Paris-Delhi-Bombay... at the Centre Pompidou

The exhibition, Paris-Dehli-Bombay, at the Centre George Pompidou in Paris , which closes on September 19, consists of a group show of Indian artists juxtaposed with French artists, who were invited by the Pompidou to travel to India, or failing that, as in the case of artist Stéphane Calais, to merely consider the idea of India.  The result was confused and sometimes irrelevant. 

Paris-Dehli-Bombay, which opened on May 25, is part of a new approach to art exhibitions at the Pompidou, in which group shows attempt to knit varied work by varied artists into a large philosophical concept.  The process is a dangerous one, necessitating serpentine and circuitous explanations, outlined lengthily next to the artworks and marginalizing other meanings their work might hold for either the artists themselves or for those viewers, who like to think for themselves.  The instinct towards pedagogy displayed in recent years by the Pompidou’s curators is becoming more laborious than ascending the four slow moving escalators to Paris-Dehli-Bombay in summer heat.  The exhibition of all female artists, elles@centrepompidou, which ran for almost two years (May 27, 2009 to February 21, 2011), was, according to Germaine Greer,  accompanied by “a storm of words.”  Greer noted dryly in her review of the show in The Guardian that “offering a sampler of the work of 200 women is to diminish the achievement of all of them.”

Wielding a similarly generalized, banal yet verbose approach, the curators of Traces du Sacré, (May 7 to August 11, 2008), presented an exhaustive survey of everything human beings have ever had to say about God, expressed through painting, sculpture, photography and installation. One can only imagine. Paris-Dehli-Bombay too is weakened by the expansive ambitions of its curators which, unfortunately, produced a shockingly reductive exhibition.

In Paris-Dehli-Bombay, pedagogy came hand in hand with old-fashioned (really old-fashioned) anthropology.  According to Harry Bellet and Philippe Dagen in the Guardian, comprehensive surveys of emerging contemporary art in India have already been done in France, starting in 2005, when the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris launched Indian Summer, followed in 2008 by the Lille 3000 show featuring Bombaysers of Lille and Indian Highway IV at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon this very summer.

Because India’s emerging artists are apparently now considered old news, the Pompidou’s curators attempted to frame the exhibition anthropologically.  The curators evidently hoped to neatly link the art to the society, the history and the politics, leaving viewers with an all-encompassing view of India, the art arranged around a circular enclosure recounting a socio-political history of India since the end of the British colonialism.  The display comes across as strikingly condescending and colors the work of the Indians artists dispersed around it. 

It would be unimaginable to introduce an exhibition on young French artists Jules de Balincourt and Cyprien Gaillard alongside photographs of Nicholas Sarkozy and the French flag, French people on vacation, or grocery shopping, colourful tableaus noting the changing status of French women, summaries of various political news such as the ongoing veil controversy, the passing of hard right-winger Jean-Marie Le Pen to the second round of the national elections in 2001 and the recent success of his daughter, car burning in the suburbs and the collapse of Société Générale this past August.  The anthropological perspective of Paris-Dehli-Bombay is not only out of place in an art institution, but frankly insulting.

The power of certain pieces by Indian artists were memorable and managed to overcome the general banality enveloping them, namely Dayanita Singh’s, “House of love” (2010), haunting photographs depicting a society caught between industrialization and old traditions, between the loneliness of a big modern city and the insularity of an ancient heritage. Riyas Komu, “Beyond Gods” (2011) is a massive sculpture in recycled wood and bronze depicting football players linked together, as if in a giant game of foosball.  Anita Dube’s “Blood Wedding” (1997), consisting of human bones covered in red velvet was especially expressive, chilling and even, in a sinister sort of way, beautiful.

