Johnny was a famous local singer who sang
Levenslieve, a Dutch variety of the French chanson. Then we just ambled about.
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Giampaolo Amoruso |
The
Amsterdam Light Festival:
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Arborescence by Loop.ph |
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Mirrorings by Jacques Rival |
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Water Fun by Angus Muir, New Zealand |
The next day we went just outside the southern city limits to
Amstelveen to see the
Asger Jorn (100th birthday) exhibition at the
CoBrA Museum.
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All Karel Appel |
I have mentioned this group (Co for Copenhagen, Br for Brussels, and A for Amsterdam) in previous posts. The CoBrAs (1948-51) were a rowdy group. No rules for them, but they were also reacting to the horrors of WW2 and in doing so reverted to their child-like innocence which is evident in the art of several of the artists. Jorn. What can I say? His art has so much expression. Not always intense, but most of the time.
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Carne du tendre by Asger Jorn, 1969 |
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Melmoth II by Asger Jorn, 1955 |
There was a nice selection of
Karel Appel,
Egil Jacobsen,
Constant,
Corneille, and other CoBrA founders.
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Nocturnal Feast by Corneille, 1950 |
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Fauna by Constant, 1949 |
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Rite Sterrenson en schip by Carl-Henning Pedersen, 1951 |
Among the CoBrAs we found an
Ossip Zadkine.
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Kneeling Nude by Ossip Zadkine, 1920 |
The first of more to come.
From there we walked though Amsteelven and found the
Museum Jan van der Togt. An unprepossessing entrance led to large galleries inside. Much of the art was glass by many artists.
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Passion Assortment by Peter Anton, 2014 |
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by Menno Jonker, 2007 |
But there was also a variety of other pieces, including several by the museum director (Jan Verschoor), who had an adjoining apartment. So adjoining that we could see sculptures inside his space on the other side of the courtyard.
In the courtyard were small sculptures, especially kinetic. We found many more kinetic pieces on the roof, visible from the second floor galleries.
And another Zadkine.
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Three Graces by Ossip Zadkine |
We took the No. 5 tram back into town and went to the
Stedelijk Museum. This is the museum of modern and contemporary art, which was closed for restoration on previous visits. We could see why. They have constructed an enormous building enveloping the old one.
There were rooms filled with art we liked, and a couple of exhibits we didn’t care for.
One of the latter was the
Marlene Dumas (disturbing).
Another was called
Bad Thoughts. And it pretty much was, except they did have this
Keith Haring.
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Untitled by Keith Haring and La Rock, 1987 |
CoBrA was well represented (their first show there was in 1951), with its own room. For the 1953 show,
Karel Appel painted on one wall and also did one entire foyer (including the ceiling). The people were outraged.
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Barricade by Constant, 1949 |
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Orange Object II by Egill Jacobsen, 1943 |
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Man and Animals by Karel Appel, 1949 |
There were lots of
Marcel Duchamp, a couple of
Claes Oldenburgs, some
Calders, and even a
Sol LeWitt (somebody must have thought he was French).
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Large Torso by Hans (Jan) Arp, 1957 |
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Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers by Marc Chagall, 1912-13 |
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Clown's Paint by Jean Dubuffet, 1956 |
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Wall Drawing #1084 by Sol LeWitt, 2003 specifically for this gallery |
There were several
Mondrians, and a sprinkling of other modern artists including, an
Ossip Zadkine.
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The Deer by Ossip Zadkine, 1923 |
The family of Van Gogh donated this painting to the museum in appreciation for the Stedelijk sheltering the collection during the war.
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Augustine Roulen (La Berceuse) by Van Gogh, 1889 |
Before taking the train to Paris the next day, we had one more mission. It appears that someone has placed a series of mysterious sculptures around the city beginning in 1989, but no one knows who did it. Some speculate that it is Queen Beatrix, who is a sculptor and certainly has the connections to have them installed without anyone knowing.
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Queen Beatrix |
We got a one-hour tram ticket and headed off to find as many as we could.
Began back in the Jordaan, which we only grazed the edge of the other night. This is a real residential neighborhood. Still with canals and tons of charm, but not for tourists. We walked along small canals where some houses backed up to little gardens and a space for their boat.
We found the next piece on the side of a building:
The Accordion Man.
Back on another tram, we found the next piece up in a tree across from the Marriott.
A long walk to the opera house.
It was fun walking around Amsterdam on a sunny day. Not sure we’ve ever done that before.
The next sculptures were in the Red Light District. If it is the Queen doing this, she sure has a sense of humor.
The train to Paris was a bullet train and was packed. And late, but we had little difficulty getting from the Gare du Nord via M
étro to our apartment in the 20th arrondissement.
It was the Saturday before Christmas, so decided to avoid museums and began our Parisian adventure outside the city.
Looming in the distance off to the northwest of the center, like the Emerald City, is
La Defense. A modern skyline of an office park city. There we found la
Musée a Ciel Ouvert, open sky museum.
The Great Arch overlooks the grand plaza, which now featured the biggest Christmas market in Paris. It lines up, in the distance, with the Arc de Triomphe.
We obtained a couple of maps indicating the public art (sculptures and murals), but even so, did not find everything. And found a few that weren’t on the maps. From well-known sculptors like:
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The Red Spider by Alexander Calder, 1976 |
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The Figures by Joan Miro, 1976 |
To a variety of figurative and abstract pieces; large and small.
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Le Pouce by Cesar, 1994 |
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Doubles Lignes Indeterminees by Venet, 1988 |
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Takis Garden - East by Takis, 1990 |
There was supposed to be something made of Swarovski crystals, but did not locate it in the shopping mall, where a few pieces of public art were to be found.
Stopped at the Christmas market for a glass of vin chaud and a hearty bowl of soup with a piece of baguette. Then off to find more Art.
CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE.
The next day we found racing at the
Hippodrome Vincennes on the east side of town.
Though its roots go to 1863, and rebuilt in 1879 after being destroyed during the Franco-Prussian War, it is now a modern facility. Not the kind we like very much. But it was Christmas, and so family day with races featuring young riders:
Plus Santa and lots for kids to do. Even if it was cold.
In the south of Paris (14th arr.) is the
Montparnasse Cemetery, second only in size to
Pere Lachaise, but every bit its equal in terms of sculpture and decorations
Though we searched, we could not find the grave of
Chaim Soutine, but were more successful with others.
There was the grave of Tatiana Rachewskaia, a Russian anarchist youth who commit suicide in 1910 after an unhappy love affair. Her parents commissioned
Constantin Brâncuşi to carve her headstone, and he was moved to create this statue of two lovers,
The Kiss:
Brâncuşi himself didn’t get such a lovely grave.
There were several other sculptors buried there, including
Ossip Zadkine. He too, did not get a marker of any note. The lettering on the stone has all but worn away.
Some of the less well-known sculptors have their work adorning their graves.
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Leopold Kretz, sculptor |
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Il fait son choix d'anchois et dîne d'une sardine. - Berdal |
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Gerard Barthelemy |
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Andre Almo del Debbio, sculptor |
Niki de Saint-Phalle, whose work we will see again, did two sculptures there for friends:
There were lots of Jewish graves (all with piles of rocks). But there were also Asians, Iranians, and even a president of Mexico. Lots of writers, philosophers (Bordelaire, Sartre), painters (Soutine, Latour), sculptors (Zadkine, Henri Laurens, Houdon, Brancusi), and entertainers of all kinds. There were cartoonists, printers, musicians (Saint-Sa
ëns, Rampal, Franck) as well as generals and political figures (Dreyfus).
We didn’t look for the famous like Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir (same grave), Charles Baudelaire, Guy de Maupassant, Samuel Beckett, Susan Sontag, and Jean Seberg, but found someone we hadn’t heard of. Serge Gainsbourg, a disciple of Baudelaire, wrote “Lilac Poinconneur,” which others obviously had read:
We did find the grave of
Man Ray and his wife
Juliett:
CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE.
Then outside the cemetery walls, we found this sculpture by Zadkine:
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La Naissance des Formes by Ossip Zadkine, 1958 |
And nearby was this piece by
Rodin, located in the Place Picasso, as he had an apartment nearby:
While in Montparnasse, we also visited a few of the former hangouts of the artists,
La Rondelle and
Le Dome, which are now bustling bistros, where everyone paid their bills with euros instead of drawings and paintings, as in the past.
Le Dome is where American artist
Fred Dana Marsh (
click here to learn more) lived from 1896 to 1900 with his wife Alice; where they had three boys, before returning to the US (but not before placing a painting in the 1898 Salon).
Down this lovely alleyway, we found the tiny
Musée du Montparnasse.
Not too much of interest here, but these “saints” by
Coco Fronsac were fun.
Just a short walk to the
Luxembourg Gardens neighborhood where we found the
Musée de Antoine Bourdelle was closed for restoration. But now that I knew the name, we found his works all over town.
Just a few more steps to the
Musée Ossip Zadkine. He settled in Paris in 1909, and this was where he lived and worked (while in Paris) until his death.
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Girouette by Ossip Zadkine, 1965 |
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La Foret Humaine by Ossip Zadkine, 1957-58 |
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Project pour le monument aux freres van gogh by Ossip Zadkine, 1963 |
CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE.
We began the day at the
Pompidou Centre. Adjoining the Centre was the
Igor Stravinsky Fountain, created in 1983 featuring the work of
Niki de Saint-Phalle and her husband,
Jean Tinguely. Sixteen sculptures inspired by Stravinsky’s
The Rite of Spring, and other of his works.
"Niki de Saint-Phallle was very beautiful, Madame Claude Pompidou was very dignified, the fountain is droll and gay, and the children laughed, it was a beautiful opening."
(Le Matin, March 17, 1983).
And other artistic offerings:
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Horizontal by Alexander Calder, 1974 |
Inside the Pompidou, we began with an exhibit on the work of
Frank Gehry. We were surprised by how many wild projects he has done around the world for public and private projects. Apparently the Bilbao museum skyrocketed his long career.
There was a one-room installation piece done by
Latifa Echakhch who was the 2013 winner of the Prix Marcel Duchamp. Suspended clouds and behind each cloud were various items. It is called
L’Air du Temps.
Then, on the other side of the building, there was an exhibit of
Marcel Duchamp.
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Nu descendant un escalier, no 2 by Marcel Duchamp, 1912 |
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Roue de bicyclette by Marcel Duchamp, 1913 |
This included lots of work by brother
Jacques Villon and youngest brother
Raymond Duchamp-Villon. And many more by associates and others, such as
Kandinsky,
Brancusi,
Braque,
Man Ray,
Francis Picabia,
Georgio De Chirico, and
Robert Delaunay.
Even a
Cranach.
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Venus by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1532 |
CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE.
And an exhibit of work by
Jeff Koons that featured his mylar balloon animals,
some strangely realistic sculptures,
and a display of pornographic images starring himself and his wife, the famous porn star (and politician)
Cicciolina (Ilona Staller). I’ll omit those, but this seems ok:
On the 4th & 5th floors is the Modern Art Museum portion of the Centre. However, while the 5th is mostly Modern, the 4th is mostly Contemporary.
There was an “American” room which featured one pic by
Georgia O’Keefe, but the rest were by artists whom I had never heard of before. And not very good really. The work of
Lyonel Feininger was especially confusing. Was he a naïve artist?
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Liebespaar by Lyonel Feininger, 1916 |