom where great things can happen and where weird animals like a 20ft toad can exist.  It is important to stress that manga appeared in a postwar Japan where they were trying to rebuild it’s political and economic infrastructure. Manga gave them a way out, and produced a spur of creativity among artists.

However, what does Murakami have to say for himself? This: he says seeing the ensemble as a "face-off between the baroque period and postwar Japan". Versailles inspired him, he said, as a symbol of popular strength and cultural renewal. The revolution, in which the people opposed the absolute monarchy, and won, “is something unimaginable in Japanese culture.” He calls it “My Versailles, manga style.” Finally, he gladly added “With my playful smile, I invite you all to the Wonderland of Versailles.” I guess that’s enough a welcoming message to at least see some pictures of his Versailles-remake.

Visit at L'Orangerie

At the beginning of the 20th century, industrial revolution was at its apogee. The first World War was raging. They were also about to face an economical crisis. In the midst of all that turmoil, an artist created a haven for peace and tranquility. It wasn’t a place in specific, nor a philosophy of life. It wasn’t either a book or a proposal for social reorganization and class equality. It was a serie of paintings. His name: Claude Monet. His work: Les Nymphéas.

In 1909, Monet declared about his project of Les Nympheas : “ A place were the overwrought would relax, taking example on the stagnant waters, and, for him who lived  in it, this room would have offered an shelter for a peaceful travel in this flowery aquarium”. Years later, in November of 1918, Monet gave some of his Nymphéas  to the french state as a monument to peace. Military peace but also to internal peace of men. These gifts were installed in the National Gallery of l’Orangerie in Paris and are still there to be viewed and experienced.

At l’Orangerie, I had the chance to visit his work.  It was constituted of two oval-shaped rooms  covered with his 6 meter-long paradises. I really wanted to test Monet’s theory on reclusion and peacefulness upon seeing his works. It revealed itself true. I was subdued in peace and admiration. In the middle of the rooms stand some abnormally long benches on which everyone was sited. I sat as well, joining the myriads of tourists. There were some signs asking the visitors to maintain silence. The museum directors were absolutely right. In order to better understand and experience these works, it was better to be seated and to keep silence so as to immerse one self into these purple and blue waters of never ending still/moving waters. Because of his particular technique the whole image is mesmerizing, mystified and physically moving because there is not one single predetermining sketch and every ‘coup’ is curved. I think I stayed for at least 45 minutes in front of one of the paintings, relaxing and thinking of nothing else. The itchiness of the tourists walking around and taking pictures vanished. As Monet said, one could be transported into his japanese garden at Giverny where he painted this canvases.  Monet’s intention was really to surround the viewer with his garden. He left behind the two-dimensional or even the three-dimensional classical painting to go for a fourth or even a fifth dimension by plunging the spectator into this flourished world. In it, one is surrounded and nothing else enters it’s world, he is alone in front of the painting and then when no one expects it, a sigh of relief, peace and tranquility comes out. Your back curves a bit by the relaxation of the muscles, your arms feel light, your problems disappear and then your imagination starts to float. 

I had seen another exposition of Monet in Milan at the Palazzo Reale. Nevertheless, the fact that l’Orangerie disposes the paintings in a circular motion around the spectator is what differentiated the two expos, one being impressive and the other simply immersing. This is a must for everyone traveling to Paris. It is a way to escape the stress of Paris’s traffic, on the road and sidewalk, and to relieve from the problem’s of everyday’s life for an instant and enjoy tranquility in one exquisite centenary-old japanese garden.

Valerie Jouve at Pompidou

At the Paris Pompidou center from June 23rd to September 13th , there is now a small, yet interesting one man show: “En Attente” (Stand-by) by Valerie Jouve.  Jouve, a french anthropologist, photographer and film maker has built this exposition  in coordination with the commissaire Quentin Bajac.  The exposition is composed of thirty pictures taken by Jouve of palestinian cities and it’s people between 2008 and 2009. Her works, though they could be taken as political views of the conflict (israelo-palestinian) or opposition to certain political takes by the respective governments, are to be taken on a more aesthetical perspective of lines, colors and parallels. Her work revolves around the way in which the human being, her “Personnages”, interact with the city around them.  The difference between the general rigidity of architecture against the contortions and elastic adaptation by people.  In an interview, she declared that her pictures “Intend to give what she feels. I do not seek to make myself understood.” Thus, the size of her life-size photographs seek to reach the viewer and create a physical and emotional relation between the two. Feeling of line and color not understanding of conflict.

