So here I am, among the tourists gasping “just like the Da Vinci Code!’ dragging G. to see the Praxiteles exhibit at the Louvre on the first day of my recent visit to Paris. Leaving (at that point) cloudy, rainy, cold NYC for summer-like Paris was a much needed vacation. I found the Praxitele exhibit interesting, especially because only one of the sculptures might have been carved by him. So one could say that the show really examines his influence in classical sculpture. Knowing about nothing about classical art, I found this premise for a show quite interesting. However, my eyes soon became bleary from reading so much text and gave up simply to sketch a sculpture of a woman’s torso. I think that in this kind of closer examination of the artwork was where I was able to appreciate it as an art object as opposed to an idea, and I preferred the objects. Much more satisfying was our trip to the contemporary art museum in the suburbs, MAC/VAL later in the week.
Killerfemme 