Sunil Gawde’s work, “Virtually Untouchable” (2007), two garlands evoke the honours bestowed upon political figures in India.  Gawde’s garlands are composed of red powder-coated razor blades, hinting not only at the political assassinations and civil war which tainting India’s history, but also at the violence underlying the society especially at its impoverished outskirts where bride burning is still practiced and the ancient caste system is still responsible for much of the civil inequality.  The title of the work, one of the only works on exhibition which refer to India’s caste system, serves as a reminder that political dissent, strife and violence and inequality simmer beneath the cheerful colors and gaudy splendour that Westerners associate with India.

Unfortunately, the most striking works by Indian artists, many of which presented witty and pointed social critiques, seemed watered down and even, in the case of Loris Gréaud’s “The Bragdon Pavilion,” overshadowed by their French counterparts, whose work I found less interesting.  Ms. Géraud’s link to India was fragile at best, although the technical dexterity of her work effectively dominated the space with its flashing graphics and techno throb. Leandro Erlich’s “Le Regard” (2011) featured a typically Parisian room with wrought iron balconies, decorated by Parisian celebrity decorator Jacques Grange, looking onto a typically dusty, crowded and sunny Bombay street, thus effectively reducing both cultures to their respective stereotypes and leaving the viewers preconceptions unchallenged.  Pierre and Gilles, both French artists who live in France, coated an alcove with around twenty hyper colored posters evoking garish Bollywood imagery encapsulating “India” for even the densest, most uninformed viewer.

The big problem with Paris-Dehli-Bombay is neatly expressed by Stéphane Calais’ Inde au noir (2008-2011).  Calais’s abstracted black scribbles on blocks of paper nailed to the walls took up a sizeable alcove of the exhibition. “Je ne suis pas allé en Inde,” Calais declares by way of explanation on a small placard posted on the wall and translated into English, “Ils me l’a proposé. Je ne voulais pas être pris dans mes propres sentiments touristiques sous l’œil narquois de mes prétentions artistiques,” he explains loftily.  How did Calais spend his time then?  “Je suis resté à Paris, un peu en Bretagne, puis à Bruxelles,” explains Calais, producing the most oft-recited sentence in Paris, usually produced in a polite monotone in response to friendly inquiries following the summer vacation season.  His casual tone seems almost audacious in its arrogance.

            According to Alain Seban, president of the Centre Pompidou, the exhibition aimed to “situer la scène français dans le flux des échanges” while at the same time taking into account the globalization of the art world and phenomenon of “scenes émergeantes.”  Perhaps the next time Stéphane Calais heads down to Marseilles or Nice for a weekend, he could deign to jot down some thoughts about China for our enlightenment and they can put it in the Louvre. 

The abiding feeling that the viewer gets after trying to see the work of India’s young generation of artists through the narrow and clouded lens of the Pompidou is, sadly, that sometimes the easiest thing is just to stay home. 

Orientalism at the Quai Branly, until May 15, 2011

Eulogy for John Galliano: Portrait of the Artist as a human being

Those of us who loved John Galliano’s work, and who have watched his meteoric rise to the vanguard of Parisian haute couture over the past fifteen years, are still reeling from his dismissal two weeks ago.  

Coming hot on the heels of Jean-Paul Guerlain’s neo-colonialist croakings about “working like a négre,” which resulted in calls for an international boycott of Guerlain and LMVH products, the ominous rise of Marine Le Pen, and both Angela Merkel’s and Nicholas Sarkozy’s gloomy predictions about the “failure” of multiculturism, John Galliano could hardly have picked a worst moment to let it all hang out.

For the past three weeks, the glare of the media lights has fallen on the House of Dior’s own shadowy Occupation past, which, like that of Coco Chanel and Louis Vuitton, included collaboration with the Nazi occupiers and sympathizers, in Christian Dior’s case, making gowns for the wives of high ranking Nazis.  A video from the 1960s, in which Dior’s niece expounds on the virtues of Hitler has even surfaced. Indeed, the furor around Galliano’s drunken tirade shows that France is still dogged by ghosts of the Occupation.

