François Morellet | Il dolce far niente

Though I’m back in Denmark my blog hasn’t finished travelling (nor has my mind…). I still need to catch up on my trip to Paris – and later maybe some more about Rome.

I had some wonderful days in a grey and beautiful city.
Niko and I tried Velib’ (Paris’ city bike) for the first time, and I was happy with the flexibility, but found out I don’t have the patience for all the traffic lights and the lacking flow. It was still amazing experiencing the city in another way, and it costs the same as a metro ticket.

I visited several museums, among these my all time favourite, Centre Pompidou. There was a big exhibition on Edvard Munch, but as I saw another on him one year ago in Denmark, I skipped it and went directly to the permanent collection. It’s classical 1900 art, with avant-garde, pop art, op art etc., but I will never get tired of it. My French art historian friend from the language school in Rome opened my eyes to François Morellet, an op artist. At first, his painting didn’t talk to me at all.

But, engineer, he uses geometry and mathematical formulae to create the structure of the paintings. Thus, when you know his idea and the title, I find that the work opens up: “6 répartitions aléatoires de 4 carrés noirs et blanc d’après les chiffres pairs et impairs du nombre PI” (6 Random Distributions of 4 Black and White Squares According to the Even and Odd Digits of the Number Pi).

I also went to Bibliothèque Nationale Française where there was an exhibition on Casanova. It was interesting and well done, but it’s (too) hard to transform a life and a work into something visual.
Niko and I went to MAM, Musée d’Art Moderne next to Palais de Tokyo in 16th arr. I don’t know why I had never been there, it was so vast and filled with 20th century art, including a big and interesting focus on Robert Delaunay. Go there, the huge permanent collection is free!

More serious was the Mémorial de la Shoah museum in Marais about the Second World War and the Jews in France. Having studied vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past), I found it very interesting, the theme and the way the museum was arranged. This is also free, and I think you should go there.

This is le Mur des noms, walls with the names of all the Jews who died during the war.

I’m not sure if it’s because I just adore French, or because French street art/funny things on walls are more interesting, but I tend to notice it a lot when I’m in France.

(This wall is too white to be white)