The Ten Commandments at the Discovery Time Square

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
The parchment was discovered with 900 other manuscripts in 1947 in Khirbet Qumran in Transjordan. Property of Israel, the parchment will be exhibited only two weeks at the Discovery Time Square until the January 2nd and will be a part of a new exhibition: “Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times” curated by Risa Levitt Kohn.

This very small document (18 x 3 inches) is the oldest known text of the ten Commandments, the most complete and best preserved. Time after time, the parchment became darker and the ink was discolored. The scroll can’t be exposed under the light and is usually kept in a safe in Israel. Experts date it 51 BC but his author remain unknown. Many scholars believe that all the manuscripts, including the Ten Commandments one, were written by members of a sect who broke away from mainstream Judaism and lived in the desert.

The scroll was discovered by a young shepherd. He threw away a pebble in a cave and it broke a crock. When he came the day after he realized that he found an archeological siteThat’s how the parchments could have been showed to the world. 

Damien Hirst invades the world!!

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
As you may know Damian Hirst is about to invade the eleven galleries that Gagosian owns all over the world. To those who thinks that he is way too exposed, well too bad for you because his Spot Paintings will be exhibited in January 2012 all in the same time in the galleries. 

Ten years ago, Hirst started thinking about how he could dominate the world. As the Tate Modern and Saatchi didn't want to be a part of his project, he asked his art dealer to be his sponsort. After like six months of intensive researchs, 300 paintings will be hung on the walls of the eleven galleries. if some of the paintings will be on sale, most of them are lended by private collectors. these will be exposed in the closest gallery to where they are. For example paintings that belong to European collections will be exhibited in the London gallery. Most of the circular ones are located in the East Coast of the US. They will be exposed in New York. 
The Spot Paintings series represent the battle between handmade and industrial work. By far one can say that these paintings were made by a machine. But the closest you are the more you realize they were handmade. One can see holes made by compasses, lines of pencil... 

Damien Hirst "The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011" will open simultaneously in Paris, New York, Beverly Hills, Romw, Athens, Geneva, Hong Kong and London on January 12th and will end in February/March, depends on locations.

Miami Art Basel 2011

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
As you may know, the 10th edition of Art Basel Miami will open next week. Let's what's gonna happen and what has to be seen...

To mark its 10th edition, Art Basel Miami Beach will inaugurate a new collaboration with the Bass Museum of Art on the Art Public sector, which will transform Collins Park with unique artworks and performances by renowned artists and emerging talents. For the first time, Art Video will be presented in SoundScape Park on the large-scale outdoor projection wall of the New World Center, designed by Frank Gehry. The free public viewings will be part of a number of special events and performances taking place across Miami Beach for the duration of the show to celebrate the 10th edition. 

A must seen: The Margulies Collection. Housed in a large, newly converted warehouse in the Wynwood Arts District near downtown Miami, the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse is an extensive collection of contemporary and vintage photography, video, sculpture and installation, from the holdings of prominent Miami collector Martin Z. Margulies. 1 st of December: Opening of the exhibition "Visions" at the Daniel Azoulay Gallery. "Thoughs, Mediations and Acts" by Xawery Wolski a the Diana Lowenstein Gallery. And of course the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Miami Art Museum...

Enjoy C u then...

"HEAVEN" by Philippe Perrin

Good morning contemporary art lovers! Philippe Perrin is a fantastic French artist, most known for his sculptures of monumental scale weapons, handcuffs, knifes, razorblades, American punches... Expanding everyday objects gives them a new meaning, another interpretation and it's even stronger when it comes to weapons. His references are provided by the gangsta aesthetic but also by the classic literature and romantic poetry. He perfectly knows how to be provocative, cynical, and manipulative while remaining charming and seductive.

"When an object or its image is made considerably larger, the primary message disappears leaving space to another message of identifical form and different contents." Heaven is an enormous and impressive sculpture that actually represents barbed wire made out of aluminium. By expanding barbed wires, guns, knifes... he gives to those weapons another dimension. Oversized and immobile, they appear deprived of their murderous potentiality. One forget their violent killer function and one focus on the beauty of the objet itself. Here he puts the emphasis on the relationship between religion and weapons. Religion wouldn't it be a weapon? It might be if one thinks about all the wars that started from a religious quarrel. Heaven wouldn't it be the exact representation of the Jesus Christ's crown-of-thorns? If not why would a church takes the responsability of showing a huge weapon such as this one?

