In Chartres, the Trésor is well staged and the crypt is 1 000 year old

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Saint Aignan’s tabernacle, circa 1230 ©DRAC, photo F. Lauginie.

The Chartres cathedral is famous for its spectacular XII th and XIII th century stained glass windows and for the past seven years it has undergone a drastic cleaning up  inside as well as the restoration of the organ. The new event is the installation of the Treasure, the relics including the veil of the Virgin Mary, offered to the cathedral by Charles the Bald in 876 in chapelle Saint Piat, 1324, adjacent to the cathedral. You reach it through a modern pathway and go from dark atmosphere to a very happy space decorated by Giovanna Comana from BGC studio. New windows created by the South Korean artist Bang Hai Ja illuminate the chapel which houses superb stone sculptures. And since 2022, the sculpted “Tour de Choeur”, a stone gate within the choir (XVI-XVIII th century) is revealed to visitors. It is unique and for me the real treasure of the cathedral. Read More

Galleries in the Marais and Art for kids

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Shio Kusaka occupies the whole space at David Zwirner with her ceramics

Last Friday, I went on a stroll in the Marais and was not disappointed by what I saw. At David Zwirner, the Japanese Ceramist Shio Kusaka has a long installation in the superb skylit space which used to be the Yvon Lambert gallery at 108 rue Vieille du Temple. It has recently been entirely renovated by Selldorf Architects and it is a beautiful experience to just walk through it.  In the smaller space next door, her lamps in paper and bamboo stand in a dramatic staging (until October 5).Read More

Two brilliant biographies of strong women

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Two strong women in the 17 th and in the 20 th century are the topic of biographies published by Taillandier

Women did not wait for the 21 st century to prove how strong and independent they were. Mother Angélique Arnauld (1591-1661), lived in the 17 th century and was the Abbess of Port Royal, a disciple of Pierre de Bérulle, founder of the Oratoire order and an ascete, promoting Jansenism. Marie Blanche de Polignac, the cherished daughter of the couture entrepreneur Jeanne Lanvin, was a very pretty and talented pianist, and a socialite. Both were very bright, hard working and determined. And both biographies show how important their social and family connections were for their career. Sadly the books are not in English yet.Read More

Malcolm de Chazal is ravishing at Halle Saint Pierre

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Unittled, collection Blue Penny Museum, © Christian Le Comte

When you walk into the dark galleries of Musée d’Art Brut, Halle Saint Pierre, at the bottom of Montmartre, you suddenly enter a world of 200 fairy tale fishes and magical birds, Malcolm de Chazal‘s world. Born in 1902, he lived most of his life (until 1981) in Mauritius, where his ancestor François de Chazal, had emigrated in 1763, except for the 6 years he spent at Louisiana State University, studying engineering. His parents had a sugar plantation and he worked in different fields, always fighting for the workers’ rights. He was first noticed by the Surrealists for his poetry and writings in the 1930’s. Read More

Poliakoff meets Almine Rech and it is a success!

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Composition with black form, 1950, Courtesy of the Estate and Galerie Almine Rech, photo Ana Drittanti

The new show at Almine Rech Matignon, Serge Poliakoff,  “Divine Image” , is due to a series of encounters between the gallerist  and Marie Victoire Poliakoff,the painter’s grand daughter. But also thanks to the interest of Russian curator, Dr. Dimitri Ozerkov, who used to run the Hermitage Museum’s modern art collection in St Petersburg (which he has quit in 2022)  for this unique artist. He chose pieces from the estate which show the influence of the sacred in his works. “Based on Poliakoff’s diary entries, the exhibition looks at the last twenty years of his work as a preservation of the spiritual link between contemporary art and the Old Masters. There are direct parallels between his paintings and the compositions of Giotto and Fra Angelico, which allowed Poliakoff to reflect on the nature of pictorial composition itself”.Read More

Musée Jacquemart-André is young again!

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Musée Jacquemart André’s facelift is a huge success

The best surprise at Musée Jacquemart André which is reopening after a year long closure is not its exhibition “Masterpieces from Gallery Borghese”, but the complete renovation of its Tiepolo ceiling, marble staircase and Brussels tapestries, the tea room and mostly the courtyard which was entirely paved (instead of dirty gravel) and has a vegetal centerpiece conceived by Esprit Jardin.  Eugène architects worked for the Institut de France who owns the building and the cleanup is really uplifting. Read More

At Centre Pompidou, “Surrealism” is determined to change the world!

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Itehll Colquhoun, The Dance of the nIne Opals, 1942, The Jeffrey Sherwin & Family Collection at the Hepworth Wakefield gallery

The press opening was packed and everyone was overly excited for the first artistic event of the Rentrée at Centre Pompidou. “Surrealism” starts with the original manuscript of the Manifesto of Surrealism published in 1924, and lent by Bibliothèque Nationale.  The show is completely International with the association of five museums around the world: the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium where it started, the Fundacion Mapfre in Madrid, the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Philadelphia Museum of Art who will have it in 2025. Curated in Paris by Didier Ottinger who was applauded like a rock star and Marie Sarré, it is a little too huge for my taste but reserves many surprises including Ithell Colquhoun, an unknown (to me) Indian born English woman artist, who mixed the Celtic and Hindu cultures and belonged to so many secret societies that she was expelled from the movement in 1940.Read More

In Issy les Moulineaux, Dubuffet’s Tower is fascinating

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The door of the tower is well hidden in the painting

As the inventor of Art Brut, Jean Dubuffet, the famous artist, is also well known in Lausanne and elsewhere for his collections of strange paintings. La Tour aux Figures in Parc départemental de l’île Saint Germain, is the epitomy of art brut when you walk inside and try to go up the uneven steps and black and white irregular decors. I just went on a private visit with the amazing Anne Laure Bourgau, who is in charge of the work for the department of Hauts de Seine, which also owns Jardins Albert Kahn, musée du Grand Siècle and Parc de Sceaux. It is not os easy to reach if you don’t live in Issy les Moulineaux or in Boulogne and once you get there teh visit itself is quite strenuous with the uneven floors, walls and steps. But this is what Dubuffet wanted: to surprise the visitor and make him unsteady.Read More