previews September 1998

Issey Miyake

The pleated, gossamer synthetic that remains Issey Miyake’s trademark is not just a token of the designer’s interest in advanced technological research; that Miyake also intends it as homage to the great designer Fortuny indicates his enthusiasm for the creative work of others. Show organizer Hervé Chandès hopes to emphasize less the familiar pioneer of destructured Japanese fashion (the “lab technician” closely associated with the engineers and inventors of new fibers) than the maverick artist and collaborator. The show highlights Miyake’s work with contemporary artists, including Yasumasa

print May 1998

WEAK AFFINITIES: THE ART OF THOMAS HIRSCHHORN

THE MATERIALS

On the elevated Métro leading to Thomas Hirschhorn’s studio in the working-class neighborhood of Barbès (where he has lived since leaving his native Switzerland in 1984), blurred images flash before my eyes as I tick off the stops on the outskirts of Paris. Pigalle, Anvers, Barbès—they all bring to mind the immigrant neighborhoods where populations in exile gather. Coming to France from Africa, Asia, and the Antilles, they’ve found a way to integrate themselves in the urban milieu, or at least to get by, if barely.

In the great chaos of his installations, Hirschhorn draws on this

previews May 1998

Christian Boltanski

In an attempt to avoid the totalizing view that comes with a retrospective, Christian Boltanski has opted instead for a show that sticks to the last ten years of his work—a period that’s seen him reach the pinnacle of the French art scene. Curator Béatrice Parent is orchestrating this shadowy, hushed display through the installation of eight large works comprising photos, old clothing, and abandoned objects—at once discreet and monumental—that revolve around the torments of memory. Like all of Boltanski’s work, the whole is taken in bit by bit, bathed in a dimly lit atmosphere that is at once

previews May 1998

Max Ernst: Sculptures, Houses, and Landscapes

Everyone’s pretty familiar with Max Ernst by now, right? Curators Werner Spies and Fabrice Hergott hope to offer a new perspective by playing down Ernst the painter in favor of Ernst the sculptor in a show organized around the artist’s numerous residencies (and the impact of changing surroundings on his sculptural forms). What unifies the work is Ernst’s good humor in pieces made during sojourns at the poet Paul Eluard’s in Eaubonne, at Giacometti’s home in Maloja, at his own home in Saint-Martin d’Ardèche, or even during stays on Long Island or amid the sandstone canyons of Sedona, Arizona. In

previews May 1998

Biennale de l’Image

It’s a common complaint today that media bombardment has stripped the image of all meaning. For some of the youngest participants in this first edition of the Biennale de l’Image (curator Régis Durand, director of the Centre Nationale de Photographie, has selected an international group of artists largely under thirty-five), image saturation is apparently a given; whether working in video, on computers, or with a camera, they take the image as medium rather than message—a decision as second nature to them as acrylic was for Color Field painters. A new type of art may emerge from this strategy,

previews January 1998

Tell Me a Story: Narration in Contemporary Painting and Photography

Curators Yves Aupetitallot and Alessandra Galasso have assembled artists they see as turning to painting and photography as a way of fighting the “impasse of the still image.” Centered on the notion of image-making as pictorial writing, or what Aupetitallot calls a “visualized narration,” the focus in “Tell Me a Story” is on a generation of artists whose work has a novelistic or story-like quality, from Karen Kilimnik and Raymond Pettibon to Xavier Veilhan and Jeff Wall. This show of twenty artists highlights in particular the influence of cinematography and video on contemporary painting and

previews January 1998

Gabriel Orozco

We all remember Gabriel Orozco’s redimensioning of the Citröen DS, its width shrunk in half, reflecting the irony and uneasiness of the functional object. Or the skull at Documenta; the computer-generated prints juxtaposing geometric patterns and images of cricket matches; or the entropic scenes shot in Mexico. All of his work seems to involve, as Angeline Sherf, co-curator (with Laurence Bossé) of this project, puts it, a “vibration of everyday things,” which the artist transforms into “plays of meanings in what he captures from a suggested but absent presence.” Orozco takes the notion of formal

previews January 1998

“Visions du Nord”

For some time, the art of Scandinavia has enjoyed only a marginal appreciation in the heart of Europe. This large survey of work from the five countries of Northern Europe (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland) should go a ways toward correcting that. The survey begins with patriarchs Edvard Munch and August Strindberg and winds its way to young artists working today. Highlights include Per Kirkeby’s monumental paintings, an installation by the Icelandic singer Bjork and Englishman Jeremy Deller, and an interactive video by the Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier, as well as stills from an

previews January 1998

Arman

Forget the monumental sculptures—the piled-up suitcases and clocks in Paris or those tanks stuck in concrete in Beirut. The highlight of this retrospective is the work of the young Arman, the innovative cofounder of Nouveaux Réalisme. An obsessive “accumulator,” the artist gave his combines of ordinary objects—whether pieces of cars, coffee grinders, musical instruments, or even garbage—an emotional weight previously reserved for sculpture. Included in the show, curated by Daniel Abadie, is Sandwich Combo, a piece from the new “Jumbo” series, featuring motorcycles crammed into a piano sawed in

print November 1997

the swing left

IT WAS ALMOST LIKE a fairy tale, it happened so quickly. One day France was on the right, and the president of the republic was feeling peevish. The prime minister was getting on his nerves. How could he get rid of him? Hold early elections. Next morning, to everyone’s surprise, France was on the left, as was the new prime minister, Lionel Jospin. Although the French are notoriously fickle when it comes to choosing their leaders, in reality it was neither fairy tale nor whimsy that prompted the swing left but the cumulative effects of a series of workers’ protests, the government’s continued

print November 1997

STUDIO TIME: FABRICE HYBERT

VALUING AN ARTIST AND UNDERSTANDING THE WORK are two very different things. It’s like when you’re in love: there’s a charm at work, but what? It is irrefutable that the French are smitten with the thirty-six-year-old Fabrice Hybert and, ever since he took the prize for best pavilion at this summer’s Venice Biennale, the rest of the art world has been, too. He’s been showing work for about ten years, and is considered one of the leading figures of a new generation of artists whose work is characterized by its openness to the world beyond the studio. Yet when you ask in-the-know art types about

previews May 1997

“Amours”

We all know the cliché that l’amour is the true passion of the French. Now the Fondation Cartier, in a seductive exhibition of work by some fifty artists, has set out to examine love in all its art-historical variety. “Amours” brings together work ranging from drawings by Ingres and sensuous scenes by Watteau and Fragonard to graffitied walls captured by Brassai and images of provocative tattoos, along with more contemporary examples of the art of love, including work by Douglas Gordon and Gary Hill. One highlight is André Labarthe’s film incorporating love scenes from the history of cinema.

Pascaline Cuvelier