The title of the exposition references to the act of posing she asks to her models but also for the “Stand-by” position that characterizes the palestinian territories she visited.  Thirty pictures might seem a slim number of objects in order to make a point. Thus, just a few pictures were enough to make me perceive the clear structural difference between the people and the surroundings.  Seeing an old man struggling to walk it’s path, crouching from leg to leg, adapting his ways against the solid and rigid wall, steadily containing and limiting his passage; the face of a young woman, her sight aiming to the sky, all her traits, the neck, the eyes, the round cheeks contrast to the rigidity of the two house roofs behind her. Seeing these two pictures was enough to get the point and the very acute eye Jouve has for contrasts and chromatic variations. Truly a brief expo I recommend. If Jouve was able to open your day’s appetite for art, believe me there’s still a lot to see at the Pompidou center.                                                

Beatriz Simon; A Return Within

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. 

 Confucius 

Painting  a work can be good, acknowledgeable even. Sustaining it, being on a consistent trend with oneself is what separates chance from talent, apprentice from master.

Beatriz Simon, a Mexican artist having exhibited in the United States, as in Europe and Hong Kong, works with an interest of self fulfilment, of  one’s self search, introducing at the same time her very personal mix of techniques and mediums. 

Beatriz Simon works with different mediums in order to build her creations and strengthen her search.  Generally, she has trained as a painter. She has now expanded to include different mediums such as everyday objects transformed into sculptures, photography, plaster sculptures, performances, videos and graphic design. Beginning in 1992 to take flight by herself, she started to separate from artistic standards.  

Simon declares to us : “Stop and amaze yourself by who you really are and by what surrounds you”. This of course introduces the idea that you introspect into yourself, but also that you accept who you are, imperfections building humanly perfection.  A certain interest for the influence of the surroundings onto one self is apparent in her work.  Imaginary perfection created by society through expectations and myths is not something to look up to. All that quest for social acceptance has alienated the human being from real preoccupations such as basic interpersonal relations like family and friends and has oriented it towards himself and it’s own personal achievement in the eyes of others. Simon seeks to create a detachment from these alienating beliefs.

Her works, per se, invite to multiple interpretations, as abstraction usually does. Nevertheless, the presence of humans in it, give a clue to a general preoccupation of the artist. Simon, despite her visual and literary abstractions, give us a thread to follow by her somewhat elusive figurations. Elusive, yet clear. Her figurations are not buildings. They are not cars. They are not washing machines and vacuum cleaners. They are people. They are people together or alone, thus isolating the idea of human relations and of inner-self quest. Her movements do not relate to screeching tires on the floor. Her technique is not the one of a machine, repeating incessantly the same thing. They are human expressions, proofs of human presence, hands, dripping, handwriting, imperfection, scratching, improvisation. All telling that a person with feelings and thoughts did it. The materials used by her, though some of them might appear industry built, are there to make references to the act of constructing. How you build something, the processes required, a metaphor as to how a person builds himself too. 

Her works themselves are constructed on the basis of the complementarity just as the human being is constituted of various elements. She will mix mediums, layers and expressive powers in order to create works that are made of very different things that extracted one from another would not have the same sense of fullness and finish as the whole thing together. The elements used by her also represent her drive for human construction. For instance, her “mescal” (a type of mexican textile) bags go through a particular process. It lays for ten days in the sun in order to extract the best part of it. The inside becomes the outside. Humans can also introspect and take the best from the inside in order to ameliorate the outside.