It is quite obvious that in an era of omnipresent internet exposure and faced with the condemnation and veiled threat of the newly crowned Miss Dior, Oscar-winning, Harvard-educated actress Natalie Portman, exalted by pregnancy to new and dizzying heights of wholesomeness, Dior’s Chief Executive, Sidney Toledano, and LMVH’s Bernard Arnault had no choice but to separate the fashion house and its name from Galliano’s new sleazy, scary psychopath act.  For LMVH, still recovering from the damage control necessitated by old Monsieur Guerlain, Galliano and his racist baggage was just too hot to handle.

However, unhelpful hysteria has engulfed the fashion world. According to Rhonda Garelick in The New York Times, “the Galliano episode invites consideration of the curious relationship between French fashion and fascism.”  Last week, The Guardian reported that “Jewish people in the French capital live in the shadow of hatred.”  

Last week, The Guardian’s fashion columnist, Hadley Freeman, issued a ringing implacable condemnation of people who wear Dior, notably actress Nicole Kidman, who wore a black Galliano creation to the Oscars this year, entitled “No, it’s not acceptable to wear Dior!”

The point Freeman seeks to make is less “obvious” than she would like to think.  Anticipating opposition from those who believe artists are judged on their work and not by their characters, she  draws a hazy, awkward comparison between Galliano’s drunken tirade and the vicious anti-Semitism in the work of poet T.S. Eliot.  It’s fine to read “The Wasteland,” Freeman assured us.  It is not fine to wear Galliano.  T.S. Eliot has his place in the hallowed hall of great twentieth century writers, and we all know it’s on every high school student’s syllabus, but it’s certainly in terrible taste for Kidman to wear a Galliano dress to the Oscars and she ought to be ashamed of herself. 

 “While anti-Semitism is always abhorrent,” Freeman concedes lamely, “Eliot did live in a different era and some adjustment of expectations must be made.” T.S. Eliot, certainly, lived and wrote in exactly the era of rampant, widely accepted, drawing room anti-Semitism between the world wars, which painted Jews as scapegoats and rendered their isolation, and their eventual dehumanization, respectable. 

Galliano’s late night raving, on the other hand, is not only universally distasteful and unseemly, but widely viewed as strange, self-destructive, and sad.

Freeman muddles on vaguely with her "second reason” for reading T.S. Eliot and not wearing Dior. “Eliot, to my knowledge, never said all Jews should be gassed.”  Is one kind of anti-Semitism better than another? Is it somehow more palatable to say that you don’t like the way Jews smell, as Virginia Woolf did, than to say, not beating around the bush if you will, that they should be gassed?  Or is the first kind actually more insidiously dangerous, with its veneer of respectability?  In the light of today’s scandal, as the establishment shrinks with horror from John Galliano and he slinks off to rehab, I’d say race hate in T.S. Eliot’s time, unfettered by societal censor, and paving as it did the path to the gas chambers with the approbation of the establishment, was more poisonous.  

But does Eliot’s anti-Semitic undertones make him less of a poet? No.  Why should Galliano’s make him less of a designer?

While we may and certainly should, as moral human beings, condemn John Galliano’s drunken race hate, slurred in the early hours in the Paris’ posh Marais district, we are not also obliged to condemn his creations as well, and as such, it is perfectly understandable why Nicole Kidman’s wearing one should not be equated with approbation for Galliano’s opinions. 

The timing of Kidman’s choice may have been off, but it does not reflect her sympathy with Galliano’s assertion that all Jews should be gassed, any more than someone who reads T.S. Eliot, or indeed some other great writers of the twentieth centuries, including Virginia Woolf, Louis-Ferdinand Celine and Ezra Pound, can be considered an anti-Semitic sympathizer.   Do the Nazi dalliances in the 1930s (talk about timing!) of the late Philip Johnson, founder of the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York or the dubious far right wing political leanings of Le Corbusier, arguably the most influential architect of the twentieth century, render their work less impressive or their artistic legacy less enduring? 

