3 Good Things to See
So I usually go to Palais de Tokyo more to drink Japanese beer and people watch at the vernissages than to actually admire new work. While I have enjoyed a few of the former exhibitions (Michel Blazy. Michel Blazy. Michel Blazy…), most of the time I leave the shows slightly disappointed (“Who decided that thing deserves anyone’s attention?!?).
Fortunately, the current selection has a few standouts. Franziska Furter’s Squall Lines are impressive, intricate fibrous miniature sculptures installed against clean white walls (the organic forms seem to be created entirely out of crochet knots). Her other, larger, installation of broken glass under carpet was both subtle (you didn’t know at first why the floor creaked and cracked underfoot), participatory (I jumped from side to side as if I had bubble wrap underfoot), and poetic (ahh, the metaphors… the glass ceiling, museums as glass houses…). While most of Raphael Zarka’s work was completely overblown, his sculpture, La Draisine, was both completely absurd (a “vehicle” built from two vintage motorcycles attached to each other, facing opposite directions) and impressive in scale and whimsy. Finally, Serge Spitzer’s huge tubular installation provided a captivating physical metaphor for the movement of information within a network of gates and passageways. The shows are up until early May 2010.