Exhibition on view at the church of St Eustache in Paris until November 20th...

Retrospective of Maurizio Cattelan at the Guggenheim's

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers! As you may know, Maurizio Cattelan is an Italian-born artist (1960) who lives and works in New York. Well-know as a provocateur and a prankster, he's also a tragic poet who creates some of the most disturbing, interesting, shocking and funiest sculptures of our times. His work is satirical, caustic, humourous, but deeply serious and intense in its scathing cultural critique. Through his sculptures he tries to reveal contradictions and problems of today's society.

One won't forget his performances (such as: Errotin, the rabbit , 2000. He persuaded his galerist Emmanuel Perrotin to be dressed like an enormous pink rabbit with a giant pink phallus for one entire month), his hyperrealistic sculptures (like The Ninth Hour, 1999, that represents the Pope Jean-Paul II hit by a meteorite and sold at Christies for $3 million.) or his obessional use of taxidermy that presents a state of apparent life premised on actual death (such as Novecento, 1997: a taxidermy horse with leather slings qnd lmetal frame that is supposed to be hanging from the ceiling.)...

Architecture of the museum lends itself perfectly to this exhibition. In the same vein as Duchamp his work is full of ready mades that he uses in his own special way. The main installation hung from the ceiling seems to be so light and fragile! Most of the works he produced since 1989 can be seen here. Exhibition runs until January 22nd...

"Uncursed"! Yoko Ono at the Lelong Gallery

Good evening contemporary art lovers!
Uncursed: a super cool exhibition that's actually an installation of of doors and figurative transparent sculptures. Very conceptual and incomprehensible for the most of the viewers this show however must be seen!

Once Yoko said: " when we were children, we learnt at our elementary school how the warrior, Shikanosuke Yamanaka, vowed to endure seven misfortunes and eight sufferings, thereby giving all the negative things to him that would have been given to the people of the city. I was so impressed with his selfless devotion to people, I wanted to be like him when I grew up. Then I realized that so many challenging situation were given to me in life. Much later, I wondered if it would not be better to ask for seven good fortunes and eight treasures... which I promptly did. It changed my life".

How do they stand on the floor of the gallery by themselves? What is it supposed to be behind each door? Why is there a transparent sculpture almost next to each door? Do they have their own signification? Are they supposed to figure the eight treasures Yoko talked about?? So many questions asked as soon as one gets into the gallery...

TRICK OR TREAT

Good night contemporary art lovers!
While everybody is looking for the perfect outfit, while children are only thinking about stealing candies from their neighbors, while storekeepers are asking themselves how to decorate their stores this year, don’t forget that humor, dressing-up, jokes and self-derision are also extremely present in contemporary art. How many of us have already faced Duane Hanson’s sculptures and laughed at their mistake? How many of us have been lost in Fabien Verschaere’s fantastical paintings? How many of us have been scared by Cindy Sherman’s clowns? How many of us have desired to play with Maurizio Cattelan’s mobiles? However behind these works that are funny, easily understandable at first, playful, darker preoccupations are often hide.

Duane Hanson, an American-born Sculptor (1925-1996), created hyper-realistic lifecast of people made out of resin, polyester, bronze, fiberglass and often textiles, clothes and everyday life items. Most often sculptures are the exact representation of ordinary people who don’t stand out of the crowd and are placed in everyday life situations. Who haven’t spoke to the sculptures at least once?! Who haven’t ever run into one of them in a museum or during an exhibition? And one laughed of itself when the mistake is realized. However Duane’s goal is to put the emphasis on social problems and preoccupations. His sculptures usually represent a girl next door, a neighbor or a co-worker such the character of some of his most well known pieces: Bowery Relicts (1969); Supermarket Lady (1969); Florida Shopper (1973); Cleaning Lady (1972). They are touching, fragile and give off sensibility and feelings. Subjects, who are from the American middle class, are represented respectfully, simply and realistically. Their hopes, doubts, needs are discernible as like their resignation.