A recurrent symbol in her works is that of creating life by the act of reborn. Mothers with her arms crossed as though carrying a baby; Paintings of developing up- to- come new borns in wombs. It makes a reference as well to the importance of this act itself, the one of becoming a parent. The act of nurturing, caring and protecting another human being, not out of interest or pride but of simple human genetic, it is a human and beautiful thing. An act that no exterior influence can take out of us. That is to be basically human, a true aspect of ourselves, the act of caring for one another. Circles are also part of her perennial aesthetical figurations.  A figure that allows liberty, numerous possibilities and which does not corner itself with precise angles, a symbol of union and of infinity. It is a radiant and energizing form, vibrant with energy because of the direct relation to the sun and its associated qualities. Present in her photographs, paintings and sculptures it shows the importance this symbol has for Beatriz Simon as something revitalizing, in constant movement, change and self-adaptation. As a movement itself, it is also very free and human, full of energy. The circle is, just as Simon’s point of views of humans, perfect in its imperfection. Even if the artist’s hand does not draw it as a compass, it still keeps its figurational strength and is thus not undiminished as other figures would. The circle is also the symbol of a womb, a cherished subject by the artist.

A recent and one of her most intriguing works is a shelf. A work destined to make a metaphor to the human mind. Opened and closed compartments parallel to used and forgotten memories by people. The negation and refusal of any of those drawers with what they contain is a refusal of self because they constitute that person. No matter the past, it is part of one, endlessly modifying and influencing the person. 

Embrace yourself and everything that constitutes you, because no matter what, it is you. That is what Beatriz Simon’s works are supposed to and effectively create in people. You are made of various elements from which you can gain experience and personality. Accept it. Rebuild it. Re-flourish it. And enjoy it. Can’t we, as Lennon might say, “Let It Be” or; let yourself be yourself. 

Wim Delvoy at Rodin's

It is always interesting to compare contemporary art to more modernist or even renaissance art. Trends, inspirations, critics and observations from today’s artist become more apparent. Placed next to their inspirations make the artist’s intentions clearer. Taking a walk through Paris with a particular person, whom it is important to say is not into art,  I convinced her to follow me to Rodin’s museum situated close to “Les Invalides”. In it there was a short, yet interesting expo on the belgian artist Wim Delvoye, renowned for his tattooed pigs and his digestive machines “Cloaca”. This exposition will last until August 22nd.

For me it was compelling to go to this expo because in it, I saw a chance to convert this person into contemporary art because of it’s perticular setting. Realy, I din’t want to go alone and it was a chance to make her not  leave the museum after 15 minutes. Though I regret the lack of certain works for the Delvoye expo, the way in which they interacted with the french sculptor's  was yet not to be discarded.  It was all about comparisons and contrasts in time and object. The objects were placed among the sculptor’s as a fish in a tank.

First, Delvoye’s “Tour” (tower), a nearly gothic, nearly dreamy/unreal 11 meter high metal tower  swept me off my feet. Particularly,  it’s peak paralleled with the Eiffel’s and the Invalides’s, made me think of a fantastic novel, something you read but never really see. Moving on. Delvoye had also a mini replica of his studio gate, the “Gate”. In it he created a direct comparison to Rodin’s “Porte de l’Enfer” based on Dante’s novel, la Divina Comedia. Delvoye shorcuts the relation schema by placing on his work:  “Lasciate ogne speranza voi ch’intrate” (He who enters must let go of any hope) which is exactly what Dante wrote on his. Nevertheless he added that typical capitalist references and sarcasm. It constitutes his own very Gates of Hell with Mr Clean and the Warner Brothers logo opening the way. 

Last, but definitely not least, in one of the rooms of the museum, the commissionaire decide to place on every side of the room two pairs of painted vases. One of the pairs was of ancient greek design by Rodin himself. The other side of the room presented Delvoye’s version of painted greek vases. His were on gas tanks. Compelling enough, the title of his works, “Gandagas” are the tank’s brand, it’s sign of commercial provenance. Very Duchamp. Opposed to the more ancient ones, it clearly demonstrated an inspiration on the artist’s part but also an opinion in the sense that the work of art is as much as the drawings on the vas as the vase itself. A part of the creation of a work of art is the material, the support itself and not only the work done on it.

So, in conclusion of this visit, the intention of the museum, to place works from these two different artists, separated by time and career, can nevertheless show that art is alive, taking from its sources and reinventing itself endlessly. Overall, an easy, fun and light expo to see and share with people you want to convert to art. While your at it, take a stroll in Rodin’s gardens, a simple way to relax after a museum visit.

