Vivian Maier
Maier Mania
Who hasn’t yet heard of Vivian Maier, nanny by profession, photographer by avocation? Her story is so unusual and her photographs so good that she never ceases to fascinate. Now the Musée de Luxembourg is holding what is apparently the … Read More
The Morozov Collection: Icons of Modern Art
Collecting Fever in Pre-Revolutionary Russia
The Fondation Louis Vuitton is presenting another blockbuster exhibition of a major Russian art collection, “The Morozov Collection: Icons of Modern Art,” following up on 2016-17’s showing of the amazing Shchukin Collection. The Morozov Collection, full of masterpieces by great … Read More
Georgia O’Keeffe
A Painter's Painter
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) is mega-famous in the United States for her flower paintings, almost to the point of oversaturation, but the current retrospective at Paris’s Centre Pompidou shows just how much more there was to the work of this versatile … Read More
Rrose C’est la Life: Agnès Thurnauer
Transgender Art
Many agreeable surprises are to be found in the French provinces, not the least of which are contemporary art spaces in the most unexpected places. One example is the Centre d’Art Contemporain at the Bouvet Ladubay winery in Saumur, which … Read More
Salgado Amazônia
Paradise Transformed
The first thing you see when you enter the darkened “Salgado Amazônia” exhibition space in the Musée de la Musique at the Philharmonie de Paris will knock your socks off: a large, grainy, high-contrast black-and-white print of heavy, roiling, black-edged … Read More
The Power of My Hands
Threading the Lines of Filiation
Speaking of women-only exhibitions (see last week’s review of “Women in Abstraction”), I recommend a visit to the show “The Power of My Hands” at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, which presents the work of 16 African women artists … Read More
Women in Abstraction
Women Apart: Spotlight or Ghetto?
Ideally, there would be no need for all-women exhibitions of art that make a special case for – and risk ghettoizing or condescending to – women artists; women would simply be included in sufficient numbers in all group shows and … Read More
Cherry Blossoms
Pretty Wrapping Paper
Damien Hirst may have set out to shock and dismay in his early days with works featuring dead animals preserved in formaldehyde and maggots feasting on cows’ heads, but today he seems to be taking exactly the opposite approach: seeking … Read More
Mémoires de Glace
Frozen Souvenirs
“This show is a call for help,” says Pierre-Yves Nicod, curator of the exhibition “Mémoires de Glace” at the Musée Départemental de Préhistoire d’Île-de-France in Nemours, France. The melting of glaciers caused by climate change has one positive side effect: … Read More
Eugène Atget: Voir Paris
Balzac of the Camera
I fell in love with Eugène Atget’s photos of Paris long before I ever set foot on French soil when a friend gave me a book of his pictures many years ago. I couldn’t get enough. While I have seen … Read More