Posts Tagged ‘culture’
Walls that talk
I’m back. It’s been a while… Here’s a whisk around some of the street art clocked on Paris walls and buildings.
Old Masters get the Rancinan treatment
METAMORPHOSES, natures mortes et conversations opened this week for a whistle-stop show at the Palais de Tokyo, in Paris’ 16th arrondissement. If you’re a fan of David LaChapelle‘s larger-than-life still-lives (see my earlier post), don’t miss.
The event is a collaboration between French photographer, Gérard Rancinan and writer, Caroline Gaudriault.
Pietà on the runway
Caravaggio's The Entombment of Christ
Even if you don’t know them from Adam and Eve, you won’t be slow to clock their inspiration.Rancinan’s ironic mise-en-scenes take an backward glance at the works of Da Vinci, Caravaggio, Delacroix, Matisse and others.
The references, however, are pure 21st century.
Take The Last Supper, transmogrified into The Big Supper (below, detail). (Rancinan and his team crossed the Pond for his cast of size XXXL disciples…)
Eat up, you're at Uncle Sam's....
Meanwhile, in Las Meninas, Rancinan’s homage Velasquez, a grotesque troupe of tattooed and latex-clad handmaidens wait on a primped and lurid Marilyn. Er, eternal youth, anyone?
You’ll need to be quick to catch the exhibition. Metamorphoses is in Paris until 6 December 2009 – but is expected then to make NY and London appearances.
Below: Rancinan’s Raft (after Géricault’s masterpiece). See it being made here.
Bhutan’s hidden treasures at the Guimet
“WHY IS everyone going to Bhutan?” asked the New York Times, rather cheekily, in 2005.
Well, they weren’t then, and they aren’t now. Thanks to its strictly regulated tourist industry, this small, insular kingdom wedged between China and India is probably the most alluring country you can’t afford to visit.
All the more reason to check out the Musée Guimet’s current exhibition, “In the land of the Dragon“.
It comes at a time when Bhutan itself is becoming more westernized. There are still no traffic lights in the capital, but phones and televisions – banned until 1999 – are now making inroads. It’s still the only country in the world that dares to measure its success according to GNH (Gross National Happiness)* rather than GNP – and on the whole, it scores higher than most. Yet the country is also on the cusp of change, about to take its first tentative steps into democracy.
Ravishing photos and video footage (alas, no English commentary) open the expo before revealing Bhutan’s treasure… mystical silk mandalas intended to promote meditation on the way to the calm void at the heart of Buddhism; exquisitely-wrought gold-leaf bronzes of the gods, dating back centuries.
A privileged view, indeed. These national treasures are on show in France for the first time, and even in Bhutan, 
they are only brought out for special temple festivals. The Bhutanese government hopes that unveiling them will allow Westerners to gain a better appreciation of the country’s peaceful Buddhist heritage. Perhaps so – and its brilliant colours and movement will haunt you, too.
* French president, Nicolas Sarkozy has also expressed his interest in Gross National Happiness.
- Running until 10 January, 2010, In the Land of the Dragons: Sacred Arts of Bhutan is at the Musée Guimet (pictured, right) France’s national museum of Asian Arts.
Croydon: First it was Sarkozy, now it’s Banksy
Croydon gets the Banksy treatment
AFTER THIS, I promise to stop banging on about walls and pavements for a while…
“Banksy strikes again” is hardly headline news, but the UK artist just keeps on coming up with the goods.
The piece they’re all talking about is in Croydon (a drab south London suburb that Nicolas Sarkozy named as a model for le Grand Paris; see article in The Times). Technically, it should have been scrubbed, since it is graffiti and on council property – but who’d scrub a Banksy these days? The council put it to a public ballot instead. Locals, unsurprisingly, feel honoured by Banksy’s attentions and are already rather attached to their DIY punk. They’ve voted to keep it. More at Vandalog.
With the almost-exception of Miss-Tic, Parisian street artists lack Banksy’s pith (and his PR nouse.) But there’s still a lot going on, going up, and going down on the French side of the Channel. A good place to start is with Invisible Paris’ self-guided tour. Have fun!
- Miss-Tic is currently showing at Galerie Ab, 15 rue de la Grange-Batalière, 9th arr, Paris.