                                          

Monica Guerrero; Time as A Storyteller

Ever laid your wondering eyes upon an old piece of furniture? Did you ask yourself how long had it been there without movement? You might have also started to think about the object's life.  Who had used, who had disposed of it. Ever stopped to look at a newborn infant. Did that make you think about the passing of time. Did you reminisce childhood memories, didn’t the time pass away so quickly? Some say time is like water; adaptable, ever-flowing, calm yet capable of powerful things. Have you ever tried to grasp water with your hands, doesn’t it slip trough your fingers quietly, without a sound, yet unstoppable.

Monica Guerro, a mexican painter and photographer, has set herself to capture time in photography. In order to visualize the totality of her accomplishment, it is better to view the whole serie, one after the other, gazing and pondering on each photograph at the time. You will see that Time has been given a new and fuller sense. Guerrero, in each photograph, analyses the different possibilities and relations man has given to it, but mostly how man has observed it. More than that, a general sense of melancholic awe for the passing of time is sensible in these photographs of the mexican landscape. A landscape riveted by the passing of time, it’s population having suffered poverty, spanish dominion, cultural crisises and now the ravages of the drug traffic war. 

While observing her pictures, many questions came to my mind. How many miles did these shoes run for? How long has the snail been sliming on that path, and how long does it still have to go? How are these two people of different generations spending their time together, are they telling each other memories from the past, talking about present stories or about their own particular futures. Truly, these photographs had me think about myself, how do I place myself in time, and others, how have they led their own lives.

Nevertheless, it is not as much as for the intention of grasping time, in what it means or what it does, that Guerrero presents too us these pictures, but of presenting it as a portrait. Just as a portrait tells one’s story, this series present’s time and his particular story depending on different sceneries. It can be young, old, slow, fast, lonely or collective.

These pictures go much farther than being simple photographs of people, animals or objects, they are stories being told. The story of a grandfather and his nephew, the story of a patiently struggling insect, the tale of an energetic city, the tale of an action, a movement. Each picture having a before a now and an after. These pictures fall into the profoundness of time, scratching in them in order to extract its essence. You might wonder if it is necessary, relevant or even useful to seek to understand Time. I believe, Guerrero teaches us that Time is not to  studied  and examined like scientist would. It is to be admired in its greatness and enjoyed as it passes by.

                                            

“We Want Miles” or more than that; We Want Good Memories.

Nevermind the music from today, surge into the music from your past, what you used to listen to when you were younger, wether that means that it was twenty, thirty or even forty years ago, doesn’t it bring something back, doesn’t it make you feel alive again?

Montreal’s Fine Arts Museum retrospective on Miles Davis, starting on April 30th up to August 29th, is quite something to go through, it is an experience of mixed medias. There is music and visual arts combined such as pictures of Miles Davis by Irving Penn or Anton Corbjin and paintings by famous Jean-Michel Basquiat. Though, a third ingredient is added to the pot by the spectators themselves. They include an element of remembrance. Good memories are added as to create something moving, filled with joy and energy. The whole exhibition space becomes a time machine.

At the beginning, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this retrospective. How is mixing music with visual arts going to be comprehensible and linkable for the viewers. As I walked from room to room, I realized that for most of them, truly understanding both influences on one another wasn’t the point. The whole point of going to see “We Want Miles” is because the did indeed want some Miles back in their lives. 

At one point, getting tired of walking around without a moment’s rest, I decided to sit for a bit. Next to me was a grown up couple. The husband was dark skinned and the wife white. I couldn’t help to overhear what they were saying. While listening to “Boplicity” from the album “The birth of the Cool”, the couple was talking about how they met in a café to this song. They were quietly singing the song together and smiling to each other, both filled with emotions and pleasing memories from their past. This scene truly moved me as I realized that these people were here to enjoy a bit of music, see a few pictures, learn a bit more about the man, and have a good time. Some people were singing. Others were dancing to the music. Some others were even mimicking as though they were playing the trumpet. It was a wonderful thing to see all these people, old and young alike, appreciate the music they used to listen to when they were young or that their grand father used to make them listen. Moreover, for anyone who didn’t know Miles Davis beforehand, he would get a sense of the greatness of the man for his power of inspiration in people and his ability to put generations together with his melody. At the oppening night, Marcus Miller, Davis’s ex-bass player himself was present. Walking for several hours in the museum’s retrospective, he demonstrated that the remembrance of the epoch was the important aspect of the exposition. Immersing oneself in what used to be the glorious days of jazz, blues and Miles Davis 