The dreamlike, magical and fantastical world of Fabien Verschaere, a French-born artist (1975), has his mysterious part, his dark side too. One’s getting lost into the marvelous world of his paintings and through the fairy tales and symbols that inspire him. His black and white (for the most part) paintings are filled up with clowns, dwarfs, fairies, devils, ghosts, Chimeras half demoniac – half fantastical. Associated to playing cards or dices those figures are as many symbols that mean that life is nothing but gambling, a perpetual fight between the world of living and the world of dead. His work is sensitive, intimate and very personal. He brings the viewer into his own world where fairies, mermaids, devils, clowns, goblins, pixies… live all together, a world based on its own paradoxes. At first funny and readable, his paintings reveal a multitude of details and references that do their reading more complex such as: Video Games (2009), Fake Legend (2009) and Novel of Life (2009).

If Verschaere’s clowns can be disturbing, Cindy Sherman’s ones  are clearly frightening and scary!! She’s an American-born artist who is known for being the mother of the post-modern photography. Through her self-portraits, which have to be seen as conceptual pieces, she questions the role attributed to the women in our society and criticizes in an acerbic way the middle age housewife of the sixties and seventies. The Clowns (2003-2004) series can be read as an answer to the attacks of 2001. Therefore her point would be to keep smiling whatever happens and still thinking about what can be next. Sherman’s clowns don’t seem to be nice and joyful. They seem to wear a mask, a mask of a hypocritical and individualistic society. Viewers don’t know anymore if they should laugh, cry or question themselves. Should one appreciate her photographs just the way they are or should one try to read between the lines?

Satire is also very popular among contemporary artists and Maurizio Cattelan, an Italian-born artist (1960), is well known for his satirical, caustic and biting sculptures such as The Ninth Hour (1999) which depicting the Pope Jean-Paul II struck down by a meteorite. His sculptures are shocking, paradoxical, humorous and ironical and his work is made of performances, provocations and embezzlement. Untitled (2001) simply represents a whole on the ground from where a little man comes from. One doesn’t pay attention at the first sight however it questions the viewer who doesn’t know what to make of it. This sculpture actually represents the artist himself while he’s breaking the museum as a criminal making an assault on a private and historical institution.

These artists, in their own way, chose to express their doubts, their questions, their rants… through some funny and humorous works that are also ironic and caustic in the mean time.

Loft In The Red Zone: A Tribute To 9/11

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
Curated by Marika Maiorva, aka known Marikama Dado (her artist name), this touring exhibition aims to honor the memories of the tragedy and to create a better understanding through art. Most the artists who were living downtown in Tribeca, Soho, Battery Park, Financial District, Little Italy and Chinatown found their homes, studios, artworks and lives destroyed. Works shown here reflects their feelings. Over 30 local and international NYC artists made over than 50 pieces for this incredible mix- media exhibition.

 Exhibition takes place in the historic house of JP Morgan, which became a condominium, on the corner of Broad street and Wall street.   Walls of the loft are in their natural state and rough. Once you get into the loft you immediately feel all the intensity of the works, the artists's pain and suffering. Felling and emotion bump into each other in our mind and overwhelm us. There is no words to describe atrocity of what happened but the artworks are a good testimony.

Tunji Dada created a beautiful installation, beautiful even through the horror of the subject. The sculpture is entitled Les Demoiselles de Nueva York and represents females bodies tied together by the neck. Bodies are made of cotton gauze, latex and make up. Figures really looked like rests of human bodies. Eyes are closed, mouths are shut and arms dangle along the bodies.  Also red stains make think of real blood...

This exhibition was made possible thanks to an artist's initiative, Marikama Dado, and fiscally sponsored by a non-profit art service organizationand is supported by many compassionate individuals and establishments. On view until the end of September.

Claude Cahun, Jeu de Paume, Paris... Last days!!

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
Writer, actress, photographer, Claude Cahun, a French artist (1894-1954), left behind her a very intimate, poetic and autobiographic work which was focused on questioning mankind, sexuality, homosexuality, transvestism... Her self-portraits are probably the most interesting of her works. One cannot say at the first sight if it's a man or a woman!

A few connoisseurs know her work. She has been unknown for a long time as if her work, which is very intimate, was appreciated only by a few experts and art collectors in the vein as artists like Pierre Molinier, Victor Brauner, Unica Zurn... Claude Cahun, whose real name was Lucy Schwob, was the niece of writer Marcel Schwob and the great niece of writer Leon Cahun. She was a close to the Surrealists and involved in politics between the First and Second World Wars. Her girlfriend, Suzanne Malherbe (aka Marcel Moore), was a painter and an engraver. They were faithful to each other until the death of Claude.