John Galliano’s all too human failings cost him his job.  He remains the finest couturier of his generation and the power of his creations still stand.  In the years to come, we cannot be surprised to see Galliano’s work spotlighted in permanent collections in museums and in breathtaking temporary exhibitions, which will be but mere shadows of his dazzling Dior shows. The essays in the exhibition catalogues will surely celebrate his work, while acknowledging the frailty, imperfection and self-destructiveness of the man.

Let’s leave the moral philosophizing to others (Heidegger and Arendt anyone?) and stick to fashion.  

Peacock feathers and underarm hair

The key to style is the unexpected.  This was a tip conveyed to me offhandedly by a college friend, whom i shall call, B.  "Someone has to wear things that make you think, 'Well I never!' and that," B. said matter-of-factly, "is good style!"  B. for example, was an expert in this field, and I, a child of the suburban midwest, spirit broken by years of shopping malls, had much to learn.  

I can still see her leaning her red head back against the railing of our porch and when she lifted her arm, I noticed how nicely her red underarm hair complemented her peacock feather earrings.  Underarm hair as a fashion accessory.  

In spring of 2003, as we were graduating and preparing to launch ourselves into the real world, there was a red and white velour romper from H n'M, worn for days in a row, proof indeed that H n'M is often ahead of its time.  B. was rocking the romper in 2003.  Now, after two summers of rompers, they are just beginning to wane. (And oh the number of people who can pull of a ROMPER, is, to be generous, 2 in 10? Maybe?)

I remember waiting around in thrift stores while she tried on and purchased items which were downright ugly. And she knew they were and because she was so beautiful, with the kind of alabaster skin and red ringlets and effortlessly slim (and I do mean "effortlessly"), she played, as beautiful people can do, a kind of double dare with the beholder.  It looks great doesn't it? said her tapered pants and large glasses, long before the Sartorialist was photographing big glasses and tapered pants.  And you to admit it did.

The key of course is that you have to be very pretty in a conventional way achieve the irony that is essential in good style.   Style isn't any more democratic than beauty.

Someone less likely to work in fashion than B., I cannot imagine.  But I can't think of anyone who had better style.

Some thoughts about FASHION, Andrej Pejic, Fashion Week and other things

Jean Paul Gaultier shows Andrej Pejic the love - Telegraph

This fall 2011, as the media forces my attention on yet another Fashion Week, the highlight for me is that a man, Andrej Pejic (shown), is modeling as a woman. Not a fact of striking interest in itself (although many editorialists are trying to frame it in such a way as to show the liberated, openminded mentality of the fashion industry), but it seems to affirm what I have always suspected: that designers really would like women to look like young boys.  We've been dancing around the issue for years and now it's done.

After all the inflammatory reports about anorexia among fashion models and halfhearted attempts to impose minimum weight limits, snarky comments by Karl Lagerfeld about "fat mummies" and brave ripostes by editorialists, designers have finally settled on the smoothest, cleanest way to eliminate those pesky hips and breasts:  let's use boys.

Everyone has a blog these days.  Until now I have avoided doing so because I keep my secret garden secret.  

The entries will be carefully edited, and while being as frank and honest as possible, I am challenging myself to also be discreet.

about the blog...

Paris, juin 2010

The title of the long-awaited blog, which is supposed to both rescue my moribund career and resuscitate my sense of myself a writer, is actually inspired by an excerpt from an Adrienne Rich poem, "Song," in which the poet describes herself as a

"rowboat ice-fast on the shore

in the last red light of the year

that knows what it is, that knows it’s neither

ice nor mud nor winter light

but wood, with a gift for burning.”

Of course, the poem starts with Rich's own loneliness and sense of isolation, and I used to identify with the Rich's rowboat,  but this is no longer true as I am in love, in my "année de coton" (first year of marriage) and living with in Paris, and I love him.