Furthermore, the general construction of the retrospective was well done. Categorizing all the different musical genres invented by Miles Davis was one of their well achieved tasks. It explains the going from blues to bepop to jazz cool up to his more rocky-electrical musical creations. This gave the amateur viewers a comprehension of the musical genius of the man, and to the more connoisseur viewers something to remember. A particular work in the retrospective that really impressed me was his musical creation for the French movie director Louis Malle. Indeed, for his movie of 1958 called “l’Ascensceur pour l’Échafaud” (Elevator to the Gallows), Malle asked Davis to create the music for his movie. The musician was placed in front of a screen with the movie rolling. He improvised the music in one shot, all based on his impression of the images. It may sound very easy to do, just play whatever and it will sound good. Not quite. It requires to be very sensitive and really understand the meaning of an image in order to extract it and transform it in sound. It is almost indescribably challenging. That whole improvisation by Davis made me think of Andy Warhol who somehow would do the same thing. In his “factory” he would put songs on replay like “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones and therefore get a general ambiance for the creation of his visual works. So, just as Warhol created images out of sound, Davis created music out of images. They both felt and expressed what they perceived from these mediums. As Miles Davis put it himself: “Music is a painting that we can hear, Painting is a music that we can see”.

If you plan on going to the retrospective, and I hope you will, I nevertheless recommend to go with a lot of time ahead of yourself. Take the time to really appreciate what the curators have built, but also how people around you react to the expo, hopefully, you will as well find an old couple remembering themselves of the times of the great Miles Davis with a big “we want some more Miles” expression on their faces.

Below is the video of Davis improvising the music for Malle’s movie “Ascensceur pour l’Échafaud” based on the images showed to him. Keep in mind it’s all improvised, no partition.

Emilia Sirrs: The Power of Art

What is it about an artist that will make us relate to their work? Is it a feeling of understanding? Maybe a feeling of déjà-vu?   Maybe we are even able to imagine the artist fighting with their feelings in order to create a work of art. Shockingly, more often than not, these abstract- or feeling centered- works will seem childish or even easy to duplicate for non-professional art observers. They are not. Art works hide many things within them, stories and inspirations, cries and laughters, sadness and happiness.

What role does art really fulfill? Are they there only to represent an idea? To communicate a message, wether political or social? Art can also be a way to express themselves, mend injuries and find a way to repair damages in one’s personal life. They can also transmit one’s  extreme happiness. They say Winston Churchill himself painted in order to relax. Usually, when I write an article about an artist, I try to gather as much information about them as possible, knowing that someone’s life, what happened to them, who they met, really influences their work. Merlau-Ponty, the French philosopher said that there wasn’t seeing without vision. This means that according to one’s life, what you see, and consequently what you think and do are a directly influenced by those events. 

Emilia Sirrs is a Mexican painter born in Cincinnati Ohio. She arrived to Mexico at six years old. A few years later, she started taking drawing and painting classes and eventually became a student of renowned painters Pascual Santillán , Francisco Salas y José Lazcarro. Overall, she has had more than 40 collective, and individual expositions nationwide and even internationally such as in Belgium and the United States.

Taking into account that I don’t know much more about Emilia Sirrs that can tell me these few facts, I do know though that her life influenced how she saw the world and how her painting was to develop through time.  Upon seeing Sirrs work for the first time, I was rejoiced by seeing these elements from daily life incorporate her work. I saw it as an explosion of creativity, leaving the classic and going for new mediums. Expanding from the canvas like a wave engulfing her surroundings.  Yet, I decided that criticizing a work of art as lightly as that, based solely on my first impression with no more thorough exploration was somewhat amateur. I then discovered how powerful a weapon art can be for some artists. How it is not to be taken lightly.  Art becomes one with the artists just as language is to a writer, without it they have no more tools to express themselves and to communicate their feelings and thoughts. Moreover, this part of them that art becomes will therefore evolve with the artist himself even if he doesn’t know. It will reflect their moods and states. The work of art might become independent from the artist, but the artist won’t become independent from it. As Edvar Munch, the famous Norwegian painter said: “Colours gain a life of their own once they have been applied on the canvas”. Though, the artist’s life does not end once the canvas has been laid by pigments, it goes on.

