The Art of the Brick

Nathan Sawaya's The Art of the Brick exhibition is currently on at Porte de Versailles. It is incredible to see the talent that this lawyer-turned-artist has when it comes to creating these amazing sculptures - using nothing but Lego pieces. From Rodin's Thinker to Da Vinci's Mona Lisa carefully crafted to astounding similarity to the real sculptures. My children loved it, especially my nine-year old. I would highly recommend it as one of the things to do with the kids. Word of warning: with the sweltering temperatures we have been having, the Porte de Versailles - being an exhibition hall is not very well cooled. Go with your bottles of water - they will come in handy.
The exhibition runs until 30 August, 2015.
The Art of the Brick
1 Place de la Porte de Versailles
Pavillon 8/A
75015 Paris.

Musée Picasso, Paris

I had friends from South Africa visiting Paris two weeks ago, and it was during our moments visiting the tourist spots and walking around Paris, that I felt that thrill I once did before I moved here. The old adage that living in a place is a far different reality from visiting it still holds true. I have become somewhat jaded in my perception of Paris, but since last week I have a renewed appreciation for all things Parisian. Wanting to not lose even a moment of that renewed curiosity about the city, I planned a Sunday outing with my children - something we used to do often before our blasé attitude towards Paris and its many monuments became the norm. The Musée National Picasso was our art and culture excursion yesterday.

Urban artists pay hommage to Dalí

Being a sunny, if chilly day, we bundled up and headed out to Montmartre. My daughter, with her keen interest in street art or urban art was keen to see the Dalí Fait Le Mur exhibition at Espace Dalí. If you have ever been to this museum or rather space dedicated to Dalí's work, you will know that it is a very small space, and I wondered how they would fit a collaborative exhibition with the already extensive permanent collection of Dali's reproductions which are housed there.
They managed. If only just. The urban artists' works are juxtaposed alongside Dalí's many and varied sculptures and paintings. The artists, pay hommage to the surrealist painter who once asserted that "Surrealism is me", using the tools of their craft: pencils, stencils, installations, and adhering to the same non-conformist and provocative methods of Dalí himself.
If you are curious about Dalí and also have a combined curiosity about street art, go see it. Caution: It is a very limited space, so go on a quiet day. Images of the outing, which turned out to be a photo journey around one of Paris most famous tourist spots can be seen on Wanderlust in Paris. The exhibition is on until 15 March 2015.

A photo journey inside the St.Nicholas Church, Prague

Described as one of the 'most impressive example of Prague Baroque ', the St. Nicholas Church  in Lesser Town Prague, is described in superlatives in almost every reference one reads. It is a beautiful church.
It dates back to 1703, but was built on a former parish church site that dated back to the 1300s. It is also the largest of Prague's churches founded by the Jesuits.
We took our time in this one, and you can see why.

Paris gets arty and controversial

Winter's finally come and with it enough art exhibitions to see us through to January. We have set our clocks back and are once again familiarising ourselves with the shorter days and longer nights. This is not my favourite season but I am approaching it with a positive attitude and  a fuller appreciation of what it can also offer.

Paris has been abuzz with all things art this last week. The annual contemporary art fair,  FIAC came to and end yesterday. American artist Paul McCarthy's controversial installation at Place Vendôme met its demise swiftly after Parisians decided that it had no place there, given its form - a view that was not supported by the artist, who defended it as... art, of course.

The art of tattoos at Musée du Quai Branly

There is an interesting array of shows and exhibitions currently on and upcoming at the Musée du quay Branly - making for a potentially busy autumn and winter. I quite enjoy the exhibitions at the MQB ,more so than at other museums because it showcases art and music of African, Asian and Oceanic origin, adding a bit of flavour to the extensive other museums which focus solely on European art. It has exhibitions that are always interesting for both children and adults alike.
I took my daughter to the Tatoueurs, Tatoués (Tattoists, Tattooed) exhibition. The exhibition is an extensive presentation of the world of tattooing from the Oriental, African, Oceanic and Western worlds; from the ritual to the purely decorative.