If artists such Pierre Molinier or Man Ray used to represent themselves as a woman, Claude Cahun often photographed herself as a guy! She had at her disposal things like fabric, bedspreads, sheets and hangings to do the background and masks, gloves, capes, overgarment to reinvent herself. She definitely must have inspired artists such as Cindy Sherman who made herself as a clown, a man, a random girl and many other characters. At the beginning of the 20th Century, she was one of the first artists who explored questioning about identity and gender.

This amazing exhibition has to be seen! Beautiful, intimate, sensitive and disturbing. Runs til end of September.

Bernar Venet at the Chateau de Versailles

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
He's one of my favorite French contemporary artists. I remember the first time I met him a few years ago. I was invited in his house in South of France, a huge house full of works of art obviously. He succeed the French Xavier Veilhan, the American Jeff Koons and the Japanese Takashi Murakami as the artist who takes Versailles by storm!

Jean-Jacques Aillagon, who curated this exhibition, wished to focus on Bernar's work which questions the relation between art and nature, between art and architecture. His sculptures are enormous and heavy but they seem floating upon the surface. Arcs, whorls and lines appropriated Versailles and offer to the viewer an amazing and beautiful reflexion about classicism in parallel with modernity as well as a massive architecture and a minimalist design.

Like he said during an interview it was a challenge to create works that could be integrated in the landscape without being a blot on it! The best thing to do was to sculpt pieces especially for the site. According to him the best time of the day to see the show: at sunset, when light is reflected on the red-ocher steel...

One can call him the "French Richard Serra" because they both create monumental sculptures made out of steel. What do you think?? On view til November 2011

"Paris - Delhi - Bombay" Beaubourg - Centre Pompidou Paris

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
For the past few years, the Indian contemporary art scene gets itself talked about. I've been to Delhi and Bombay a long time ago and I was lucky to meet artists such Subodh Gupta and his wife Bharti Kher, Shilpa Gupta, Anita Dube, Thukral and Tagra... and many other artists, designers and curators. That was an incredible and intersting experience. A trip that brougth me into a spiritual and magic world recreated through this exhibition.

Curated by Alain Seban, president of the "Centre Pompidou" in Paris, this exhibition aims to provide a link between the French and Indian contemporaries art scenes. 30 Indian artists and 17 French artists have been invited to participate at the exhibition. 70% of the works were specially made for the show. As well as works of art like paintings, sculptures or installations, one can read historical and economical comments that can help us to understand the Indian history and its sociological aspects. Unfortunately for those who expected to see a funny and kitsh exhibition based on Bollywood pictures and movies, that's not the purpose of the show.

Welcomed by the enormous head of Tara, gilded with gold leaves and made by Ravinder Reddy, the viewer wanders into a circular area. Reddy is well-known for his huge sculptures based upon iconographical Pop pictures and indian traditions. He refers to the "Yakshis" deities. Anita Dube's works denounce the social conditions of the gay community. Subodh Gupta incorporates ubiquitous everyday objects in order to emphasis on the economic transformations of his country. Most of the time he creates huge sculpture made of kitchenware. Pierre & Gilles, a French duet, discovered Bollywood in 1978 and it's gonna be the beginning of a new era in their work. They were very influenced by all the colors, the kitsh, the traditions...of India....

Many other would deserve I write about their work but it's always better to see by itself! Exhibition runs until September 19th!

"Unpainted Paintings" at Luxembourg & Dayan

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
Such as many galleries in the Upper East Side, Luxembourg & Dayan gallery isn't seen from the outside. For those who don't know that this is a gallery, they can walk by in the street and missing one of the most beautiful exhibition I've seen recently. Exhibition takes place in a cute little four-stories townhouse.

Curated by Alison Gingeras (chief curator at Palazzio Grassi), this exhibition is very unique and shows us some paintings that were never been seen before. Show features artists from 1950's to these days: Jean Dubuffet, Raymond Hains, Piero Manzoni, Robert Rauschenberg, Julian Schnabel, Lynda Benglis, Sheila Hicks... to name but a few! One can say that this exhibition has been held in a very sincere way, with no pretension at all and it's hard to believe that there are many masterpieces hidden behind that little house!!

Exhibition is on view at 64 east 77th st, Manhattan and runs until May 27th. An illustrated catalogue will be published in summer 2011.

