The Bushniks: Paris Fall 2018 - Past and Present

On the day of the latest stage in the rise of the Trump-McConnell autocracy, when "Bart" Kavanaugh was confirmed, we flew to Paris. It felt like a good time to escape.

One of the many things I enjoy about Paris is that I have so many vivid memories, starting from my first time I arrived with my family. I was 13 years old, and we arrived in January (after my first plane flight, from Rome) and it started to snow. We went for a walk in the snow in the Tuileries and it was magical, even for a 13 year old boy. We stayed in an old hotel nearby, the France et Choiseul. Our room had sloping floors and ceilings, and red silk on the walls. The hotel is still there, spruced up. Recently, though, I read a letter that my father wrote to my grandmother a few years later describing a short family trip taken to Paris when I was 15 years old (we were living in Brussels at the time). I have absolutely no memory of this trip; we even went to the Paris opera. I can only attribute this lack of memory to the defects of the adolescent mind; I suppose, as a teenager, my mind was elsewhere. But I have been going to Paris ever since then, and we lived there for 4 months when our daughter was 10 years old. So I can remember when my father and sister visited us at that time, and the restaurants we ate at, etc.etc. And of course, with Vera (whose soul truly lives in Paris), I have been many times.
All of which to say is that walking through Paris is an exercise in evoking personal memories for me, along with all the things that the flaneurs have been experiencing in Paris for years. And perhaps the memories are more vivid for having been experienced intermittently, visiting every few years. I realized this time how much sound is a part of that experience when suddenly the sound of a moped brought to mind the streetscapes of Paris. And the sounds of the metro, the voices in the cafes, etc. And even that gets mixed in with movie memories, as when Godard records live sound in a French cafe in his early films.

And I still marvel at the retail culture of Paris, a city that can somehow support a retail culture that accommodates the most obscure possible niches; for example, I recently saw a store that sold nothing but antique sound producing devices. Coming from New York, where the streetscape is increasingly dominated by vacant storefronts and chain-store like enterprises, I wonder how they do it. Though it is clear that Paris is a wealthy city, and that helps. At the same time, I have read that many other parts of France are economically devastated and are suffering the loss of retail culture (and much else).

One day we visited Vera's elderly aunt in the suburbs, and after returning to the city, I walked all the way from Chatelet station to our rental apartment in the 11th. It was a Saturday, a warm and sunny day, and the streets were packed with people out walking and shopping, and all the cafes were filled. All the way from Chatelet, through the Marais, and through the increasingly active 11th, the streets were filled with mostly Parisians, out and about in their city. Though I normally don't like crowds, it was somehow exciting to see so many people enjoying their city.

One of the main reasons for us to visit Paris is culture. We went to a wonderful Miro retrospective at the Grand Palais. It was one of those classic exhibits where you see the artist's whole career develop over time. For me, there is a typical "Miro" painting which you can recognize and find in many major art museums. But it's fascinating see how he was constantly changing his ideas and never satisfied with standing still. The late work was particularly striking.

Some early works:

A Dutch still life:

Late work:

There was even a painting with torn parts of the canvas from the end of his career.

I went to see the permanent collection of modern art at the Centre Pompidou, which was reinstalled a few years ago. It is of course a wonderful collection, but, lately having been indoctrinated by the art critics of the NY Times, I was somehow annoyed to see the same old formulation, with a room for each successive movement as they have been defined for years, each "ism" following another. There were some interesting installations about the origins of the collection, which showed photographs of earlier installations of the collection in the 1930's, showing the art in the context of the other, forgotten art of the same period, and also serving to remind me that it was the state, the government, that was picking out which art to buy for the collection. This can sometimes be a good thing, and sometimes a bad thing.

