City view from Modern Art rooftop, Bucharest Photo Thomas Filippini

FROM PICASSO TO DUBUFFET

This exhibition at the Paris Museum of Modern Art shows how artists fundamentally changed the content and form of art in France from 1938 to 1947, in a threatening environment of oppression and shortages.

Nearly 300 works by 80 artists are presented, placing the spotlight on the blind spots of history, in the same way as the official art scene, which dominated at the time.

Creativity went on in France’s internment camps as well as hidden clandestine sites in appalling conditions. Survival works reflect the desperate energy of artists, who adapted theircreative processes and materials. Theartists were doomed to adjust to the new realities of these dark years.

Picasso’s audacity remained intact, though forbidden to exhibit his work and secluded in hisworkshop at Grands-Augustins. He produced masterpieces apace: L’Aubade, the Grand nu, the Têtes de mort, erotic drawings, Tête de taureau and his play Le désir attrapé par la queue. Until 17th february 2013, Museum of Modern Art, Paris.

Posted on November 7, 2012 with 1 note

MANUEL ALVAREZ BRAVO EXHIBITION

The photographic work done by Manuel Álvarez Bravo (Mexico City, 1902-2002) over his eight decades of activity represent an essential contribution to Mexican culture in the 20th century. His strange and fascinating images have often been seen as the product of an exotic imagination or an eccentric version of the Surrealist avant-garde. This exhibition will go beyond such readings. While not denying the links with Surrealism and the clichés relating to Mexican culture, the selection of 150 photographs is designed to bring out a specific set of iconographic themes running through Álvarez Bravo’s practice: reflections and trompe-l’œil effects in the big city; prone bodies reduced to simple masses; volumes of fabric affording glimpses of bodies; minimalist, geometrically harmonious settings; ambiguous objects, etc. The exhibition thus takes a fresh look at the work, without reducing it to a set of emblematic images and the stereotyped interpretations that go with them. This approach brings out little-known aspects of his art that turn out to be remarkably topical and immediate. Images become symbols, words turn into images, objects act as signs and reflections become objects: these recurring phenomena are like visual syllables repeated all through his œuvre, from the late 1920s to the early 1980s. Curated by Laura González Flores and Gerardo Mosquera. Until 20th January 2013 at Jeu de Paume, Paris.

Posted on October 22, 2012 with 7 notes