"George Condo: Mental States" Last Days...

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
For those who haven't seen the exhibition yet, there is only a few days left and it's worth. George Condo is an American visual artist who lives and works in New York and who is know for being a part of the new emerging East Village art scene. His paintings are very specific and the New Museum shows a lot of them.

Condo's paintings are figurative but not realistic. One can say that it's a bit much. And I can understand. To appreciate his paintings you have to read between the lines. Paintings are humorous, funny, grotesque, absurd, and some of them are a caricature of classical masterpieces. His work is very prolific and one can easily say that his bank of references is huge and his knowledge impressive.  He gives an acerbic critic of our post-humanistic society.

The exhibition is accompanied by a beautiful 190-pages catalogue and runs til the end of the week. He's also know for his collaboration with Kanye West who is gonna make a performance at the next MoMA garden party.

Urs Fischer's Yellow Teddy Bear stands on Park Ave!!

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!!
Park Ave definitely became a wonderland! A giant Teddy Bear currently stands on the lower part of the Avenue, below the roses made by Will Ryman. A huge yellow Teddy Bear sitting under a lamp and made by Urs Fischer! I remember I saw them building the sculpture a few weeks ago while I was walking on Park and I was so confused I didn't understand what was going on!

Urs Fischer is a Swiss artist born in 1973 and who lives and works in both NY and Zurich. Everybody remembers his exhibition at the New Museum in 2009-2010, the first in an American museum. His work is very provocative and controversial, and raises questions and interrogations. At first he made a small piece, a bear sewn by his friend with a real desk lamp in the size of 30cm about six years ago. The sculpture on Park "Untitled (Lamp/Bear)" is about 23 feet tall and weights 35,000 pounds.

On display between 52nd st and 53rd st until the end of September, the sculpture, owned by Rosen and Mugrabi, will be on sale at Christies on May 11th. This work will be the matching piece of Jeff Koons's Pink Panther that will be on sale at Sotheby's.

"Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective" at the Met

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its new exhibition a few days ago. The Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective is its first retrospective of drawings that was made possible thanks to the Jane and Robert Carroll Fund. Richard Serra is an American minimal sculptor and video artist. He is best known for his monumental sculptures made of sheets of metal. He studied painting with Josef Albers and traveled through Europe continuing his training. He lives and works in New York.

Well-known for his sculptures, Serra is also an amazing painter and draftsman. His drawings are made on paper using various techniques such as paintstick that is a wax-like grease crayon. He used to use ink, charcoal, lithographic crayon... and definitely turned to black paintstick in the mid-70s. His first "Installation Drawings" were made in mid-70s on huge and monumental canvases or linen pined directly o the wall and thickly covered with black paintstick . Those made in 80s are less big than the first series. At the end of the 80s he explores the tension of weight and gravity by placing sheets of paper saturated with paintstick in horizontal and vertical compositions. "Black" is more a material than a color in Serra's work. It's strong, deep, and heavy.

Exhibition shows fifty drawings and a selection of sketchbooks. He always put a lot of emphasis on drawing in his works. Drawing played a crucial role in the investigation of new concepts and new creative methods.

Domingo Zapata!!!

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
I went last night to this incredible event hosted by Whitewall Magazine and I had the good luck to discover Domingo Zapata! Zapata was born in Mallorca in 1974, he lives and works in NY. His huge and colorful paintings are made of oil and acrylic and often including mixed media such as pieces of newspapers, pictures of famous icons and collages.

When I first came in the studio I didn't know where to look! His paintings are full of symbols. We can easily say that is a perfect mix between street art and graff, figurative and abstract in the same time. Some symbols are recurrent such as elephants and bulls or planes and propellers. About planes and propellers he told us he was obsessed with light and air which is perfectly depicted in some of his paintings. Most of the paintings mix writing and painting which is interesting because you can stand in front of it and think about everything. Each time it's a different story. Zapata's work is joyful, spiritual, very sincere and authentic.

Great evening, great party and great guy! Well known for being involved in the music industry, here is the other side of Domingo's work! For those who wander in the Lower East Side, go to 237 Lafayette st cross with Spring. Exhibition will bring you into his world...

