Pictures from an Exhibition

I don't know about you, dear reader, but after a few nights out on the razz, I often wake up with a craving for a little culture. An amuse-bouche (my italics) of art to refresh the mental palate for the daily digest of vodka and frozen ready-meals glamour and wit that is my Parisian life, a brisk rub-down with the (slightly rough) towel of aesthetics to get that grey matter tingling again. Plus, I had to get out of the house, even with a banging hangover, because the cleaning lady was coming. So I thought I'd pop down to the Pompidou Centre and see what was on. First up was "Airs de Paris" which aims "to explore the themes of cities and urban life, taking Paris as the starting point for a centrifugal energy which extends far beyond its origin," it says on the leaflet. This was helpful because, to the untrained eye, it looked like a real hotch-potch of any old stuff with a vague Paris connection. They virtually admit this themselves: "All of the artists presented in 'Airs de Paris' have either lived, worked or created specific projects in the city" but at the same time "Paris has been chosen as the context but it is an open context which brings together both the local and global." So if you've been to Paris and done something that could at a push be interpreted as vaguely urban, you're in!! That said, there was some stuff I liked: Alain Bublex's doctored photos of the Paris ringroad (scroll down the link to see them), Albanian artist Anri Sala's pictures of "dogs that run after Formula One cars," Thomas Hirschhorn's "Outgrowth" installation, featuring 131 printed globes. But the exhibition itself is pretty flabby and, IMHO, not particularly well curated. Sorry. MUCH more enjoyable is the Annette Messager exhibition, also at the Pompidou Centre. It's not necessarily that I understood it any better (I long ago gave up trying to grasp anything but the most obvious symbolism in contemporary art), but it's just more FUN!! The piece I liked best was a room filled with body parts made from fabric that inflated and deflated randomly - there was something rather mesmerising about it. However, one problem I noticed with making a lot of installation art from fabric is that it starts to smell a bit weird after a while. There was one piece ("Anatomie en balance") that was really a bit whiffy and could have done with a good hoovering. Which is almost where I came in, isn't it? Anyway, I'd go and see that one if you get the chance. Rhino75, keepin' it real.