Emilia Sirrs proved to me this power of art. Having suffered a loss in her life, her painting, just as her, have changed.  One evolved with the other. Before the event, her art was vibrant, independent, as Munch would say.  One of her works, “La Pasion” has evidently a real strength to it. You could look at it for hours on end, just as you would a Rothko.  A passion was transmitted from the painter’s hand on to the canvas. Sincerely, it’s one of those works where the words are not enough to describe it. An image is mandatory to the comprehension.  Below is the image of this painting. 

After that point, her art changed.  The loss of someone transformed her, and thus her art. Having that possibility of using art as a tool of self-mending, she did so in a way where creativity, but more than that, a deep feeling, a need presented itself. Just as Joseph Beuy’s fat came as a healing object, these materials with inscribed memories on them came as part of her art in order to work on it, remember it and then pass it on, inscribing it forever on the canvas. She put those memories in a shoebox called art, never to be opened again. 

That is why Emilia Sirrs appealed to me as an artist. She exemplified beautifully this power art can have. Art is much more than a drawing. It is more than three lines of different colours put aside to one another. It is more than a painted sofa against the wall. It is a purifying exercise, and a very exhausting one too. It is a way to put down what is on our minds and our hearts, passing that energy, wether good or bad that lives in us, onto a final object, wether to be disposed off as a bad memory or to be kept as a remembrance of something good that happened to us, just as a picture on the wall.   

This combined work, named “Ausencia” (Absence), is the triggering one that will follow on a full series of works. Emilia Sirrs, as she told me, plans to recycle all these pieces of furniture and transform them into works of art in order to close an episode in her life. I honestly cannot wait to see the rest of the serie. If it is as intense and emotional as “Ausencia”, we can truly expect to see something extraordinary. It will disting  uish from mere Sunday painters from the ones that have made art a part of themselves. 

By clicking on the title, you will directly access to the artist's webpage.

Crime et Châtiment: A Historical Account on Artistic Perception of Crime

Last week, taking the opportunity that I'm now in Paris, I went to see the exposition "Crime et Châtiment", or Crime and Punishment, at the Orsay Museum.  Generally, it was an interesting exposition, though the extensive number of works presented, around 450, made it a heavy exposition to watch, particularly if you stop to look and wonder at every work like I do.

The show didn't have the objective of focusing on any particular artist, or artistic movement, but on the perception of crime and punishment by the artist, and the different mediums every epoch used to document or perceive these acts.  For example, around the 1870's, most artist through the main development of journalism and the spread of mass media, had to document their views in journals. They would draw or paint little crime scenes, either mockingly or shockingly, and that would be printed in high numbers. I mostly saw this exposition as an encyclopedic account of crime and punishment throughout history, going from the Bible, the French Revolution up to Bertillon's bases for photographic judicial identification.

The exposition starts by showing the first and most popular crime of history: the murder of Abel by his brother Caïn.  Follow images of the abouts of the French Revolution and their use of the guillotine. Documents and facts are plenty, they even have a real guillotine exposed, just in case you had no idea of the apparent violence and size of the machine.  I must admit it was my first live encounter with one and it's not like in the movies, especially this one who actually had a few hits of her own.  Then come the murder of Marat and Fualdes, the romanticist view on art with all the witches by Goya in his Caprices and ladies MacBeth by numerous artists. The exposition then presents  excerpts of journalist artists in Le Petit Journal of 1866, images of judges and lawyers from the judicial world, a view of the pain of death by Victor Hugo and Warhol. Finally, the exposition finishes with the scientific approach that the system took in order to document and investigate crime. This affected the artists imaginations particularly by the searches of Lambroso, Georget and Bertillon.

