There is a lot happening on the museum scene here in Paris with three interesting shows at the Centre Pompidou alone.
Let's start with a small but compelling exhibition "Josef Albers in America: Paintings on Paper". The German-born Albers (1888-1976) was one of the first teachers at the Bauhaus but as pre-World War II pressure from the Nazis increased he fled Europe for the United States where he lived and worked for the rest of his life.
Albers became known as an Abstract painter and color theorist with his iconic "Homage to the Square" remaining hugely influential on Modern and Contemporary artists to this day. This series, begun in 1950, allowed Albers to explore his color theories with flat monochromatic squares arranged concentrically on Masonite. His work inspired a generation of American artists who admired the simplicity and totality of these paintings. Nonetheless, Albers remains largely unknown in Europe and this exhibition of 80 oils on papers is a long overdue introduction of his work to a new public.
Upstairs on the sixth floor is a new exhibition devoted to a master of 20th Century Modern art, Henri Matisse. Not simply a retrospective, "Matisse Pairs and Series" explores his obsession with repeating compositions over and over but with different canvas' and treatments every time. In an almost "practice makes perfect" philosophy, Matisse repainted and reworked his subjects in an attempt to achieve the ideal form, representation, relationship between design and color and surface area - seminal quests in the evolution of Modern art.
Representing each stage of his career, from Pointillism to Fauvism to his late paper cut outs, each painting is displayed accompanied by a sister work (or two or three) giving the viewer a fascinating insight into how the idea was developed. This is a very engaging show and the best part is - it's coming to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York this December!
It continues with Dance and Abstraction and the reaction of
the art world to the Industrial Revolution. Now both dance and painting were simultaneously being pared
down to their bare essentials – the simplification of movement and form. Performance examples include Loïe
Fuller’s Serpentine Dance and Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet while Sonia
Delaunay’s rhythmic color symphonies and Gino Severini’s dynamic Futurist works
echo these trends. Wonderful film
footage of the incomparable Josephine Baker shaking her feathers is juxtaposed
with the geometric, machinist Mechanical Ballet while original Bauhaus costumes
turn on a nearby pedestal (see right).
The final section focuses on Dance and Performance starting
with the reactionary Dada actions at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916 and continuing
through Fluxus, Conceptual Art, the Post Modern Era and on through Pop
Culture. Here we have video of Jackson
Pollack performing his own stylized dance as he sprayed paint onto the canvas
and in the 1960’s Yves Klein using nude women as paintbrushes. Dance and art merged as one with no
contradiction in terms.
I leave you with this photograph taken through
an open window along the escalators that take visitors up to the top of the
Centre Pompidou. In the distance
you can see Sacré Cœur and the cage in the foreground is for the window
washers! The view is really
fantastic and you can see how absolutely gorgeous the weather continues to
be. I have one more blog to post
from Paris – a visit to the Salon du Dessin and its treasure trove of beautiful
drawings – so I hope you’ll check back soon for this trip’s final installment.