TAG, Force de l’Art + Cache at the Grand Palais.
Q. “You did all that in one afternoon.”
A. “Yes, it’s called by some wags, ‘Talbottizing’ an exhibit.”
Let’s dispose (so to speak) of the TAG show which is about tagging, ie graffiti. I knew Taki 183 and this is no Taki. Well, it is sort of, lacquered, sanitized, uniformly presented, and “art” rather than the urban visual pollution it was on the IRT in it’s heydays. Interesting, I supposed if you’ve lived in a convent since 1950. It closes soon.
The Force de l’Art show in the big part of the Big Palace has huge works by some 36 “artists.” It calls itself a triennale which I fear means that like the Whitney biennale, we’re stuck with repetitions of it for decades. I left after seeing 8 colored shopping sacs on the floor full of hot-air, since that seemed to sum the whole thing up. This too, mercifully, closes soon.
Philistine and masochist that I am, I then went to the show called “Une image peut en cacher une autre” which I think is a joking reference to the warning signs before French train crossings “Un train peut en cacher un autre.” It actually wasn’t half-bad, once you realized that Durer’s rocks weren’t really “hiding” things the same way as Daumier’s political caricatures - but that the curator was showing you the many ways that artists fiddle around with images. While Dali is the sort of anchor for this show and concept, the omission of some folk, like Magritte, was puzzling. I must say that I liked the modern stuff in the last room best, especially Markus Raetz’s metal letters that spell Ceci from the left and Cela in the mirror.
I’d say go – until July 6th.
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