Putting aside the fact that there were a lot of people and that the documentation was sort of unnerving, Crime et Chatiment still clarified compelling aspects of the time, )articularly the subjective view of events by the artists. Indeed, just as political parties or even everyday people, artists would take sides and present the event in that way, or this way, putting an emphasis on different aspects.  The most appalling example, I must say, was the murder of French revolutionary Marat by Charlotte Corday in 1793. The most famous painting of this event belongs to Jacques-Louis David, turning the man into a revolutionary martyr. Yet, opinions on the murder and the murderer diverged.  Cunning criminal for the revolutionary and a hopeful Jeanne d'Arc for the royalists.  Some diversity also existed in the matter of the event; is Corday even important, is her presence relevant. Following are two works presenting the event. The first by Jacques-Louis David, and the second by Paul Baudry. These two works exemplify the pictorial diversity that existed regarding this event. Startring by the title, they both show what the important matter in the painting is. David's one is called "The Death of Marat" whereas Baudry's is simply called "Charlotte Corday". David, a sympathizer for the revolutionanry cause, choose not to show Corday. Nor is she mentionned in the title or even placed on the picture. By totally excluding her, he shows how irrlevant she is to the event, just as stray arrow is to the death of a king. Because of this, David tries to make people forget about Corday and her royalist cause. If she is nowhere to be seen or read, she will eventually be forgotten and Marat glorified as a martyr for the nation. In David's image, Marat's wound is present, and so is the murder weapon. Yet, his face is of someone not in pain, but in extausion. He keeps a smile on the corners of his lips. Generally, this image is not violent at all. It even has something solemn to it. The light on the right creates shadows that beautify his body and render his face younger and healthier. When delivered to the convention in November of the same year, a present critic said: "(...) the face expresses a supreme kindness and an exemplary revolutionary spirit carried to the point of sacrifice".  Even Baudelaire wrote in 1846 :"(...) by a strange feat, it has nothing trivial or vile". David succeed to really create an admirable and respectable figure for his contemporaries and for further generations. 

On the other hand, Baudry's painting puts Marat and his death to the left of the image, almost as a secondary plan, where they leave the man alone to his suffering. He concentrates in depicting the complexity of Corday's figure. She stands miliseconds afetr the act, her left hand still in the position of clutching the knife.  Baudry depicts her as a grave character, snuggling in the corner but still keeping a determined face, as though just realizing the graveness of her act yet accepting it proudly, knowing it is for the defense of France and the return to peace. This is shown by the map of Frane in the back of Corday.  Her vacant eyes, lifted up to the sky, seem to glaze and answer to someone from high above, thus the comparison to Jeanne d'Arc. Moreover, where David's painting idealised Marat's death, Baudry really gives us a crime scene. The violence involved in the act is quite apparent. The turned over chair, the fallen paper and the stumbled wooden plank show how Marat and Corday must have fought. Plus, the weapon is still tucked in the body. The grimacing face, the clinging hand and the half-opend mouth testify of Marat very soon to come death.

 

This diversification of opinions really interested me in the visit of this exposition because no matter what, painters remain human and will have point of views on things.  As Max Ernst said: Just as the poet who writes down what he hears in his head, the painter must clarify and try to paint what he sees in his head".  In "Crime et Chatiment" we also see Dehas opposing Lambroso's criminal anthropology by the creation of his "Little 14 years old dancer".

Finally, I must say that even if this exposition had apalling parts and an enormous amount of goodwill and work in order to research, compile and categorize the huge amount of information they had, it is precisly this vast amount of written and pictorial documentation that might have created an overload on the spactator and thus not integrating and wholy appreciating the exposition in its right valor. Sadly, I wished there had been less works in order to let the viewers truly concentrate on the core works and not diverging and deconcentrating by all the satellite ones.

Victor Spahn: The Beauty of Movement

A boat. A beautiful sailboat, storming through the sea, fighting it's way among the waves while the crew stood impatiently waiting to know what was to happen next. The whole scene was something to admire. The tilting movement of the boat, the snapping sound of the flapping sails, the crashing of the water along the boat's hull. All of that was my first impression of Victor Spahn's painting of "Régate Ameroca".  The impression of energy and the understanding of movement was stunning.  Not only did this painting from the French-born painter struck me because of my love for sailboats, but also because of his very particular technique. He somehow managed to render the whole scene something to marvel at. The energy and the movement involved was something of prowess.

