The second floor of Shakespeare and Company is a reading room crammed full of old and new books . Despite all the tourists it is suprinsgly peaceful and offers a really nice view to the cobblestone street and Seine below.
Musee Dorsey
Inside the Musee Dorsey, an old railway station converted into a museum for impressionist paintings. I saw my favorite Van Gogh painting, the one of this blue room with the orange/red bed spread. Unfortunately, my friend J. also shut his finger in the door of the terrace in plein air and we got a behind the scenes tour that included the nurse’s office!
More Museums
Last Monday I went to the Centre Pompidou to view their Los Anglees exhibit (which is now closed, maybe making this entry irrelevent). The exhibition was sprawling and quite impressive in the depth of each artist shown- not just one Ed Ruscha, but many! I loved walking into James Turrell’s piece which was a room bathed in blue florescent light. It gave a calm, cool, silent feeling and I noticed one girl curled up in the corner, like she had been staying there absorbing the blue frequency for a long time. I stayed later than I planned to watch Kenneth Anger’s video “Inauguration of thePleasure Dome,” in which my favorite author, Anais Nin, plays a part. It is totaly amazing, heady mix of colors, music, costumes, sequences and emotions and makes his piece for the recent Whitney Biennial that features rock stars and Micky Mouse seem absoltely pale in comparison. My one gripe with the show was this: in a city as complex, fraught and diverse as LA the curators gave one room for both feminist artists AND a Chicano artists collective (yes, one room for both and two gay artists were given a hallway after that). And from the selection of feminist art you would think that Judy Chicago was THE MOST important feminist artist to ever live. Women artists and artists addressing social concerns seemed quite absent throughout and from the show one might think LA was just a white dude, formalist conceptualist playground, interesting, some great art, sure, but but nothing more. I also left wanting to know “why LA?” and how it connected or didn’t to other cities such as NYC and Paris. And why a show of art from LA in Paris now?
Despite my gripes, which had amounted to feeling seriously peeved by the time I walked out of the show, I imagined working at the Centre Pompidou as a guide and interpreter or maybe as part of the curatorial team, sigh…
Biking through the Bois
Tonight G. and I went for an amazing bike ride through the Bois de Vincennes, on the eastern edge of Paris. We passed the chateau de vincennes which was immense, it’s quite ridiculous to realize how stinking rich the royals actully were when you come face to face with one of the places they built. K. leant me her grandmother’s sea green pugeut bicycle and it’s so perfect for tooling around the city, though it shakes and shudders, I feel so free being able to explore the city by bike.
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On the Canal de St; Martin, an area that is incresingly branché (hip yuppie) but I found it pretty neat. Um, I hate to say it, but this rivals the graffiti in the Brooklyn Museum’s Graffiti show.
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So obviously I love horses so I couldn’t resist this horse on top of the carousel near tourist infested Sacre Coeur, which G; told me was built after the first Paris Commune to wash away the sins of the communarts. Thata made me look at it way differently.
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Looking over the Seine at sunset. Is this what makes Paris romantique?
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Chirac’s museum, the Quai Branly (see entry below for a critique) and the Eiffel Tower in the background, classic landmark and new institution. Where’s the dialogue?
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What more to say? I went up theEiffel Tower with my family when I was 12, so I am spared that tourist rite now. It’s still a good photographic subject though.
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On a very hot day last week I went walking in theJardin des Plantes. My favorite part was a wmall labyrinth which lead up to this coupola.
Killerfemme 