21 September 2008

thank yous good and bad

For inspiration, it’s hard to beat a solid conversation with a fellow Idealist… Carlos Cardenas (of CardenasBellanger) kindly spared an hour of his Saturday to sit and talk to me about Paris and Contemporary Art, and to give me ideas of things to do and see while I’m here. I’m starting to get a better sense of the city, but no sense of the Art Scene yet, despite my diligence in going to openings…

I asked Carlos a bit about the “house style” of Paris, since I’m told there’s a long-standing tradition in Paris of Conceptual work by artists like Sophie Calle and Loris Gréaud. Although I’ve already seen plenty of work similar to what I see in New York, it’s hard to get a handle on what’s really going on here. More than one person has said there’s a resistance to new things (but “new” since when…?) When Carlos first opened his gallery (I think five years ago, maybe) he was told, “You’re different… You just don’t get it.”

I would have guessed that the Western Contemporary Art World was pretty homogenous, at least between New York and the main European Art Capitals, but I’d have been wrong. I’ve certainly picked up some clues to that by now – not only in coming across artists like Kounnellis or Broodthaers whom I never see in Museums at home, but also in that scent of History suffusing my walks around town. I mean, of course it’s different… Apparently Yves Klein and Marcel Duchamp still hold some real sway over Contemporary Artists over here, where in America so much still falls back on Warhol. The difference may just be irony, as Carlos suggested to me. Irony is not really done here, but that’s our own House Style in New York…

There was a great story about a German artist Carlos had shown, who was covering walls with offset-printed sheets of Full Black – the most CMYK you could get printed. For the artist, it was part of a grand conceptual leap in his work, where I think Carlos was responding in part to the simple physicality of the works, how they’d reflect the room and raise every detail of the surface of the wall (a “history of the gallery walls,” as he put it.) Of course, he also laughed and thought of Spinal Tap, but the poor artist didn’t get the reference, nor appreciated the joke… Now see, in New York, you can have it both ways. You can call that piece None More Black, even, and get all your nice Pop references and a healthy “Heh” over your PBR, while still having a conceptual leap about, um, Nothingness and Walls or what have you. (Thank you, Andy...)

In the end, I think Carlos and I probably have some slightly different tastes in art, but I really appreciate his love of materials, as seen in the artists he shows and other artists he likes. He suggested a bunch of people to look at (only some of which I knew of), and gave me all sorts of places to check out, many just outside Paris (the kind I’d never find on my own.) He even offered to help me get into FIAC, the Art Fair here in October. (Yes, my timing is excellent, what with FIAC and Paris Photo... though I admit I chose these months for the Fall Weather.) Anyway, thanks so much, Carlos. I can’t get completely stuck in the 18th and 19th Centuries here…