Rachel goes to London & Paris

We hope that the Golden Ox has brought good health, prosperity and happiness to your door!

We are really sorry for not updating this blog since December 2008. We’ve all been away for nearly 8 weeks… I at least managed to catch a few noteworthy shows while in London and Paris. Some of the shows may be over by now but nonetheless I’d like to share my favourite exhibitions with you here. As a first-time visitor to two celebrated art capitals, I also made a point to make a thorough tour of their famous collections.

Most art enthusiasts have been salivating over the major blockbuster art exhibitions showing in London for the past 3 months : Mark Rothko’s Late Series @ Tate Modern, Francis Bacon’s Retrospective @ Tate Britain, and a fresh take on the artist’s multimedia productions  (films, documentaries, voice recordings, interviews) in Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms @ Hayward Gallery. The exhibitions were well-curated and made us see beyond the artworks, how the artists’ personal lives and observations have intervened with the development of their works. (However, I wasn’t entirely convinced by the rationale given for the display of Rothko’s Seagram Murals.)

I was also impressed by the Chinese Contemporary Exhibition at the newly opened Saatchi Gallery off Sloane Square, and an amazing show of Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles’s past 40 years’ of work at the Tate Modern. I really enjoyed the way his art enters into ordinary life through the use of everyday objects (fences, coke bottles, currencies).

Top Image : The space at Saatchi Gallery, Middle and Bottom Image : life-sized sculpture by Cang Xin, Communication, 2006.

Cildo Meireles, How to Build a Cathedral (with detail on right), 1987. Medium : Bones, Communion Wafers, Coins.

Back in Paris, it was ‘Picasso season’ – Picasso/Delacroix at The Louvre, Picasso/Manet at Musee D’Orsay, Piccaso/Masters at the Grand Palais.

Impressionism is actually my visual guilty pleasure, and I was entranced by a special curated show “Mystery and Glitter, Pastels at Musee D’Orsay” – that was a real treat for me. However conceptual work has always been what’s intrigued me the most, and I was glad that I went through all the exhibits at Centre Georges Pompidou, especially when I found Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain. Alas, I was later informed by my Parisian friends that the urinal on display is not the ‘original’ work made in 1917. Oh well…

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain

The other exhibition that was really worth travelling for was Jeff Koons @ Chateau de Versailles. Personally I thought it was a fantastic display/play on “Kitch Now and Kitch Then”. ^_^ Unfortunately the show drew a lot of criticism from the Parisians… See it here and decide it for yourself!

Jeff Koons, Balloon Dog

After much hype and recommendations from artist-friends, I made my way to Palais de Tokyo. No doubt it’s one of the most important public galleries promoting contemporary art in Paris, but I was disappointed with the exhibition “From One Revolution to Another” curated by Jeremy Deller, a Turner Prize-winning artist. Still, Marc Jacob’s “Baby Disco” was quite fun and the children’s section at the gallery called tok-tok is one of the most interesting I have seen. Also they have a really cool gift and book shop.

Tok-tok at Palais de Tokyo

All in all, the trip was a(rt)mazing, but a lot of shopaholics would say otherwise once they find out that I NEVER made it to ANY Louis Vuitton or Chanel boutiques in Paris. ^_^