Art
Connecting with Humanity in the Paris Catacombs
PARIS — We rarely experience the oceanic sensation of our bodies as continuous and equal with all other humans.
Joseph Nechvatal
Art
In Paris, a Museum of African Art Brings Out Its Jewels
PARIS — In his prescient book Black Sculpture (1915), Carl Einstein describes certain transcendent examples of African sculpture as a form of “fixed ecstasy.”
Art
Ecological Art that Miniaturizes (and Minimizes) Climate Change
PARIS — Climats Artificiels at the Espace Fondation EDF is an impertinent and multigenerational group show of contemporary art — heavy on miniature biosphere mockups — that raises the question of the current value of ironic artificiality.
Art
An Exhibition Goes in Search of Victor Hugo's Artistic Libido
PARIS — With Eros Hugo: Between Modesty and Excess, the Maison Victor Hugo offers up a fervent paradox: how can an author lead a bawdy and risqué lifestyle while handling the subject of sex prudishly in his virtuosic writings?
Art
At Versailles, a Darkly Comic Celebration of Louis XIV's Death
VERSAILLES, France — In curator Béatrix Saule’s extensive exhibition Le Roi Est Mort (“The King Is Dead”), the Palace of Versailles is presenting a shaggy-dog narrative about the death of Louis XIV.
Art
Paris Department Store Kite Display Marks New Low for Ai Weiwei
PARIS — Like a good student of the bottomless pit of fashion, Ai Weiwei has delivered big on his latest class assignment.
Art
Wifredo Lam by Way of an Afrofuturist Graffiti Artist
PARIS — Wifredo Lam’s hot, hybrid style is essentially spiky.
Art
In Paris, Andy Warhol's Works Are Shadows of Their Former Selves
PARIS — With electronic digital simulacra, there is no longer a spent nostalgia for natural semblance: Warholian reproducibility is the fundamental logic and code of our information society.
Art
The Unclassifiable Art of Leonor Fini, a True Paris Bohemian
PARIS — Though once fêted as a glamorous Parisian queen of the libertine, bohemian art world, Leonor Fini (1907–96) has been sliding ever since toward obscurity.
Art
Drawing on Humanity's Animal Nature
PARIS — Karel Appel would start drawing by shimmering bright muck or line around until it eventually formed into semi-abstract philosophical lava, or monkey shit, or the poetry of release.
Art
How Artists Portrayed Prostitution in 19th-Century Paris
PARIS — Perhaps out of a kindred permissive, libertine spirit, prostitution — both chic demi-mondaine and lascivious, pierreuse street-walker style — played a central role in the nascent development of modern painting.
Art
A Show of Love for John Giorno's Poetry, Art, and Life
PARIS — Kudos to Ugo Rondinone.