Art Paris

I went to Art Paris today.

It was weird.

I don't know what I was expecting. I guess maybe something like a biennial. Instead, I got a giant commercial free for all in the general area of art or at least things that somebody somewhere made for some non-utilitarian reason. I know that this sounds harsh but seriously, the busiest booth was a "gallery" that sells large prints of stills from classic films!

The second busiest booth was a company that rents fine art in the form of abstract paintings tomatch any decor. Really.

Poor Tony Ousler's piece, Ghost Cloud, looked terrible if you noticed it at all. It was hung in broad daylight under a skylight- sabotage!

The entry fee was 15 € unless you are an artist (and can prove it - whatever that means) or if you reserved a space in advance and brought a print out of your receipt. I saw a man try to show his receipt on an iphone- no-go monsieur. He didn't get the discount rate of 10 €. Still a bit pricey in my opinion.

The first things that caught my eye were these stained glass windows.

Paris is a city of stained glass windows and I thought it was kind of ballsy to show stained glass in Paris. They were big and clunky in comparison to the richly detailed windows of the cathedrals but I liked the cocky subject matter. The artist is Phillipe Perrin, he likes guns.

But there is more- this really strange thing happened. I asked the gallerist some general fluff question about the artist (just as an excuse for my lingering and in response to her staring) and she said, "Well, why don't you ask him yourself," and pointed to the stylish, long-haired, 40 something man in a red kafia and sunglasses seated at the desk. He stood up and kissed my hand. "Uhmmm... I like your work." Ok, it was definitely time to go. But later when I looked him up on line, I realized that the guy who introduced himself as Philipe Perrin was not him at all. The guy at the show was about 15 years younger, taller and just simply not him. Weird. Do French galleries have hottie fake artist stand-ins on staff to help sell art? Astounding.

Sandra Vasquez de la Horra won the Guerlain Foundation prize for drawing. These are charcoal on manila paper- that stuff you got for class in kindergarten.

There was a lot of stuff I just didn't understand. It was mind boggling and after hours of wandering around the show I started scolding the world.

Stop using sex!

Stop trying to be cute!

&

Stop telling jokes!

You are kidding- right?

Stop being angry! 

You made this because you hate me- don't lie!

Stop it! just stop it!

But I didn't hate everything...

Zhao Bandi

And this- it looked like art to me. There wasn't a gallery card but I was pretty sure. I looked it up on line later and it is an untitled piece by Michael DeLucia, RISD, BFA, 2001! Excellent.

Li Wei  This- I really identified with this.

For the Love of Dog

I asked Sébastien why all the homeless people here have dogs, dogs of all sizes and breeds, from sweet giant muts to dainty little Shi-tzus.

He told me that there is a Paris law that if you have a dog you can not be arrested and forced into a public shelter. 

Carmen:    "You mean if you have a dog you can be left to die in the street."  

Sébastien: "No, anyone can be left to die in the street." 

Carmen:     "So the French don't mind if you die in the street they just don't want you to be alone when you go." 

Sébastien:   "Yes, you should not be alone when you die." 

The thinking by the authorities is that if you are put into jail or a shelter, who would be left to care for your dog. 

A Long Train Ride

We made the trip back to Paris today. On the train over I sat facing the back of the train and so when I looked out the window it looked as if I was going away from everything instead of as if I were going towards everything- I was continually leaving. 

We passed through the Ardennes region of Belgium. It was really beautiful with rolling green hills, patches of dense forest in the distance and picturesque farmland.

This is the area where the Battle of the Bulge was fought. Nearly 20,000 men died on these fields. Now look at the land, there isn't a hint of all the suffering that took place. I wonder if the food grown here tastes different. Is the fruit bitter? I know it seems perverse to mention but it is a perversion of another sort to pass through this land and not to think of it.

STEIM

Amsterdam is so wonderful. 

People smile, they ride bicycles, they drink good beer and there is sunlight. 

Kevin and I are here for a residency at STEIM and to make a presentation on the Digital Poplar Consort, a set of electronic instruments we made together in his mom's kitchen. 

We haven't been doing much touring because of the preparations for the lecture but I have been taking little breaks to play with my camera.

Portrait of Kevin and Carmen in Holland

I was trying to make myself stay inside and work.

Can you guys guess which one is me? 

Kevin and Butch and Ulrich rocked the house- really! look at this--- a man bowing a guitar, a man bowing a cello and a man bowing a clarinet- SO HOT!

Here we are at the lecture. Thanks to Butch for taking the picture. 
There are so  many pictures of me looking like this at presentations. You don't have to tell me I look like a buffy- I know it. I hate it -but there is also something totally satisfying about making a presentation on some really esoteric topic like in this case nonreferential gestural interfaces for music performance- in latina academic artist buffy biodrag which of course includes a set of rhinestone hair pins and extra lipstick. 