Born from Russian parents, Spahn has had a productive career. Many of his paintings have served as posters for sportive events such as for Paris's first tennis open in 1986, in 1992 for France's F1 Grand Prix up to the Rugby poster for the French Stadium. In an article from 2009 by Patrice de la Perrière, Spahn said: "I try through my works to transmit to the public a certain concept of sportive life, favoring movement and precise motion in a determined context."  Upon reading this, I understood that my impression of "Régate America" was not a coincidence and that Victor Spahn was an artist of movement and energy.

On his website I discovered many paintings demonstrating the importance of speed and dynamism as a core subject for the artist. One of them was blatant and easily comparable.  Indeed, Spahn based one of his works on an old painting, but presenting it in a totally different way. It is the painting of Napoleon crossing the pass of St-Bernard in the Alpes around 1800.  The first version belongs to Jacques-Louis David, official painter of Napoleon Bonaparte, done between 1811 and 1815. The other one is done by our discussed painter almost two centuries later.  In the first version, David gives us a very still image of the emperor, where the important details are centered on Napoleon. The image is there to skyrocket Napoleon's popularity and thus magnify the persona. It represents how glorious and imposing, how richly decorated, how determined he is. Moreover, on the bottom left corner, Napoleon's name is placed next to Hannibal, the famous commander, as to place these two great men side by side.

On the other hand, Spahn's work is only centered on the action done by Napoleon and his horse. Indeed, he erases all traces of the Alpes, of the fellow soldiers, of the scribbled rocks. He places Napoleon in a total void. There are no hints of time or space, we don't even have details for his face or anything that might help us to replace him. If it wasn't for the title or general knowledge, we would have no idea  of who he is. This means Spahn concentrates himself much more on the action done by Napoleon and his horse than on details of richness and prowess in order to uplift the person's qualities. Spahn's version is realistic on the progression of movement, focusing on the importance of the strenght required for the accomplishement of the action. The kicking movement of the horse's legs and the forward thrusting movement of Napoleon's body are what Spanh want's us to see. He seeks to demonstrate to us the progression of movement involved in the action.  In David's version, Napoleon is painted very still, very naturalistically, as thus a photograph had been taken of him whereas in Saphn's version, we have a total loss of details in order to make the viewer center himself on the progressive dynamics of the image. As such, we perceive how it is the importance of motion as opposed to anything else that triumph in his paintings.

Clearly, Spahn's work is concentrated into the demonstration of movement, speed and dynamism. His work makes me think a lot of the futurist movement in visual arts. Started by an Italian poet, it centered itself on the beauty of speed and how they would be able to catch movement and it's progression on a still image. Filipo Marinetti, the creator and writer of the Futurist manifesto, once said as regards to the Futurist movement: "The splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: The beauty of speed." I believe this quotation is at the center of Spahn's work, centering his art on the importance of movement.

Following are two other works of art that exemplify and relate to what Victor Spahn seeks to achieve. The first one is another work by Spahn.  The second one, a photograph by the futurist artist Bragaglia.  The similarity between these two works is strongly apparent. Both of them concentrate themselves on the movement done by the musicians and not who they are or any other personnal detail. Again, the fact that Spahn erased the face of the musician, just as he did with Napoleon, tip us on the idea that they are not important. In his work, Bragaglia sought to take photographs that would present movement and it's progression. He would keep the camera's shutter open for a long time in order to catch movement. In his painting, Spahn also tries to present the movement done by the musician. How his right hand goes up and down and his left arm back and forth.  It is only the musician's body movements that matter and on which we have to focus on. The instrument, compared to the body of the musician seems completely stable and solid. 

                                                                  

Many comparisons could follow between artists that center themselves on particular facial expressions or that go extensively on details and Victor Spahn's disinterest of it. Nevertheless, I believe these two comparisons exemplify and clarify Spahn's precocupations for movement by comparing him to his opposite (David) and highlighting the similarities with ressembling artists.  Interestingly enough, Spahn not only depicts music and horses but also paints many various sorts of sports such as Golf, Rugby, dancing and ice skating. This demonstrates a deep observation by the artist of how these different sports evolve in their movement, how they are executed.  Since 2006, Victor Spahn has been depicting cities and landscapes. For an artist that is used to paint sports and movement, this new aesthetical interest gives a quite fascinating result. By clicking on the article's title, you will be able to acces directly to his website and explore his art by yourselves.

Here is a slideshow of some of Spahn's work that I like the most.