blog d'europe: musée d'art moderne

i stumbled upon this great modern art gallery/museum in the 16th arrondissement today. it's next to the palais de tokyo, m^o alma-marceau.

it has galleries dedicated to henri matisse & raoul dufy, as well as an immense permanent collection of cubist, fauvist, abstract & dada works from the 20th century. the best thing? free, gratuit, gratis, gratuito!

except for the temporary exhibits of marc desgrandchamps & van dongen...although somehow i still managed to see these exhibitions without buying a ticket. new motto: just walk in without asking questions and they will be none the wiser.

my fav work was tucked into a small gallery downstairs, in a simple room that looks like a library with bookshelves covering all the wall's surfaces. it's not until you get closer to the books that you notice they're categorised alphabetically by country, and that the books are telephone directories from every country in the world. naturally i made a bee-line for australie, and i can't explain to you how bizarre it was to see melbourne's yellow pages l-z sitting there in front of me. the concept behind the installation by christian boltanski, is to question the nature of 'identity' and to reflect how small the world is - 'to have the whole world in one room'. the other strange aspect of this artwork, is that you can literally interact with it; pick up the heavy books and flick through the pages - no doubt to encourage viewers to find their own names in his installation... great concept, love!

i love finding little gems like this gallery. paris is full of them, you just have to keep your eyes open while wandering around and you never know what you might come across...

bon week-end à tous,