For my Design II class, we have weekly assignments requiring us to visit some of the famous art museums in Paris. First we went to the Pompidou, a modern art museum famous for it's controversial architecture that contrasts the old Parisian buildings. We went to see an exhibition by Ron Arad, a sculpture/architect that also occasionally designs furniture. I liked his work but found his obvious affinity to chairs rather amusing. For every non-chair piece of artwork displayed there are at least ten chairs. Furthermore, they are all blocked off so you can't actually sit on any of them.
On second thought, do you think these un-purchasable objects are even chairs if you can't sit on them? Or are they just sculptures of chairs with chair-like abilities? Sarah and Carly - maybe when you visit me we can go to the museum, hop the barrier and show Ron Arad what a real sit-in protest is all about..."NOW they're chairs bitches!" (Meanwhile, across town at the museum of modern art, a sculpture of a rock made out of stone is having an identity crisis.) Here are a few of Arad's world-renowned chair-sculptures:
Last week KT and I visited the Musea d'Art de la Ville de Paris for another fun design assignment. We had to chose a sculpture from the Jimmie Durham exhibition, sketch it (no pictures allowed), and then paint an enlarged version with the title of the piece in a complementary font. I chose a sculpture of a very dark and sinister vulture because of the interesting title, "Thinking of You." We spent about two hours in the museum sketching different pieces and enjoying the fact that we were no longer grouchy museum-going tourists but the local art school students (VIP access included) that one always sees at museums trying to sketch in inopportune places. We also enjoyed how, even though neither of us really knew what we were doing, the pieces that we were sketching at the time always got way more attention from onlookers as if our sketchbooks gave us instant credibility.