At various places around the exhibition are silicone models of body parts that have been used to illustrate some of the more detailed works of old and new artists. There are jars of preserved tattooed pieces of skin for the more gory sections, and some of the more basic tools used in past and present.

Street Art at the Panthéon

The powers that be of French Institutions did something surprising a couple of months again. The hallowed floors and ceilings of the Panthéon were opened by to the French photographer JR to play with as he wished. Shock, horror! "They let him do this?" was my daughter's incredulous response when she saw it. By this, she was referring to the large black and white photos of faces that have been used to cover the entire floor of the Panthéon and the ceilings below the dome. It looks amazing just because one realises that, this is after all the Panthéon that has its walls covered in this manner. Read the write up about it from the Huffington Post here.

A mausoleum that contains the remains of 73 distinguished French citizens, from writers to scientists. The crypt below holds the remains of the likes of Voltaire, Emile Zola,  and Marcellin Berthelot with his wife Madame Sophie Beethelot, one of only two women along with Marie Curie buried there. Marie Curie was the second woman buried there, but the first to be honoured for her own merits.

Monumenta 2014: The Strange City

This year The Grand Palais has invited Russian artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov to exhibit at the annual Monumenta exhibition. The nave of the Grand Palais is an enormous space to work with and to curate an exhibition that can effectively make use of its grand volumes. Previous artists have done it fairly well. This year's 'Strange City' installation has been partitioned off into various parts, taking the visitor through a journey of differently-themed sections, each meant to inspire introspection into the human condition.

History lessons in Bayeux, Normandy

"A wealth of history can enrich us"  

This trip was an entire history lesson wrapped up in a holiday. A visit to the Normandy D-day Beaches was long overdue, and as much as we did not see even a fraction of the numerous historial sites that commemorate the Second World War around this area - we saw enough to come out of it more knowledgable than we had been.
If you do go, be prepared to visit  a very small town. You can probably walk the length and breadth of Bayeux in two hours. Its entire tourism is managed around the famous Bayeux Tapestry and its War Museums. Bayeux was the first city to be liberated during the Normandy D-Day landings of 1944. It was also the only city that was not destroyed during the German bombings.

Zeng Fanzhi at the Museum of Modern Art, Paris

Zeng Fanzhi's first French retrospective is currently on at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris until this Sunday, 16 February.
It covers the painter's career in reverse-order presentation, from 2013 back to 1990 - arranged across themes in five rooms for Landscapes,  "The Form Chosen is of no Importance",  Masks,  The Individual and the Masses, and Hospitals.
Within each theme, and depending on the period of time the painter was working in, there is a pervasive image that you see over and over again until you move to the next room.
Zeng Fanzhi's work is influenced by both Chinese and Western contemporary art. I took my time with this one and really did enjoy it, before moving on to  another MAM exhibit of Serge Poliakoff's work - but that's for a whole other post.

Here's what I saw today.

Château d'Amboise and Clos Lucé, Amboise

The Château d'Amboise was our first stop in Amboise - a tour that lasted about 45 minutes. We we there during the week, so it was not as crowded as expected. Beautiful landscaped gardens and gorgeous views of the  river Loire. A short 10 minute walk from this château is the Château Clos Lucé - famous for being the official residence of Leonardo da Vinci between 1516 and 1519.

Faces & Co. at Galerie 59.

If you're a fan of Gregos' work, head to Galerie 59 on Rue de Rivoli, for an exhibition of his work, with 50 other artists. The exhibition is on until 11 November.

If you can't make it to the exhibition, keep your eyes peeled around the city - his work can be spotted in obscure, hard-to-reach places. Simple joys in the accessibility of street art.

Swan Lake with an African twist

Photo courtesy: www.biennaledeladanse.com

I went to see Dada Masilo's Swan Lake a couple of nights ago with an unlikely date, my son - who came out of his first ballet experience, somewhat underwhelmed. I, on the other hand, together with the entire Wednesday night audience was blown away.
After the final dramatic scene,  which has an interesting twist, the audience got to its feet and gave an overwhelming ovation. It was not Tchaikovsky's classic ballet as you know it, but more a raucous combination of classical ballet and African dance.

