made a beeline for the pompidou centre today. it's in the beaubourg area/4th arrondissment, almost right next to les halles - paris' massive underground-ish shopping area.
the huge art gallery/modern art museum/arts college was built in the 70s and named after then president georges pompidou. it's focus is on modern art - so everything post 1860-ish. the building ruffled a few feathers when it was first opened because it was considered 'ugly', especially within the beautiful (old) quartier de beaubourg. this was because all of the electrical wiring, plumbing, escalators, etc. were placed on the exterior of the building, rather than hiding them within the walls/interior. buuuuut, i think people have warmed to it, and these days it's instantly recognisable with its bold & bright green, red, blue and yellow pipes. i like it, anyway.
right in front of the gallery is place de georges pompidou, where you almost always find a street performer or two (there always seems to be two old men who make models out of matches...). just next to that there's la fontaine stravinsky, dedicated to the composer igor stravinsky. there's little café's lining the edge of the fountain - i made myself comfortable here in the sunshine (together with an ice-cold orange juice) and finished up some homework for my language course.
i managed to while away 6 hours inside the centre pompidou. there were just so many different works to see (some of which were more interesting than others), and having studied a good hunk of them at school i really enjoyed seeing the real things, right in front of me. i managed to get into the gallery for free (somehow convinced the ticket-man that i was an eu citizen), so i made the most of it - visiting everything that was open to the public. being the cool gal that i am, i even got an audio guide to lug around with me.
pop art, op art, minimalism, abstraction, arte povera, fauvism, dada, cubism - what doesn't this place have?!? some of my favs were yves klein's works in his trademark monochrome blue ('yves klein blue'), christo's 'package on a table' & chuck close's mosaïc-ed 'arne'. love this gallery - yes, even after 6 hours wandering around it's exhibitions...
à bientôt,
S.
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| place du berger |
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| stravinsky fountain... with no water |
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| sasa, anatsui |
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| bottlecap & scrap metal cloak - sasa, anatsui detail |
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| ten lizes, warhol |
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| ten lizes, warhol detail |
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| ten lizes, warhol detail |
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| arne, close |
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| arne, close detail |
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| tabula, hantaï |
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| le jardin d'hiver, debuffet |
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| opalka 1965/1 - ∞, opalka |
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| opalka 1965/1 - ∞, opalka detail |
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| aménagement de l'antichambre des appartements privés du palais de l'elysée pour le président georges pompidou, agam |
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| aménagement de l'antichambre des appartements privés du palais de l'elysée pour le président georges pompidou, agam |
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| red sock in yellow box, filliou |
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| red sock in yellow box, filliou |
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| dresseur d'animaux, picabia |
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| sans titre, zaugg |
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| bouloum, mourgue |
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| untitled, guyten/walker |
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| untitled, guyten/walker |
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| untitled (last night), gonzalez-torres |
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| sans titre, wörsel |
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| "shut the fuck up", general idea |
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| monochrome bleu, yves klein |
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| plaster surrogates, mccollum |
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| deux négresses, matisse |
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| le luxe I, matisse |
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| atelier de la modiste, picasso |
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| fontaine, duchamp |
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| dancer/danger, duchamp |
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| le jardin de la france, ernst |
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| miaudulation de fritance, arman |
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| miaudulation de fritance, arman detail |
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| portrait de la journaliste sylvia von harden, otto dix |
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| package on a table, christo |
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| package on a table, christo detail |
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| réinstallation II, morellet |
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| untitled (black, red over black on red), rothko |
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| nu aux bras levés, rouault |
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| my way, temporary othoniel exhibition |
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| othoniel exhibition |
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| le grand noeud autoporté, othoniel |
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| appropriated girl with a pearl earring |
