Paris’ Winter Coat
Paris is generally a well-dressed city, but I’m completely enamored of its winter suit. . .
A Very Territory Christmas
Well, not quite - i mean, it isn’t Christmas yet, and I won’t be here for the real thing, so what you’re getting is the little pre-christmas that Sergio and Marina cooked up as a farewell-see-you-in-january mini-fete. Nevertheless the territory is beautifully warm and festive in this season, Russian tank heaters running on high (see pics) and bubble wrap working its insulating magic. We’ve had a lot of changes in the territory these past few weeks so most of us are also hoping that with the new season comes a new souffle (as sergio says in his Russin-accented franglais) for our little rabbit-hole.
We decided, at the territory, to have a gift exchange this year. A sort of secret Santa, if you will. Most will be exchanging gifts closer to the actual date, but, since i’m returning home early and for nigh on a month, I said my farewells this week. Interestingly enough, when drawing names out of “the cleaning hat” (a sort of embroidered fez that one must wear while cleaning - gratefully, I’m exempt from such activities) Marina and I unknowingly chose each other. Trying hard to stick to the 5 euro budget we set, I showed up on Wednesday with an unceremonious red-paper bag filled with Kombucha and something called “etoiles de bonne humeur” (good mood stars) that seemed to be a french version of not-chicken nuggets. In return I received a lovely ceramic figurine . . . I think I might place it in the territory in the future, to rest among other objects of yet-to-be-determined magical uses.
But, Sergio also surprised me with his own gifts: flowers, a lovely little piece of the territory to keep with me, and a gift for my husband as well — I’m as warmed by this gesture as i am by the Russian tank heater hanging near my desk.
Another Trip to the Prefecture
In procuring legal papers to reside here (not work, mind you, reside) I have so far undertaken the following process:
May 2008
Visit French consulat in San Francisco in order to apply for a long-stay visa based on my impending marriage to a French resident (not a citizen). This involves a great deal of documentation, purchasing travel health insurance, lots of passport photos etc. They keep my passport and tell me to come back when i’m actually married.
July 2008
Return to the consulat in order to submit official marriage documents. Receive a visa that is valid for 3 months (???a tourist visa is valid for that long) and states that I must apply for a carte de sejour within two months after my arrival. They attach a separate piece of paper that says I need to do this two weeks into my stay, but I ignore it.
August 2008
I arrive in France.
October 2008
Make first visit to the prefecture in my district (92), they just give me an appointment to come back and actually apply later.
December 2008
I return to the prefecture for my appointment, making copies of endless documents, and ultimately receiving a paper called a “recepisse de demand de carte de sejour” - a receipt of my application for the carte de sejour. It has my picture on it (the woman behind counter chose the ugliest one) and it expires in March.
What to Expect in 2009
I will receive the carte de sejour in three months - this would be February or March. It will expire in August and I’ll have to start all over again. Meanwhile, before receiving it, i’ll have to set up some sort of medical appointment to be examined for any contagious diseases I might introduce into france (of course, by this time my little diseases, if there were any, have had plenty of opportunity to jump ship and start a metro-based epidemic).
So you see, from the time i initiated this process in San Francisco, to the time I actually receive the carte de sejour it’ll have been nearly a year. But the process hasn’t been too tedious or stressful, being that there are long breaks between needing to deal with it, though the prefecture does steal a bit of my soul every time i walk in.
What is stressful is that, after all this, I’m not even able to work here. This is what I was told, verbatim: “you can stay, you can enjoy all France, but you cannot work” (read with sing-songy French accent). Sooooo, I “stay and enjoy” - and have found enough ways to keep myself busy that I do “enjoy” — for someone in my field (with a graduate degree in art history) there is plenty to occupy myself with. But, we are two people living on one income in one of the most expensive cities in the world, so if I was able to work - even teaching english for example - the extra money would help a lot (in purchasing those repetto flats I have my eye on).
