Last month, I took the train up to Paris to see some friends from the US. They weren’t in town for that long, so I padded my trip out with a visit to the Grand Palais for a couple of special exhibitions: Matisse, 1941-1954 and Nan Goldin: This Will Not End Well.
Two very different vibes, but two excellent shows. I’d recommend both of them, if you find yourself in Paris with some time to go to museums.
(As one does).
The Matisse exhibit starts with paintings and drawings from his post-war period, and continues on through to collages and stained glass windows from the later part of his career. It’s an impressive showing, because they brought together several of his series that normally live in different collections. The curators must have worked extra hard on their wrangling, because there are works from all over the world. It really gives you an idea of the scale of his artistic output at the end of his life.
The one bummer about the show is that it’s very popular. I mean, I’m glad that so many people wanted to enjoy the art. I just wish there had been more enjoying and less “well, I guess I’ll take a picture of this for later.”
(There is a special place in hell for people who have the shutter click sound effect on their phones, and an extra special place for the ones who use the shutter click sound effect in the middle of a museum.)
I tend to get overwhelmed in museums to begin with. It’s the good kind of overwhelmed where you’ve opened up all of your senses to take things in. But I’m still pretty overwhelmed. So, it’s very possible that I was just being a curmudgeon. But, seriously, people. Art is best enjoyed with our human eyes and not through a phone screen.
Anyways, it’s still a great show. Just try to go during off-peak hours.
The other exhibit I saw that day was a series of Nan Goldin’s slideshows. My sister recommended that I watch the documentary about her ahead of time, which was great advice. It helped put things in context, and it’s also a fantastic movie.
Goldin requested that people not take any photos/videos at the exhibit, and I respected that. Maybe that’s why the crowd in the Matisse exhibit annoyed me so much? I saw the Nan Goldin exhibit first. Anyways, Goldin started her photography career giving slideshows at clubs in NYC. There’s something about the ephemeral nature of a slideshow that makes her work feel more immediate. Especially when you juxtapose it against her subject matter: friends from the margins of society, many of them who were lost during the AIDS crisis.
It is quite the experience to see slideshows that originated in underground clubs displayed in a fancy pants museum (the Grand Palais was built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900 and the French went full-on decorative with it). I thought they did a good job of creating little structures where you could sit and watch each piece. The pipe and drape “hallways” weren’t exactly nightclub-like, but they did evoke a similar sort of feeling of expectation.
Sometimes I have to virtually pinch myself that it’s so easy to get to Paris. Especially when there are so many museums and special exhibitions. I try to make it more affordable by finding discounted train tickets and staying in youth hostels. Theoretically, I could also make it a day trip (it’s about 2 hours each way). But why deprive myself of the chance to sleep on a bunkbed in a room with 7 other people and use a bathroom down the hall?
If you find yourself in Paris one of these days, please let me know! I think I’ve firmly established that I’m game to meet up. We don’t even have to go to any museums together.
