Winter in Paris offers some fantastic photography and multimedia installations. There is a Sophie Calle retrospective at the Centre Pompidou which is not to be missed. Ms. Calle's exhibition begins with a narrative covering 92 days leading to the end of a relationship. Viewers lined up to "read" through what the artist describes as her most profound personal pain. Each photograph is unsentimentally stamped to mark that day and laid out like a calendar of regret. The exhibition spans over 20 years worth of photography and installations.
On the other end of the photographic spectrum is Lisa Roy's exhibition at g-module Gallery. This show explores interiors taken during a self imposed mission aboard American ocean liners. The result is a bizarre architectural world in which proportions are delirious and the lighting theatrically disorients any sense of time, place or scale. One untitled image of a purple bar with stools looks like a grand ball room or disco with huge mushroom chrome and plastic pillars. This is Roy's first show at g-module in Paris, she also shows at Debs and Co in Chelsea.
Claus Goedicke at the Thadeous Ropac gallery shows an austere collection of large scale photos depicting bottles devoid of commercial packaging. The press release makes a reference to the artist attempting occupy a visual midway between known adversaries; Warhol and Rothko, but the loving attention to line and form, and the smoky tonal quality of the images may also have some lineage to the paintings of Morandi.
Installations and photographs lovingly come together at the Centre Culturel Suisse's exhibition Mondial. Martin Hess on the mezzanine gallery has created a carnivale of alternating projected portraits, a series of large display cases chock full of bric-a-brac and one wall covered with a stunning grid of anonymous photographs owing some reference to Christian Boltanski. The effect is eclectic and curiously inviting.
Paris offers some excellent venues for contemporary art; more than I can
mention here. For additional information on contemporary art galleries and
museums in Paris check out these useful websites:
www.frenchculture.org
www.paris-art.com
www.culture.fr
Exhibition Information
Lisa Roy
20 October 2003 - 20 December 2003
g-module Gallery
15 rue Debelleyme 75003 Paris, France
www.g-module.com
Sophie Calle
19 November 2003 - March 15, 2003
Centre Pompidou
Place Georges Pompidou 75004 Paris, France
www.centrepompidou.fr
Claus Goedicke
Thing Nothing: 15 November 2003 - 10 January 2004
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac
7 Rue Debelleyme 75003 Paris, France
www.ropac.net
Mondial (Martin Hess, Daniel Affolter, et al)
9 November 2003 - 14 December 2003
Centre Culturel Suisse
32 et . 38 rue dex Francs-Bourgeois 75003 Paris, France
www.ccsparis.com
Review written for the Gay
City News, New York City, Volume 2, Issue 50 | December 11-17, 2003
Link
to the article on gaycitynews.com
Download this review in jpeg
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format.
Lisa Roy
Untitled, 2001
c-print, edition of 5
51 x 76 cm / 20 x 30 inches
Additional images from exhibitions mentioned in this review which were not reproduced in the printed publication are listed below.
Sophie Calle
Les Dormeurs, 1979
Claus Goedicke
X - 18, 2002
C-Print (Diasec)
164 x 130 cm / 64.57 x 51.18 inches
Claus Goedicke
XI - 18, 2003
C-Print (Diasec)
155 x 122 cm / 61.02 x 48.03 inches
(Mondial) Martin Hess, Photo Projection
(Mondial) Martin Hess, Photo Projection
(Mondial) Martin Hess, Photo
Installation
(Mondial) Martin Hess, Display
Case
(Mondial) Daniel Affolter, Installation