Art
Paul McCarthy's Raunchy Chocolate Fairytale
PARIS — I admit that I was nearly fed up with Paul McCarthy’s pretentious zombie provocation — and its sudden removal.
Joseph Nechvatal
Art
How a Fluxus Pioneer Tuned Televisions to a World of Noise
PARIS — Following on the heels of the Jean Dupuy and Robert Filliou gallery exhibitions, a third radical Fluxus-related artist is receiving a museum-quality gallery show in Paris: Wolf Vostell.
Opinion
Solemn Protest Against Public Art Reactionaries as McCarthy Goes Chocula in Paris
PARIS — About 60 artists and art critics allied with the French chapter of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) gathered in the Place Vendôme at mid-day Friday near where Paul McCarthy’s once mighty butt plug–based inflatable “Tree” had once stood and stooped. McCarthy himself was abs
Art
Pushing Back Against Scale and Brand in Frank Gehry's Latest Luxury Art Hangar
PARIS — The essence of branding is the insistent repetition of a recognizable commodity image, so we should not be surprised when Bernard Arnault’s global luxury brand Louis Vuitton applies the same formula to art.
Art
An Exhibition to Put on (and Inside) Your Head
PARIS — Located in La Chaux-de-Fonds near Neuchâtel in the Swiss Jura Mountains, watchmakers Greubel Forsey are celebrating their tenth anniversary by honoring the gadfly artist Robert Filliou (1926–1987) in Paris with a rather curious show called Chapeaux! Hommage à Robert Filliou — and with a nonf
Art
Three Americans Find Leeway in Postwar Paris
PARIS — Galerie 53 and Galerie Routes, two side-by-side galleries in Saint-Germain-des-Près, have joined together to mount an historically interesting exhibition of abstract paintings titled Trois Américains à Paris (Three Americans in Paris).
Art
Marcel Duchamp Paints the Body Electric
PARIS — A nomadic but steady hand is clearly sensed in Marcel Duchamp's work. He is often an excellent painter. But it is also true that with Duchamp's legacy of conceptually anti-retinal art (and anti-art), there is something so pregnant with free-floating information that it electrifies and upsets
Art
On the Left Bank, a Pioneering Conceptualist Gets His Due
PARIS — The Left Bank galleries have opened their doors to a new season of shows, including the highly anticipated Jean Dupuy mini-retrospective, Léon musicien, at Galerie Loevenbruck.
Interview
Midcentury Expressionist Drama, Novelized
PARIS — I recently met in my studio the writer Jake Lamar, a New York ex-pat living in Paris, and spoke to him about his new novel, Postérité (The original English title is "Posthumous"), that will be published today in French by Rivages.
Art
Finding Contemporary Threads in the End of Dada
PARIS — In our stimulating era of online publishing, it is all the more exciting to look back at paper precedents. And Man Ray, Picabia et la revue Littérature (1922-1924) at the Centre Pompidou provides just such an opportunity by focusing on the period between the end of the Dadaist movement and t
Art
Depending on Nan Goldin
PARIS — I used to abhor Nan Goldin’s “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” (1979-1986), her famous 45-minute operatic show of 800 color slides set to a choppy 80s pop music soundtrack.
Art
Street Art Subversion Goes Retro in Paris
PARIS — The City of Light is rightly recognized as an interesting place for street art, especially in the Right Bank's scruffier neighborhoods, where I am used to seeing plenty of it.