But this wasn't the weirdest incarnation of ethnodrag gone awry. Look at this-what the hell!?!?

This was in the window of a Mexican restaurant.

I can say with certainty that there are no polar bears in Mexico.

Apparently the Dutch don't know that.

We saw a concert of augmented instruments in a converted hospital.  This is the entryway to the Smart Project Space. 

 The main gallery and concert hall is housed in what used to be the Anatomy and Pathophysiology wing of the hospital.  (Please don't click the following link if you are easily  affected by medical imagery.) I was really distracted by what I know used to happen here.  

It was a heavy space. 

This is Robert playing a set in the concert hall.

Here is the second, smaller gallery space. 

The main gallery was closed for installation at the time.

They have a hip bar with fresh flowers on the tables and techno on the sound system. 

Amsterdam was good. 

                                            We got so much work done.                                             

We saw old friends

When it was time go it didn't feel like we were going back to Paris. It felt like we were leaving Amsterdam. Boo hoo!

Mini Chelsea in Paris- Sort of.

I made myself go into the city today. I am beginning to get an idea about art in Paris. It is hard to know what to think really because Paris is a lie- a sweet, sweet lie but a lie all the same.

In general, the scene in Paris seems pretty conservative- stretching is digital photography and maybe a little video. Art lives on the wall. When it's being really naughty Paris goes on a date with Andy Warhol. 

Paris is very naughty this month. 

Art is something most people would like to buy and sell and keep and lend to museums. 

It usually involves a lot of paint. 

Is it that everyone's brains are swimming in gorgeous classic architecture, that the Louvre exists, that Rodin worked here, that Picasso worked here? The list of brilliant dead artists is endless and the scene can't get over it? But I am being totally unfair. I've only really investigated the government supported museums, those gorgeous, enormous art sinks. 

I love them! I hate them!

I would have to do more research. So I went to the Rue Vieille de Temple, an area known for it's concentration of commercial galleries.  Perhaps the tooth and nail level would offer something more adventurous. This is what I found:

The smallest elevator in the world.

Gorgeous, enormous, spaces- so sleek, so professional...

and still so old world

these are the stairs to 

Galerie Serge le Borgne

a good option if you are too claustrophobic to use the elevator.

You don't see them from the street. They are tucked away in a courtyard behind thick carved wood doors. 

They all close from 12 to 1430. Art can't happen on an empty stomach. 

Sorry, art can't be sold on an empty stomach- a totally different matter. 

Serge is having a Marina Abramović show now. It is all photography 

with one video- The Onion, 1996

This is the entry way to Galerie Xippas.
 I had trouble making myself leave this stairwell. The light, the colors- you really feel wonderful just standing here.

This is their main gallery. Lovely- but again more stuff to put on the wall.

The Galerie Yvonne Lambert was "exceptionally closed." 

I also noticed a really bizarre thing-- you know at the Louvre, at the Musee Jue de paume, Musee D'Orsay, etc., etc., etc. there is a real joy about. The throngs of tourists and students and local art lovers are all laughing and taking pictures, wide-eyed and happy to be in the presence of what the cultures of the world all unanimously accept as great art.

The Rue Vieille de Temple was very different. 

People scowled, stepped quickly and seemed weighed down by their fashionable black suits. There was a palpable anxiety in the air. I saw several young men in paint stained overalls carrying large canvases carefully wrapped in bubble wrap. They didn't look happy. The gallery spaces were quiet, somber rooms. Visitors whispered, no docents, no windows. 

Seriously, it was weird. 

Maybe it is the stress of being where you still have to prove yourself. This work is for sale instead of "priceless." This work is being judged, reputations are being made or destroyed. I never noticed this in Chelsea but maybe it is because there weren't so many people on the street. Maybe everyone in Chelsea feels it too and if they all were to come out onto the sidewalks and look at each other's faces it would be obvious the way it is on the Rue Vieille de Temple.

But not to end on such a pessimistic note I did see this little gem of wonderfully unsalable work- it is going to ring familiar to some of you- you know who you are...

I've Grown Ferril and Unkempt

Kevin and I came back to Paris- much against my better judgment. Our visas were renewed at the border without question. The sun was out. Huffing towards the hill with full pack we saw this-

A RAINBOW! Seriously, Paris, woman please I can't stand to see you beg.

Kevin left for Germany the next day and I was left alone to write the Rhizome midterm report and to "work." Ugh! I am so weird when I am

alone.

I like to stare at strangers.

I like to pick flowers out of other people's yards- they'll grow back and bushier too.

I decided to stay inside.
That would be best.
Why startle the neighbors?