"Picasso and Marie-Therese" at gagosian NY

Good evening contemporary art lovers!
Back from the opening of the new Gagosian exhibition: Picasso and Marie-Therese. As usual definitely too crowded and as usual undoubtedly stunning! That's hilarious to see how people can be so ridiculous at openings by wearing crazy outfits or acting like if they knew everything about art! Anyway show is amazing, once again the Gagosian's team brought masterpieces from all around the world.

Marie-Therese Walter met Picasso while she was 17 years old and became is longtime mistress from 1927 to 1935. They had a child together named Marie de la Concepcion aka Maya. Their relationship remained secret from Picasso's wife til 1935. She used to live next to Picasso's home and she was his model and muse for both paintings and sculptures. Maya also posed for him. He left her for Dora Maar who was a French artist and model. They both appeared in two different kind of women: while Marie-Therese is portrayed like a blond, sunny, bright women, Dora appears as a strong and dark brunette.

More than eighty works including several pieces that are never been seen in the US are shown. Exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue and has to be seen. Runs til June 25th.

The Great Upheaval: Modern Art From The Guggenheim Collection

Good evening contemporary art lovers!
A few days ago I went to the Guggenheim to see the new exhibition. Amazing!! The Great Upheaval: Modern Art From The Guggenheim Collection, 1910-1918. Curated by Tracey Bashkoff and Megan Fontanella, the exhibition is organized around 100 works representative of that era marked by the creation of the Blau Reiter, the World War I, the Cubism and expressionistic manifestations.

Dead in 1949, Solomon R. Guggenheim was an American businessman, art collector and philanthropist. He worked in the family mining business and founded the Yukon Gold Company. He retired in 1919 to devote his life to art. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (1937) which goal is to foster the appreciation of Modern Art and to encourage its development. Museum was designed in the mid 40's by Frank Lloyd Wright who was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator. Guggenheim and Wright both died before the opening in 1959. Wright was a leader of the Prairie School (usually: horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs, integration with the landscape...) and promoted organic architecture. In 1991 he was recognized as "the greatest American architect of all times" by the American Institute of Architects. The spiral design recalls a nautilus shell. Well integrated with the nature, the space organization and its light (there is a huge rotunda on the top) makes viewing and visits very easy.

A lot of works that belong to the museum collection are from Solomon's one. The Guggenheim Collection results from a combination of different privates collections such as the Solomon Guggenheim collection, the Thannhauser collection, the Panza collection or else the Hilda Rebay collection. The collection was also augmented with gifts made by the Robert Mappelthorpe Foundation and the Bohen Foundation. The collection isn't divided into departments devoted to specific mediums or eras. Exhibition features works made by 48 artists such as Umberto Boccioni, Marc Chagall, Fernand Leger, Kazimir Malevitch, Marcel Duchamp among others. My favorites are those made by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. Several "Eiffel Towers", made by Robert Delaunay are also exposed. And the painting that moved me deeply: Artillery Men in the Shower made by Ernst Kirchner in 1915.

Exhibition is arranged chronologically which makes visit more understandable. And it runs until June 2011.

Upcoming!! Morellet & Malevitch at the Kamel Mennour gallery Paris

Good evening contemporary art lovers!
I guess one can say "great minds think alike"... The exhibition "Malevitch and the American Legacy" just opened at the beginning of March at the Gagosion gallery on Madison ave and there is another one in Paris! Actually the exhibition in Paris is more about Francois Morellet's work and its the relationship with Malevitch's one. Square is for both of them a predilection shape. Francois Morellet is a contemporary French painter born in 1926. He is also an engraver, a sculptor and a light artist. He turned to abstraction in 1950 after a short period of figurative work and his role in geometrical abstraction was quite important.

One can say that it would be the study of a paradox: they both have their own way to interpret a square. they don't share the same point of view. For Morellet, a work of art refers to itself. He is seeking the absolute simplicity of forms and uses many different materials such as fabric, tape, neon, walls... Malevitch, who was a Russian painter and art theoretician, wrote the manifest of Suprematism which is an art movement focused on fundamental geometric forms such as the square or the circle. The square is for him the ultimate geometric simplification. His process is definitely way more theoretical and intellectual.

Anyway... it's just beautiful and if you get a chance, you should go. For those who are in NY, Gagosian gallery is on 980 Madison ave bet 76th and 77th streets.

