The Musée Cernuschi, tucked away at the edge of the Parc Monceau, was founded in 1898 by Henri Cernuschi, collector of Asian art, and occupies what was once his house (lucky Henri). The museum’s current exhibition, Six siècles de peintures chinoises, oeuvres restaurées du musée Cernuschi, shows paintings from the 16th to the 20th century, [...]
Gérard Uféras exploits theatrical lighting and mise-en-scène in his work, making it appear timeless, suspended in the make-believe world of the theatre (especially in his black and white photos). Etats de Grace (“States of Grace”) is the first retrospective of the photographer’s work, bringing together photographs taken behind the scenes of European theatres and fashion [...]
After the journey to the exhibition space in Olafur Elisson’s Your Loss of Senses, a padded elevator with no light or sound (“a little chamber of sensual entropy”), Silent Writings is quite a contrast.
The exhibition begins with three Easter Island stone tablets, borrowed from Vatican’s Ethnological Museum. The stones are inscribed in mysterious hieroglyphs, a [...]
Dark Pearl, the conceptual brainchild of Pilottti, presents artists dealing with the potential of collaboration and the moment of creation. The work of the 20 artists is colourful, and often playful. François Delanges’s Fontaines, Peintures Actives provides a modern take on ornamental fountains, subverting the idea of painting as a fixed medium, while Antoine Aguilar’s [...]
For it’s 10th exhibition, Costumes Populaires Russes, the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent is collaborating with the Russian ethnographic museum in Saint Petersburg. The richly decorated costumes and headdresses, dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries, are representative of traditional dress established during the middle ages. Three examples of Yves Saint [...]
The fate of France’s national treasures is not the first thing that springs to mind when considering the history of occupied France, but the photographs on show in Le Louvre pendant la guerre, regards photographiques 1938 – 1947 are nonetheless thought-provoking. This small exhibition is tucked away next to the ramparts of the old Louvre [...]
Beatriz Milhazes work is at once complex and uncomplicated. Her large scale acrylic paintings are highly decorative, reminiscent of wallpaper motifs or fabric designs, emphasising the flatness of the picture plane. At the same time, a certain depth is created by the superposition of layers. Many of her paintings could be mistaken for collages at [...]
William Eggleston, from the series Paris, 2006
The idea of finding beauty in the ordinary and everyday is interesting, if not particularly new. But Eggleston’s photos of Paris, apart from a couple of stand out images (see above), are underwhelming. The Fondation Cartier’s leaflet talks about Eggleston’s “democratic photography”, the idea that anything and everything can [...]
HF | RG (Harun Farocki/Rodney Graham) is an unusual premise for an exhibition as it doesn’t follow the usual paths. Neither retrospective, nor really collaborative, the show brings us the work of two contemporary artists who work primarily with film and video. The artists don’t produce work together but their work was brought together by [...]
Mais où va le design Suédois? (“but where is Swedish design going?”) does more than just showcase contemporary Swedish design. Using the work and influence of Carl and Karin Larsson as a starting point, it raises questions of tradition, taste and Swedish-ness. Carl and Karin Larsson met in a Swedish artists’ colony outside Paris but [...]