Paris Fashion Week 2013 Spring/Summer is here

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that living in the fashion capital of the world is wasted on me. Yes, I love looking at beautiful clothes, and every so often I will spend a morning window licking shopping - I love that the french phrase; lèche-vitrines for this translates as window licking- and I love nothing more than sitting at a pavement café, nursing a café,  people watching and  admiring the many and varying fashion styles of the Parisians, but I have yet to understand the obsession with Fashion Week.
As it happens, it is almost that time of the year again when the city is abuzz with events that herald in  what fashion-savvy people will be wearing next Spring, or is it Summer? What fascinates me most is the excitement around an event that will showcase clothing which the fashion-savvy will declare as so very last year, next year this time.

Happy Birthday Madiba!

Today in Nelson Mandela's 95th birthday and South African's celebrate Mandela Day by making at least 67 minutes of their day count by dedicating them to acts of charity.
I cannot write anything else about Madiba that has not already been written. Given his current frail state of health, South Africans and the world at large are happy to see him celebrating another year.

Some pictures from the Mandela: From Prisoner to President exhibition that was at Hotel de Ville last month below.
It was a beautifully curated exhibition for a man who is a hero to many.

Keith Haring: The Political Line

I finally went to the Keith Haring Political Line exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art a few days ago. It is impressive. Enormous tarpaulins are hung in the huge space, covering his work from the early days as a burgeoning pop artist to his death in 1990.
Anti-establishment and anti conformist; political and social activist; pop and graffiti artist - it's all in his work. Then there is the merchandise store where you can buy key holders, books, magnets, badges, posters...the legacy of a capitalist strategy from an outspoken anti-capitalist artist. Along with opening of his pop shops, Haring was also a a firm believer in making art accessible to all. Many of his paintings are untitled, something that was deliberate on his part as he believed that the interpretation of his work should be left entirely to the viewer.

Street Art

In high school, I used to doodle, draw and cover every surface of my school files with images and words, which whilst seemingly random or nonsensical were coded in meaning for something that was going on in my life during those adolescent years. The one recurring image was a "Kilroy was here" image, whose original source I did not know, but one which I thought was amusing enough to reproduce over and over again on files, notebook covers and every so often, school desk surfaces. Armed with a marker, I could have been an artist.

Intellectualizing Hopper

Morning sun, 1952

I went to the Edward Hopper exhibition at the Grand Palais yesterday. It was refreshing to walk through an exhibition and not feel the need to find some intellectual meaning behind the paintings. Let me take a step back. The last exhibition I went to see was the Dali at Centre Pompidou. Granted that I cannot compare Dali and Hopper directly; one was a Surrealist painter, the other an impressionist-inspired Modernist. I can at least make some comparisons about the the emotions evoked by both.

CirkAfrica transports us home

So off to the circus we went again. This time around, it was pure acrobat-infused fun, sans les animaux. I didn't realise how obtuse I had been about the use of animals in circuses until my daughter pointed out the cruelty of it all after another circus trip (shame on me!). More recently, when I mentioned to a friend that I was taking my children to the circus the very first thing out of his mouth was: Sans les animaux bien sûr (Without animals of course).  Oui, bien sûr! I think I can safely say the past month has made me a lot more aware of animal cruelty issues.

Dali at the Pompidou

I took in the Salvador Dali exhibition at the Pompidou Centre on Sunday;  the first retrospective of the artist's work to be held in Paris in thirty years. As I made my way around, taking in this surrealist painter's bizarre and at times thought-provoking work, I wondered if it was the art, or his showmanship that had made him the darling of the art world at the height of his career.
Containing over 200 paintings, drawings, collages, assemblages, photos and film clips, the Pompidou Centre is paying hommage to what it calls 'the most complex and prolific figure of 20th century art'.
Dali's theatrics are also shown in short film clips around the exhibition - his eccentricity on full display.