Don Dudley at I-20

Good evening contemporary art lovers!
I recently discovered the work of Don Dudley through my new friend from the I20 gallery! Born in 1930, Don Dudley is an American artist who lives and works in New York. His works were exhibited on both coasts of the US and in Europe. one can say that is a combination of minimal and optic art.

I-20 hosted Don's first solo show at the gallery a few months ago. One can say that is a combination of minimal and optic art. He indefinitely explores object, color and surface. He is a painter but he also makes installations such as the wall-hunging aluminum modules and a series of homasote sectional walls configuration that were exhibited at the gallery. Colored stripes kinda remind me of Daniel Buren's work, a French conceptual artist.

Private collections and museums such as the Whitney in NY already bought his works. It's worth keeping an eye on...

Rudolf Stingel at Gagosian NYC

Good evening contemporary art lovers!
That guy is one of my favorite artists... Born in Meran, Italy, in 1956, Rudolf Stingel is based in New York. His work explores the process of creation through conceptual paintings and installations. I discovered his works at the Pinault's Foundation in Venice a while ago and I'm still very impressed. He also created a silver room inside the Italian pavilion at the 2003 Venice Biennale.

Once I saw a beautiful diptych made out of foam rubber and covered with a silver paper, probably Celotex. The funny thing about it? The owner can let his own mark on it by scratching, making holes in it or whatever... Viewers are also allowed to mark them!
Earlier works were rather a reflection on the relationship between space and painting by developing installations than the new ones.
Here you'll see works that are mostly self-portraits. Latest works bring us into a melancholic and nostalgic universe in which one he depicts himself into a mid-life crisis and a meditative state of mind.

I won't tell anything else... I'll let you go by yourself! Exhibition runs April 16th, Gagosion Gallery, West 24th street.

Armory Show and MoMA after party!!

Good evening contemporary art lovers!
I must say I was a bit disappointed by the Armory... I usually want to but at least two or three works of art (sometimes even more!!) but I didn't find anything attracting this year. I was also expecting to see galleries that weren't here. And as in any other fair, an area is dedicated to one country. 2011 is focusing on Latin-America art which is important for its development and its influence.

I saw several sculptures made by Tony Cragg, a British visual artist specialized in sculpture and who lives and works in Germany. His work is amazing and I'm not the only one who says he is: the Louvre museum in Paris shows some of his works. Exhibition runs until the end of April. The Marianne Goodman gallery in NY is one of his art dealer. He mostly uses traditional materials such as bronze, wood and marble and carves simple forms that are all made by him, not in factories. There was a huge and beautiful Reyle, a striped one. Beautiful but we already saw that kind of work many times! Oddly my favorite part is the modern one. I was more impressed by paintings made for instance by Matta or Botero than by the contemporary part.
After party at the MoMA was pretty cool. It reminded me dinners at Beaubourg in Paris. That's so cool drinking and having fun in a museum. And Kate Nash was performing....

Get ready for tonight: Powers art opening and after party, Flatt art magazine party....

Alfredo Jaar: The Sound of Silence vs Three Women

Good evening contemporary art lovers!
To the Parisians who can't be in NY next week (shame on you it's the Armory Show!! you should be here) here is a very interesting exhibition organized by the Kamel Mennour gallery in collaboration with "L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts". The Sound of Silence is shown at the Beaux-Arts' yard and Three Women is hosted by the gallery "rue St Andre des Arts". Alfredo Jaar is a Chilean artist, architect and film maker who was born in 1956. He lives and works in New York.

Over the past thirty years, he was focusing on how one can see and think an image. His technique evolved but his works follows the same guideline:  questioning on political violences, social exploitation, resistance and activism. his work is one of the strongest engagements in contemporary art such as Boltanski's one or Haacke's one. According to him, a work of art must go above the simple aesthetic pleasure and has to take risks. That's why he treated many subjects such as: the silence imposed by Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile, the destiny of Vietnamese boat-people in H, the Rwandan genocide, the "buried workers"in the brazilian mines... His goal is to link together the artist's search with political questions and moral ethics.

Unfortunately History doesn't tell if he's related to the electro Dj Nicolas Jaar who also lives in NY and used to live in Chile...

Harif Guzman!!

Good evening contemporary art lovers!