In two and a half years time, I believe, my husband can apply for French citizenship. What this will mean for me and for my status, I’ve no idea, but i suspect it won’t change much. There are two other possible avenues for obtaining working papers: I find a company to sponsor the status change (they must file paperwork with the prefecture, pay a large fee, and prove that no French citizen could do this job), or obtain my Polish passport if it’s possible. The latter would also take its fair share of time and bureaucratic wrestling, and it’s unclear whether I am eligible, due to my father’s unique immigration circumstances (political refugee in 1962).
So, in the end, my status is “visiter.” And my husband and I have put a lot of money and time into getting the official “okay” for me to “stay and enjoy.” And enjoy I will, dammit.
The Quotidian Carnival: Diane Arbus in Print
DIANE ARBUS
Kadist Art Foundation
http://www.kadist.org/
Until 8 February 2009
On the walls of this exhibition one meets trannys, strippers, celebrities and their look-alikes, circus performers, giants, and motor gangs – Arbus’ photographic treatment of each like a loving glimpse into a twisted carnival. Placing this American artist’s famously despondent photographs in their published context, this exhibition is the first French retrospective of Arbus’ work since the Centre Pompidou’s in 1980. Instead of displaying original photographic prints, the exhibition features an archival collection of her work as published on the pages of magazines. While this format doesn’t have as great a visual impact as would original photographic prints, it does allow the viewer to better understand the development of Arbus’ style and her public reception. From the contextualization of these photographs, it becomes apparent that Arbus always imbued a given subject with her own melancholic air. Even when documenting the most quotidian lives Arbus managed to capture disenchantment in her subjects’ faces and her compositions are consistently disjointed and unsettling – providing insight into the psyche of this ill-fated artist.
The Cult of Celebrity: Patrick Demarchelier at the Petit Palais
PATRICK DEMARCHELIER
Images et Mode
Petit Palais
www.petitpalais.paris.fr
Until 4 January 2009
The Petit Palais is celebrating this famed celebrity and fashion photographer with a huge retrospective. The exhibition is incorporated into the museum’s vast permanent collection so that Madonna’s Gautier push-up stares-down art nouveau beauties and Cindy Crawford’s beauty spot sets off the eyes of a Medieval Virgin icon in gold.
Though Demarchelier’s photographs are technically and aesthetically masterful, his use of black and white photography imparting his works with an illusion of intimacy, the show becomes more a game of name-that-famous-face rather than any sort of intellectual/emotional exercise or aesthetic experience. It does, however, lead one to consider the link between the cult of celebrity and the cult of the artistic genius (i.e. the artist as celebrity). Is Demarchelier celebrated because he photographs famous people and physically “perfected” fashion models (a living record of elite [notions of] beauty) or because his works are formally beautiful in and of themselves? More likely the famous and Demarchelier are mutually dependent: Demarchelier photographs famous people; if you are photographed by Demarchelier you are famous.
Despite my reservations as to the artistic merit of the exhibition, reduced as it is to celebrity spectacle, it is amusing. Moreover entrance is free and the petit palais itself is a vision of fin de siecle grandeur, built as it was for one of the Parisian World Fairs (Exposition Universelle) and it’s permanent collection features a wide range of historic French masterpieces.
Shirana Shabazi
SHIRANA SHAHBAZI
Centre Culturel Suisse
www.ccsparis.com
Until 4 January 2009
In this exhibition photographer Shirana Shabazi, mixes still lives, landscapes, and monochromes – her work undulating from the quietude of Dutch Baroque to a Warhol-esque pop color palette. While Shabazi states that she chooses to work from such influences and to mix these influences liberally in order to keep the viewer focused on the nature of photography as an artistic process, her works’ visual themes take the viewer to a natural world that is desolate and still. Her works keep the viewer questioning and interested in their visual diversity: from a scientifically psychedelic butterfly, to a gracefully rendered black and white of dead birds, to the lush fruits of Shabazi’s still lives.
