theartsdesk in Paris: Surrealist Blues | reviews, news & interviews
theartsdesk in Paris: Surrealist Blues
theartsdesk in Paris: Surrealist Blues
Surrealism is still going strong in Paris, but will it survive the computer age?
Sunday, 25 October 2009
Sans titre by Jacques-André Boiffard© Collection du Centre Pompidou
I've been having rather a surreal autumn here in Paris. First, I was lucky enough to catch the last day of Une semaine de bonté at the Musée d'Orsay, where the original collages were on display in five colour-coded chambers. For those not in the know, Max Ernst's graphic novel avant le fait is a series of 182 collages made out of printed images cut from old books, and was first published in 1934, in a series of five pamphlets. The title means, "A Week of Kindness", but the contents are anything but kind.
I've been having rather a surreal autumn here in Paris. First, I was lucky enough to catch the last day of Une semaine de bonté at the Musée d'Orsay, where the original collages were on display in five colour-coded chambers. For those not in the know, Max Ernst's graphic novel avant le fait is a series of 182 collages made out of printed images cut from old books, and was first published in 1934, in a series of five pamphlets. The title means, "A Week of Kindness", but the contents are anything but kind.
Photos of Hans Bellmer's dolls would probably be banned as paedophile art if they were taken today.
Explore topics
Share this article
Add comment
more Visual arts
Fabienne Verdier, The Song of the Stars (Le chant des étoiles), Musée Unterlinden, Colmar review - sacred and contemporary art in dialogue
The French artist is inspired by the Matthias Grünewald altarpiece
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed review - superb documentary about a campaigning artist
Nan Goldin's fight against the makers of Oxycontin is as gutsy as her work
Spain and the Hispanic World, Royal Academy review - a monumental survey
The refurbishment of New York's Hispanic Society provides a unique opportunity to see its treasures
Best of 2022: Visual Arts
Museums and galleries are no longer afraid of giving women major shows
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Tate Modern review - a forest of huge and imposing presences
Smell the sisal and feel small in the company of giant hangings
Things, Musée du Louvre, Paris review - the still life brought alive
Monumental Paris art show asks questions about the nature of things
Donna Fleming: Apocalypse, The Pie Factory, Margate review - personal passions and intense feelings
Six years of work expressed through mercurial changes of medium
Making Modernism, Royal Academy review - a welcome if confusing intro to seven lesser known artists
Women artists in Germany describe their world in paint
William Kentridge, Royal Academy review - from art to theatre, and back again
The past is hideous, the future an unknown entity in the varied forms of the artist's work
Hopper: An American Love Story review - a dry view of a much richer subject
The inscrutable American artist gets the cinema treatment in a conventional biography
Lucian Freud: New Perspectives, National Gallery review - a powerful punch in the gut
The complexity of human relationships laid bare in centenary show of the artist who always disturbs
Hallyu! The Korean Wave, V&A review - frenetic but fun
Learn how to succeed, South Korean style, right across the cultural board
Comments
...