A History of Editions Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys and Takashi Murakami
The exhibtion focuses on the production of editions of three artists.
Marcel Duchamp naturally resorted multiples of editions central to his work and his preoccupation with authorship and the redefinition of uniqueness. I remember at the Guggenheim Museum in Venice the "exhibition suitcase" featuring all his work in miniatures, so so cuuute. Actually he produced 275 portable ubiquitous retrospective museums "Box in a Valise". "Everything important I have done can be held in a small valise M.D".
For Joseph Beuys the importance of editions was crucial to his fictional world. His approach with the social and political speculations led to 567 mutliples: manifestos, political concepts and forms of languages. Thus, Beuys was interested in spreading his ideas and creating objectif in relation to his intelligible ideas. In some ways, he provides the alphabet to understand his own fiction.
Concerning Murakami, the re-edition of past myths, the use of manga culture and his theory of superflat aesthetic deep his art at the crossroads of mediums but what is exhibited at Perrotin are just bad printed replicas of his best works. If I haven't seen his work at the Palazzo Grassi and Punta Della Dogana I would have hated it. I liked this exhibition because I don't know if it was intentional or not but it treats the art market and its difficulty to define the profitability of a print, to convince collectors that editions are an integral part of an artist production and the "Art for All" thematic at Perrotin what a contradiction...!
It is meaningful for Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys that escaped the art market at their times but for Murakami it's a non sense. (just like his Hello Kitty look-a-like doodle for Goodle)
June 24th to July 30th 76 rue de Turenne 75003 Paris perrotin.com
Public Domaine at La Gaïté LyriqueThere is a couple of words you can see on every mouths in Paris since 6 months "Gaïté Lyrique", a massive and sharped communication strategy that have managed to create the buzz around it. Around what ? around a new concept of exhibition spaces said to treat "digital cultures". It's clean, it's trendy and well thought. Let's see its temporary exhibition Public Domaine. A noble decision to use skateboarding as a central point, a counter culture that has going through the digital age, a wood board which has turned into a medium to convey identities. A mean of transport as well as a mean of communication, a never ending gold mine to pick into. I remember on our first computer at home, my older brother downloaded a skateboarder accident on a ramp . It took one week to download a thirty seconds video, but we replayed it a thousand times. Especially when guests were visiting us "Do you want to watch the worst thing ever ?" I went there with brother, sister and mother and it has a particular sense because we have all be part of this skateboard culture. Bro had an accident at 16th years old and still has a big scar on his front, Astrid was the first of the family to buy a board and to get the complete outfit and I remember my mother wearing our baggies to go shopping on sundays. We arrived in front of La Gaïté and could'nt go right inside as we were all attracted to that skatepark where 5 skaters were showing their best tricks to a tiny but encouraging public. We took part to it, from where I was seated I could noticed that Kidult was there :) Anyway we watched them one hour before entering in the exhibition which constitute my first good point. They've succeed in bringing the community in the exhibition, a very adapted legitimization.
Public Domaine - Skateboard culture features music, video, graphic installations attempting one after another to reveal the aestethic of this culture across all the spheres from the street to the home. Home because an entire skateboard house was constructed on the idea of "What the skateboard will be in 25 years ?" This house was created by Pierre André Senizergues.
Then you enter in a sound box where images are projected all over, you seat and watch videos. One of this video showed a ghost skater that only appeared in his shadow and it really make me think of the film Rubber by Quentin Dupieux with this board going through the skatepark alone. The problem with all these trendy places with new concepts is to know before going there that you will see preconceived and pastiches pieces of contemporary art which was not the case (for most of the pieces). The main good point is that it has succeed to show the evolution of a counter culture to an elite one, underground has not anymore an underlying meaning but is projected with silver letters on the walls of an old theater in the third arrondissement, Pascal Monfort is not just a skater anymore, he is a Consumer Culture Manager for Nike.
June 18th & August 7th 3bis rue Papin 75003 Paris gaite-lyrique.net
Europa Graffiti 24 juin au 23 juillet 2011
Europa Graffiti is a freeze frame of the new generation of european street artists. From the beginning of the 80's wheen T-Kid 170 and Speedy Graphito where answering themselves through the Atlantic. Forerunners of a pictural phenomena in Europe, they have fingerprinted the next generation of artists. Today, a quarter century later, Graffiti is assimiliated to the Street art and the borders, while closed before are starting to diseappear. That is the purpose of the exhibtion: showing that the borders between street art and graffiti are turning fluids. I went to the exhibition opening alone. I met Nychos and Ceet then Hugo Lawson Body who take me to his shooting for Be Magazine.
Pavillon Carré de Baudouin, 121 rue de Ménilmontant 75020 Paris