But then I ran out of food.
It was time to go to the market.
Chennevieres-sur-Marne has a Sunday market- perfect.

I knew I would have to carry everything back 1.5 kilometers up an incline that puts College Hill to shame. I knew I would have to plan carefully, I would have to be practical. There was only one thing to do.

Wear the running shoes!

In retrospect I realize it was a crazy thing to do but I had been alone for 4 days!

The market was super. There were so many bakers and fromagiers, there were the pretty young women with the fish,

the flowers

the table of olives and all the farmers! You know if you are feeling down ladies, there is one sure cure for the blues- the French farmer. On the outside he appears an average man, he is bipedal, sometimes rather handsome, but here's the thing- he will yell out to you about peppers and pears, about apples and apricots, he will compare your beauty to that of a head of lettuce!

As you can see this is quite a compliment.

He doesn't care what shoes you have on. He is primal and earthy- oh yes.
He will sing out,
"A beautiful woman deserves a beautiful fruit."
This is so true, tell me more...

I bought pâté and black olives and mimolette. I bought a gorgeous pear, of course, and sage and coconut macaroons and red peppers as sweet as apples and fresh eggs.

I forgot that I would be dining alone that night.

So what.

The willow in the garden is in bloom.

The daffodils in the yard are sprouting.

On the way up the hill I was looking left. You can see the Eiffel Tower from the entire walk up Avenue de Pont. It's my game to look for it. It always seems to be hiding. I don't know how it happened but I stepped right off the sidewalk into on-coming traffic- no I didn't die, I wasn't even maimed- not even a little bit. I was scared half to death as was the driver that almost ground me into the asphalt. Pear and cheese and peppers went flying. The olives scattered all across the street. The eggs were miraculously saved. A woman was walking up the hill behind me as I collected myself and the groceries. She seemed completely unimpressed by the fact that someone was almost killed before her very eyes. As she stepped over me, I was still gropping for peppers, I saw her look at my shoes and then at me with a disapproving smirk. I know it sounds crazy but I could have sworn she said

"You know better than to go out like that."

If It I'nt Scottish It's Crap!

We are in Scotland to visit Katie, Kevin's sister, Cathal, her husband and Eoin, number one son and Patrick, number two son. (Number three son is on the way.) It was great. Katie is the sort of homemaker that makes you wonder how it's done: wonderful home, beautiful family, happy marriage- everything and she's in school too. Magic? We cooked, we drank and then we walked and then we came home and cooked and then ate and drank some more. Lovely. I wanted to be stressed about leaving Paris- I really did. How could I leave? I hadn't really done anything yet.

The village was gorgeous, covered in blue fog.
I've learned that this is a technique of Paris- just be beautiful and everyone will forgive you everything- as a victim- I can say, it works.

Not to mention that the

Eiffel Tower seemed to have me in some sort of psychic tractor beam.

I got over it real quick.

Ok, first of all let me say that Scotland, aside from being ruggedly beautiful, is populated by normal size people hence there tend to be normal size bathrooms. No more puppy tubs no sir!

The McCorrys live in Burnt Island, a town, actually a royal burgh that looks out onto the North Sea, actually it is on the Firth of Forth which is actually an estuary that flows into the North Sea but I can't go on about that because the details alone make me feel too much like I am in a Monty Python skit.

One day we took a stroll up the Monks Walk, a thousand year old path,

leading up to the Fife Costal path.

The views were breathtaking.

This is Rossend Castle.

Ok, get this: Rossend, built in 1119 and extended in 1382 and in 1563, was on the verge of demolition! In 1970 a motley crew of architects banded together to save it. They launched protests, initiated petitions and in the end chained themselves to the crumbling ruin in order to save it! Today it has been refurbished, fitted with electricity and it now houses the brave architects' offices.
In the US we have tree huggers - in Scotland there are castle huggers-

Awesome!

the late afternoon was gorgeous

Some incidentals for your review:

This is a shot of an abandoned airbase that reminded me of what Marfa must have looked like before Donald Judd went there.


Here is another view of the base. If only I had a giant pile of English pounds. What a place this could be.

This is a remnant of a wall partly destroyed by Cromwell- sometime in the mid 17th century.


We think this may have been part of an ancient mill. It is unmarked and pedestrians just stumble upon it. This gorgeous ruin just happens to be lying around. I love this!

This a well. Uh huh, a well.

In Scotland they have ENORMOUS earthworms. Eoin and I rescued one from sure death on the sidewalk.

Can I please live here- PULEEEZZZEEEEE!
Dear God, I promise never to talk trash about -well, about anyone but especially not about the Pope (it will be really hard but I'll do it) if you just let me live here- for free and with Wifi and telephone to the US and Mexico...