Marc Brandenburg at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac
MARC BRANDENBURG
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac
7 RUE DEBELLEYME, 75003
www.ropac.net
Until 10 January
The title of this exposition, Vomit, Form and Fictitious Movement, ensures that you relate Marc Brandenburg’s work with bodily functioning. One of the most well-known artists based in Berlin, Brandenburg’s large scale graphite drawings have garnered international attention and are now held in institutions such as the Museums of Modern art in New York and Frankfurt. The works included in this exhibition mark a departure from Brandenburg’s pop-y media-based drawings in the negative, focusing on abstract form and the conveyance of movement rather than jaunty young men in their underpants as in his other work. By turns spouting and splattered, this collection of graphite drawings uses abstracted liquid to examine artistic creation as a bodily process: the artist’s bodily involvement in the work is visible in the striated groves left by the pressure of pencil against paper and the inclusion of the word ‘vomit’ in the title frames artistic creation as a sort of bodily expulsion. Formally beautiful and conceptually intriguing, this exhibition is a nice counter point to Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac’s (dynamic yet) less accessible shows.
The Theatricality of Decadence: Jeff Koons in Versailles
Last Saturday Lili, Rebecca, and I made the long journey out to Versailles to visit the Jeff Koons exhibit. Situated within the royal apartments themselves, the exhibition promised to be one of the most remarkable art spectacles of all time - and it delivered. The humour of Jeff Koons contrasted beautifully with the chateau’s imposing Baroque interior, while shared decadence bound each work to its setting.
In short, the show was funny. I loved that Koons’ work seemed to bind the decadence of Versailles to contemporary consumer culture. It wasn’t that the work necessarily drew some sort of historical parallel, though perhaps it did, but rather seemed to continue Koons’ play on and elevation of pop culture - his exploration of kitsch - bringing this exploration to its zenith, embuing everyday material objects with royal status: balloon animals, inflatable toys, fake flowers, porcelain figurines . . . with the artist himself posing as royal divinity.
And it did indeed feel as if Koons was playing with the setting, with the relationship between the setting and his own work. They combined to feel like the set of some surrealist play, a theatrical production commenting on decadent consumption, excessive wealth, and the iconic status of objects.
Parisian Thanksgiving (in miniature)
My sister’s macaroni and cheese recipe, stuffing (from the box, imported by my father), greenbeans, tarte tatin . . . these were the fixin’s i managed to dig up for our first thanksgiving a) as a married couple and b) in Paris. For me, this was also the first time I was to be primarily responsible for the preparation of said meal - and i’m not really a cook by any stretch of the imagination. Being the youngest in a gourmet family, my past jobs were to chop, grate, clean, iron, set, and clean again while the rest of my family tended to the meal. Needless to say I was a bit concerned how the meal might turn out and, while it certainly did not measure up to past thanksgivings (prepared and managed by my mother for nearly 25 people), my mini-meal for three did suffice. And, with several calls to my sister for instructions, I successfully pulled-off the fancy italian-cheese-encrusted macaroni.
While we did enjoy nice company (our German friend Gandalf joined us in our festivities), I must admit I was painfully homesick for my family and my husband’s. It was strange to be so isolated and to make-up such a small celebratory unit. We were invited to a larger function with Territory friends, but as this was also my first holiday since my mother’s passing and I was suffering from melancholia, I chose to stay close to home and have more intimate festivities. So, Gandalf, Dustin and I gave thanks and satiated ourselves with the turkey-less feast, talking and laughing about nothing in particular late into the evening.
Le Limonaire
It was my dear friend Rebecca’s birthday this last week and we (of the Territory) went out to celebrate. We went to a cute, rather hidden, restaurant in the 9th called “le limonaire” that has a changing menu and a rotating list of nightly entertainments. The restaurant was almost as charming as my companions (see the pics - they’re an entertaining bunch, to say the least), with beautiful yellow and red decor, large mirrors spotted with age, tasty red wine, and succulent olives. It was the sort of Parisian restaurant that fuels our romantic imaginings of 19th century paris. A band played as the night grew on and kitchen service came to a close, singing run-of-the-mill folk songs about american cities. I was fairly disinterested until they broke out with a clarinet, a trumpet and a violin — at which point i was thoroughly enamored.