art – Lo Vedo Life

April in Paris

A spring trip to Paris
I recently returned from a few days in Paris, one of my favorite cities. There was a great deal of walking, a lot of delicious things to eat, and delightful companionship. I got drenched in a sudden cloudburst the day I arrived, but otherwise the weather was nicely cooperative. All around, a dandy trip.

One of the things I wanted to do was to see the new exhibit at the Musée Picasso. He’s not my favorite artist, but the man certainly had a large impact on 20th-century art, and this year marks the 50th anniversary since his death. Exhibits abound, but this one promised to be unique for two reasons. One, this museum holds a huge collection of Picasso works, covering the full range of his life, as well as the remarkably broad range of art forms he worked in. Two, this exhibit is the work of British designer Paul Smith, and I thought it would be interesting to see how he chose to display the art.

Two fine days

Two different sets of people, two different days, in the same region two hours northeast of Bize. It added up to a lot of time in the car, but it was well worth it.

On the first day, I traveled with Isabelle and Anthony to see the Viaduc de Millau, and later to have a tour of the cheese caves of Roquefort, with a refreshing picnic between the two.

Les Lalanne : the blending of artistic skill, nature and humor

Patinated steel rhinoceros by François-Xavier Lalanne, *Rhinocéros*, 1981-86

Going to an auction
It happened in the Before Times. It was October 2019 BT. (I could say “BC” for Before Covid, but BC was already taken.) Anyway, my sister-in-law Kathy had a business trip to Paris, and I had arranged to meet her there for a few days. It turned out to be a brief but astonishing voyage of discovery.

Kathy was in Paris to attend a two-day Sotheby’s auction of selected works of the sculptors Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne. She was already well along in the planning of an exhibit of their work for the museum where she works, The Clark Art Institute, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and she had good reasons for being present at the auction.