To all of you who love hanging out at Don Hills or all other Rock’n’Roll places, you have to know this guy!! Harif Guzman, a Venezuelian-born artist who lives and works in the City. He’s the one who painted Don Hills’ walls. His work, extremely seductive, very sensual, full of jokes and pornographic connotations totally matches with the New York underground art scene. A perfect mix with street art and graffs that rejects the “glamorized bohemian that floods downtown Manhattan”.

Funny and crazy at the first sight, his work is definitely deeper and more intense. He ridicules some “cliché” that make our society kind of frivol even stupid sometimes. Look at the Karl Lagerfeld’s picture: he’s represented between two huge penises! Provocative and authentic, his work is the reflection of the way he lives, works and thinks. Drinking beer and listening to rock'n'roll music in his loft downtown was a very cool experience! Paintings, sculptures and installations are all over the place. Can't wait to see the new studio...

Love is dead!! Rock'n'Roll baby...

Will Ryman's roses blooming on Park avenue

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
Since little while, Park Avenue was transformed into a huge rose garden. 38 roses, some reaching 25 feet in high, are growing on Park Avenue. They are made by Will Ryman, a native New Yorker artist best known of his large-scale figurative sculptures based on urban scenes and outsized flora.

Paul Kasmin Gallery and the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation turned this project into a reality. A reality which is kind of absurd: pink and red roses seem to symbolize calmness and tranquility but NY is definitely not a untroubled city! It looks like Alice in Wonderland! you are lost in the middle of a fantastic and unreal garden. Ladybugs, beetles and bees are almost bigger than us...

Exhibition runs til May and thanks to those who organized: feeling of summer in the middle of winter...

VIP ART FAIR

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
As you may know there's approximatively one art fair per month. Sometimes more! That's a lot of time and money to go to each of them. For the first time in the art world, an international art fair will be viewed exclusively online...

The VIP - Viewing In Private - art fair was founded by James Cohan, Jane Cohan, Jonas Almgren and Alessandra Almgren. James Cohan is an art dealer. He worked for the John Weber gallery, the Paula Cooper gallery and the Anthony d'Offay gallery. He created his own gallery in NY in 1999 and opened a second one in Shangai in 2008. Jane Cohan, his partner, is in charge of the press relations. Jonas and Alessandra Almgren are "art lovers" and combine their passion for art with their experience from the Silicon Valley: management and technology for him; high-tech marketing and business development for her.

Without leaving home, we'll be able to see the works of art (even zoom on the one we are interested in), to talk to the dealers (through msn, Skype...), to access the private rooms... There are many ways to visit the fair. Some visits are organized by art critics, some other by art collectors or art dealers. The VIP lounge is dedicated to the viewing of videos and movies about the fair or the visits of ateliers and privates collections. Articles about new works available and art market will be posted.

That's an unprecedented event. The world's leading contemporary art galleries are represented such as Gagosian, David Zwirner, Kamel Mennour, Massimo de Carlo, Lisson, Marlborough, Thaddeus Ropac, the Pace gallery, Almine Rech... Opening the 22th of January and for one week only. I got my VIP pass, what about you? ;)

Emmanuelle Bousquet

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
She's a French emerging photographer that I discovered in NY last Fall. The RFT Fine Art gallery hosted an exhibition during three weeks. It's a "Pop Up" gallery for temporary projects. Born in Nîmes, she lives ans works in Paris. Her work, sensual and very erotic, brings us into her own world, a world mystic and fantasmatic.

Most of her works show us females modeles and androgynous figures both represented such as ghosts and spectra. They are posing in a private and intimate area. There is a duality between a cool and weighty atmosphere; the "sweet as honey" aspect of the picture itself and the intense character of the subject...

She's her main model. She wanted to be seen through her camera like through the eyes of a man. Test succeeded.

Thierry Bisch

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
Let me introduce to you this French artist, Thierry Bisch. He's into everything. He's a painter, a drawer but he's also one of the founders of an independant rock label: Reflexes. He worked with the French designer Thierry Mugler who pushed him to become an artist. He wrote and produced a movie about him and he was his personal photograph assistant.

Portraits of animals became one of the most important part of his work for some time. Most of them are executed in black charcoal on a monochrom, faded and worn linen. The Pink Rabbit is certainly the high spot of his career. In 2010, brushes, paint and canvases disappear in favour of graphic palette and aluminium. Prints are avalaible at LCT Publishing...

He's one the major artists who work at the Hotel Lutetia in Paris  and he has been nominated "Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres", famous French distinction, in 2007.