Feeling cultivated / Paris Museum Musts
A few Cultural Highlights for the Olympic Uninterested
After a few pessimistic weeks of political turmoil, it’s like a gray cloud has momentarily lifted on this spring/summer of discontent in Paris. As I joked, “what a relief I can stay in France…it’s too bad I needed a vacation.”
Nonetheless I don’t wanna brag but I’m feeling very culturally au courant at the moment. I’ve been teaching a 2-week illustration intensive at the Paris College of Art and am fully up-to-date on many of the blockbuster museums shows. Here’s a list of some favorites…
Worth a visit to Paris within itself, this gives the comic arts (or as the Frenchies have coined them, the 9th art) the proper Centre Pompidou museum treatment. I was worried it would be a little generaliste in its treatment of such a broad subject matter, but there’s nothing like seeing the blue pencil lines on a Chris Ware planche and frankly so much work in watercolor.
For the color-inclined
Matisse: The Red Room and Ellsworth Kelly. Shapes and Colors, 1949-2015 at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Two masterful artists with two very different entry points.
Retail therapy
La naissance des grands magasins. Mode, design, jouets, publicité, 1852-1925, Musee des Arts Decoratifs. This museum always nails the intersection between art, culture and its trickle down effect on everything else. This exhibition breaks down how the Industrial Revolution sped up progress in all aspects of French life, including the birth of the Department Store: the invention of fast fashion, the chich cliché Parisienne, Christmas, childhood and beyond. You’ll never be able to exit through the gift shop in the same way again....
A la mode
Paolo Roversi at the Musée Galliera. Illustration can be siloed sometimes. It’s important for students to see other mediums of work and extract inspiration. This collection of photos from Paolo Roversi’s archives is absolutely stunning, mysterious and painterly. I’ve never seen a photographer explore line weight like Roversi. If you haven’t experienced Olympic overload just yet, check out Fashion in Movement in the basement gallery, too.
White on white
Robert Ryman. Le regard en acte at the L’Orangerie. As a watercolorist, I go on and on about saving the white space. But what if that is all there is? Robert Ryman finds the nuance and texture in the absence of color.
Stay inspired, dear reader. And don’t drink the watercolor water.
A few topical tidbits:
I’ll be practising the French art of not working in the month of August. So be prepared that you’ll only hear from me sporadically.
Catch my interview and some new illustrations in the Paris issue of Cherry Bombe Magazine!
I’m prepping my next watercolor retreat September 23-27th in Paris. Spots are extremely limited so drop me a line if you’re interested.
Thank you for this list, hoping I can make it to the Bande Dessinée exhibit.