Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Pontificating Inside The Pomidou

October 20, 2010
Started out our day at the Pompidou, which is France's idea of extending the French legacy for art up to, and including, so-called Modern Art. The building, quite pompous in the extreme, with all of the exterior exuding heating ducts and exaggerated blow horns coming out of the sides and the ground. it is so over the top that you have to smile and say, "Only the French would do this."

And there-in is a riddle: Do the French dominate art because of their ridiculous commitment to the glorification of art by building a monstrosity like this, or do they dominate it because they are simply French? I don't know the answer to this but I have a sneaky suspicion that this riddle will not be solved by anyone from Kingman.

Just a wild guess but a man has to know his limitations.

Inside it's a mixed bag of pretentious crap and semi-pretentious worthy crap (a precious few artists actually betray a talent for drawing).

Which is not to say I hated the experience. I intend to go home and create a wll like Andre Breton's wall which is duplicated on a wall in the Pompidou. The bigger question has always been, what exactly in all of this high concept effort will be remembered 200 years from now? Or even 200 days from now? Not sure, but I think it's safe to say, many small-minded people said the same thing about the Impressionists and that makes us all pause.

After a Thai food lunch, saw a ton of art at the Carnavalet Museum, but that is another story.

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