We went to the relatively new Fondation Louis Vuitton to see an exhibit of works by Egon Schiele and Jean-Michel Basquiat. This was my first time seeing this Gehry-designed building; it's flashy, attention-grabbing architecture to say the least. The whole building is sheathed with a layer of Gehry-style curved glass and steel framed things, braced with wooden beams (wood-covered?). There are multiple terraces available for admiring the whole thing. To be honest, while I am all in favor of architecture that is meant to excite and provoke, I found myself thinking fondly of the new Whitney in New York, whose exterior modesty hides what inside contains wonderful viewing spaces for the art within.

The Schiele exhibit was excellent; a small retrospective, with many items from private collections. While I often get tired of his stereotypical emaciated figures, there are also many other sides of his work, like the landscapes, which are fascinating and which remind you of the many different aspects of his art.

The Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibit was huge; I had no idea he was so productive in his short life. While I have seen his work here and there, this was my first sustained viewing. I found both things to dislike and things I liked in the work. But seeing the work after Schiele, and in such large quantities was not good. The work feels very much about the 1980's, and I don't have any idea whether or not it will eventually transcend its topicality. It seems though, that the art world every once in a while needs a jolt from an "outsider" who ends up bringing in a new aesthetic (like the Fauves, for example).

I also visited the Musee de Quai Branly, the somewhat controversial museum featuring art and objects from all over the world. In this case, it is the Jean Nouvel architecture which is the star. The building itself and the way in which objects are displayed is striking; you feel like you are entering some kind of magical environment. It's all very dimly lit with small little pathways and even some tiny cave-like rooms. Objects are in see-through glass boxes in many cases; so the you see beyond to other objects. It's meant to enchant, and finally for me, it did enchant. It also mixes in 21st century art with older art and objects, which can be both disorienting and revealing. It also helps that there were very few people when I was there.

I also went to the Orangerie, which houses Monet's wonderful "Waterlilies", in two oval shaped rooms. Though ideally one would want to experience this work in an atmosphere of silent contemplation (which is not possible), it's fascinating to view the details of Monet's work. It is clear where Joan Mitchell's abstract expressionism comes from.

Downstairs in the Orangerie there is a nice collection of paintings, including this very wide Cezanne painting, which an enterprising art dealer chopped up into three paintings.
Eventually, they were pasted back together again.

I also saw fascinating exhibit at the Cartier Fondation entitled "Geometries Sud", focusing on abstract qualities in Latin American art. There was an interesting display of the work of the Kadiweu tribe, whose body painting was investigated by Levi-Strauss in "Triste Tropiques". There were both photos of the body painting and works by contemporary Kadiweu artists. (I recently read an art review recently where someone said that abstract art has always existed, but it was only discovered in the 20th century.)

I also managed to survive the rigors of the Louvre access to spend a lot of time in the Northern European painting collection, with its Rembrandts and Vermeers. It was quiet and peaceful, as the selfie-focused hordes were elsewhere in the vast museum. (Though now you are forced to exit the Louvre through a shopping mall; the first thing you see is Starbucks and the like. In addition, I thwarted a pickpocketing attempt as I ascended the subsequent stairs to the Metro.

We also went to the Orsay Museum, which had a wonderful exhibit of Picasso's work in his blue and rose periods (and with the work leading up to it). It was fascinating to see so much of Picasso's early work; he was astonishingly prolific and talented. For me, it felt like the whole exhibit was overshadowed by the knowledge that "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" was just about to erupt from Picasso's mind; it felt like a prelude to the shock of that painting. At the end, I conjured up the image in my mind, and with it, the entire perspective of Picasso's career.

The next day, I saw an excellent exhibit at the Pompidou about cubism. It was a huge exhibit, covering everything from it beginnings in Cezanne on through to Picabia and whatever else followed. And, of course, Picasso was the main protagonist in the whole cubist enterprise. I must confess I have never really like the extreme, hermetic forms of cubism, where everything is grey and brown. This exhibit, however, made it very easy to see how Picasso and Braque were logically pursuing a reductive vision, and once they got there, they kept on going in different directions. There were a few somewhat off the track paintings that caught my eye.

This early work by Braque shows exactly the influence of Cezanne: