I arrived late Wednesday night and made my way to my friend's apartment in the 19th arrondisement, where I was soon happily passed out. The next day I met my friend for lunch after her morning classes and then we headed to the Pompidou, one of my fav museums in Paris (it's a toss-up between the Pompidou and the d'Orsay) for their Pierre Soulages retrospective. I had never heard of Soulages but apparently everyone at Annabelle's school was buzzing about the show. Believe the hype! It was great. The bulk of it consisted of his 3D all-black canvases with paint so thick it creates texture and shape. They reflect the light in amazing ways. He calls it "outrenoir"--"beyond black."
"One day when I was painting the black took over the canvas. And in this extreme I saw, in a way, the negation of black, the different textures reflecting the light to differing degrees. Out of darkness came light, a pictorial light whose particular emotional force provoked in me a desire to paint--I like it that this violent color induces an inward reaction. My instrument was no longer the black but this secret light it radiated, all the more powerful in its effects for coming from the greatest absence of light. That is the path I followed, and in following it I am always discovering new horizons."
We also discovered the Atelier Brancusi next door--Brancusi's studio reassembled in its entirety in a small building specially designed by Renzo Piano. He bequeathed it to the French government on the condition that it be shown complete, as he considered it a work of art in itself, with finished pieces carefully arranged next to raw materials, tools, and works in progress.
That night to celebrate Annabelle's birthday her boyfriend took us to a fondue restaurant where we shared a cheese fondue and then a chocolate one. Suuuper healthy. and delicious. The cheese fondue had wine in it--enough that I tasted it immediately--and the boyfriend claimed this was necessary in a fondue. Who am I to say?
Afterwards I headed by myself to the Cité Universitaire to meet two other old friends from Brooklyn and we had such a grand old time that we were up til the RER started running again...I got home around 7am.
The next day I again met Annabelle for lunch and we went to a restaurant known for its falafel. Yum! The Picasso Museum is closed until 2012 apparently (sadface) so we headed to Pere Lachaise, the famous cemetery, where I had never been. We splurged on a tourist-y map of the famous graves at a newsstand. An hour later, having tramped through half the cemetery but only having found a few of the people supposedly buried there, a security guard informed us that a) the penalty for walking on the grass is they take your shoes (his idea of a joke) and b) our map was wrong and a scam. Go us. Luckily he gave us his map and we ended up seeing a good number of famous graves, including Proust, Balzac, Bizet, Oscar Wilde, Gericault, Chopin, and of course Jim Morrison (had to do it). We missed, unfortunately, Seurat, Moliere, Apolloinaire, Eluard, Ernst, Daumier, Corot, and a host of others, but it was getting dark and cold and our feet hurt.
There were also lots of other interesting monuments and I took more pictures at the cemetery than anywhere else (does this say something about me? I mean I did write two papers about Greenwood Cemetery as a young'un).
Wilde's grave was covered in lipstick kisses (kinda cute) and scrawled messages (not so much...it's called defacing, assholes). When I ran my fingers over the carved letters of his name, I got lipstick on them. Um. Gross. Thanks Oscar!
I was more interested in the awesome trees round that part of the cemetery...full of big black crows. The place was also crawling with black cats. Wtf? Do they do that on purpose to make it creepier?
Gericault's grave was hilarious. It was topped by a lounging figure daintily holding an artist's palette and brush. Below was a bronze version of his painting The Raft of the Medusa. It was surrounded by a fence made up of the letter G and little hearts. Can we say inflated self-importance? Although it did help me recognize the grave.
That night, Annabelle's roomie hosted a party at the flat for the combined birthdays of Annabelle, the roomie's boyfriend, and one of their friends. She cooked a whole ton of delicious "nibblies" so I sat and stuffed my face with French cheese and pate while everyone else spoke French. Haha seriously though, it was funny, I attempted to listen and sometimes people took pity and spoke English to me for a while.
I soon headed out to meet a friend at "Le Rhummerie," a bar devoted to rum, where I sampled two of their famous mango mojitos and went home happy at 3am, despite having to transfer to the bus because the Metro stopped running. Even in Berlin they know to have the trains run all night on Fridays and Saturdays. Ah well.
On Saturday it was raining but Annabelle and I decided to make good on our plan to visit Versaille because I'd never been! It was really cool and surreal to be there. Of course I'll have to go back again someday to see the gardens in full bloom, and to see Marie Antoinette's mini-palace or whatever it is. Still, the rainy day had its own aesthetic charms.
This random deer head was not explained:
Neither was anything really...the audio guide was appallingly bad. It left me thirsting for more...I'm adding biographies of Marie Antoinette and Napoleon to my reading list.
I met Courbet in a hallway full of busts of famous Frenchmen (no women):
His beard was magnifique.
That night we went out for drinks, I tumbled home at 2, finished packing at 3, and got up to catch my flight at 6. Woot!
I was back in my apartment in Berlin by 11am, and back to work today. Craziness.
As usual after visiting Paris I now want to a) live there and b) learn French. I plan on starting goal b when I leave Germany. One language at a time.
It was funny how when I encountered a person who did not speak English, my instinct was to try German before English. It was no more likely--in fact probably less likely--that they would speak it, but I guess I've just gotten used to busting out the German when I have a communication issue. That's a good thing, I think?
Bis bald,
D.
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