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.