“Arte Povera” at the Bourse des Commerces and “Surrealism” at the Center Pompidou
Image credits: ©Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier/Photo Nicolas Brasseur/Pinault Collection
Based on scale, the two largest exhibitions in Paris are two surveys centered on historical avant-garde art. These exhibitions include an unusual curatorial style. The former, centered on Italy’s Arte Povera movement of the 1960s, features more than a dozen works installed in the center of the rotunda of the Bourse de Commerce, where viewers can explore these works, all by different artists. It will be a tour. This gesture is dissonant in the best sense, demonstrating the diversity of these artists’ approaches while also proving that all members of Arte Povera share an aesthetic affinity.
The rest of the exhibition, curated by Carolyn Kristoff-Bakargiev, is divided by artist. If you look at each artist individually, you don’t really understand how the whole movement came together, and you don’t exactly get a fresh discussion of Arte Povera more generally. Still, this show proves that Arte Povera’s artists worked in many different ways. You can’t accuse this show of flattening the movement, as many dealers do when they bring related works to art fairs.
Arte Povera’s show is full of light and precise. Meanwhile, Pompidou’s Surrealist exhibition draws you into darkness and into the maze of shows that follow. There is a polite introduction on the wall, which states: Between these walls, nature ‘devours progress’, night blends with day, dreams blend with reality. ”Okay, then.
This surrealist exploration is huge, with around 500 works in its collection. Some editing is required. I could avoid writing a too long section about how Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland influenced the Surrealists. A couple of examples will get the point across. The work of Andre Masson, the leading Surrealist, is plentiful, but the quality of his art varies. By the way, why are there so many Picassos? One is enough.
Several recent high-profile exhibitions, including the 2022 Venice Biennale, have significantly expanded the canon of Surrealism and highlighted the fact that it is not just limited to Paris-based white male artists. I emphasized. Although some of the newly canonized Surrealists are here, the show still lacks many artists of color.
Anyway, there are a lot of great works here. Marcel Jean’s Armoir surrealiste (1947) made a short but important journey from the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. It consists of four panels, each showing a wooden door of different sizes slightly ajar, hinting at the lush, hilly beach landscape behind it. I’m doing it. This is the hidden masterpiece of this movement. Earlier in the show is the equally astonishing Decalcomania (1936), in which a face emerges from a semi-abstract band of black paint.
Rene Magritte’s painting The Personnel of Valeur (1952) depicts larger-than-life objects. Pink matches with yellow tips, an emerald wine glass, a pink bar of soap, a shaving brush, and a much smaller comb on the bed. —In a room with cloudy blue sky wallpaper. Dorothea Tanning’s installation Chambre 202, Hôtel du Pavo (1970), in which stuffed animal bodies burst through the wallpaper of an apartment-like space, remains impressive nearly 55 years later. . I wish lesser-known surrealist artists were more represented here, like Wilhelm Freddie, Oscar Dominguez, Toyen, Isel Colquhoun, Jorge Camacho, Kay Sage, and Jane Graverol. I am.
This show will take you over 2 hours to finish. Hint: It might be worth flipping Pompidou’s logic and starting at the end of the show, which is full of real gems.
