blog d'europe: museum

Monday, August 22, 2011

musée d'orsay

a museum/gallery housed in the old gare d'orsay, the old beaux-arts railway station. the station was put into disuse in the 70s before being transformed into the musée d'orsay a few years later. the original glass ceilings & walled arches are still the original, however its train-tracks & platforms have been removed & replaced by little galleries - to house some of france's most celebrated impressionist & post-impressionist artworks.

the musée d'orsay has a crazy number of monet, cézanne & renoir pieces - it was such a surreal feeling (as it always is) to see the real originals before my eyes. ahh! normally there are van gogh works on display, but the gallery was being renovated at the time, so i didn't get to see them. having visisted the van gogh gallery in amsterdam however, i wasn't too devo.

annoyingly, the museum has that irritating 'no photos' rule all throughout the gallery. i managed to snap a few sneaky shots, to capture the beauty of the architecture...but in front of the artworks, if the museum workers even see a camera they chivvy you on your way.

i'd been meaning to get here for months, and (unfortunately) eventually came during peak summer: hundred's of people lining up to get in. i went to the nearest tabac (our equivalent of a milk shop) and managed to buy a ticket there instead, and got to enter through the side door of the museum straight away. saved myself a good two hours of lines - life is sweet!

a quote written down in miniscule writing next to one of monet's pieces has stayed with me: "everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand it, as if it were necessary to understand - when it is simply necessary to love".

à toute,

S.

the exterior of the museum - the original railway station

the original, ornate clock from the railway station is still there in the museum

Saturday, June 25, 2011

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,