45. Centre Georges Pompidou

This very recognizable building is a high-tech multi-cultural complex museum that houses the Bibliothèque publique d'information, a vast public library, the Musée National d'Art Moderne which is the largest museum for modern art in Europe, and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research.

 

Nothing could be in such sharp contrast to what I have been immersing myself in over the past 3 weeks – the building + the contents + the crowd ( entry is free for under 25s so the crowd was very young and hip which was great to see ) …

 

 

Access to the top floor galleries is via a series of escalators running inside tubes up the front of the building - ( one of which wasn’t working – and why is it so hard to walk up stationary escalators ? ) … then each of the five floors has a number of galleries exhibiting different aspects of modern art.

 

The top level is taken up with platforms to view the skyline of Paris – magical – plus a very swanky restaurant – with single stem red roses on the white clothed tables seated at by ladies who lunch !!! … didn’t hang there for long other than to take pics …

 

 

 

Next level was devoted to a Roy Lichtenstein exhibition – the waiting time to get in there was an hour – and as I really don’t like his work very much I missed that floor also.

Next level was a vast auditorium that was about to present a lecture/talk by an author I didn’t know and as the entire gallery was full of very noisy excited young Parisian adults ( the art school variety ) I figured that was going to be a bit high-brow for me – plus the talk would have been in “langue française” – and mine doesn’t really go much beyond telling the person I am from Australia and do they speak English !!!! – so I skipped that floor also …

 

Leaving me two floors of quite exciting modern art - primarily from the twentieth century -  to occupy me for the next three or so hours . As with all modern art there is a lot to really love and be inspired by and a lot to scratch your arse, shake your head and walk away from … no exceptions here.

A la Russie, aux anes et aux autres - Marc Chagall - 1911

La Forge - Wladimir Baranoff Rossine - 1912

A Cuca - Tarsila - 1924

 

Marquette du Monument a la Troisieme Internationale - Vladimir Tatline - 1919

Composition Universelle - Jaoquin Torres-Garcia - 1937

Construccion No 37 - Juan Nicolas Mele - 1948

 

 

 

Sans Titre - Abdelkader Guermaz - 1972

Mobile noir sur noir - Julio le Parc - 1960

Pirrot Malade - Frederico Beltran Masses - 1929

Courtisane Endormie - Henry Ottmann - 1920 

 

 

Le Penne di Esopo - Pino Pascali - 1968

Untitled - Cy Twombly - 1999

... this was my favourite piece - of course - dozens of rusted lidded tins tied together with wire

and in my excitement at seeing some rust at long last I blurred the image and then forget to record the artist ... 

untitled - Didier Marcel - 1998

We stopped just here at the time - Ernesto Neto - 2002

Treppe - Magnus von Plessen - 2003

Spiders Feet - Mark Bradford - 2012

Los Remeros Vencedores de Ondarroa - Ramond de Zubiaurre - 1914

Portrait de Brancusi - Oskar Kokoschka - 1930

untitled - Georges Yakoulov - 1913

Symphonie Verte - Henry Valensi - 1935

Les Joueurs d'echecs - Marcel Duchamp - 1911

Udnie - Francis Picabia - 1913

Buste de Femme - Pablo Picasso - 1907

L'atelier - Eugene Nestor de Kermadec - 1938

Rythme - Sonia Delaunay - 1938 

Peinture ( title for both paintings ) - Pierre Daura - 1928

Un Atelier de Peintre avec une Accordeoniste - Lasar Segall - 1937

Portrait de Lucy VI - Lasar Segall - 1936

A Menino e os Bichos - Monteiro - 1925

Composition - Candido Portinari - 1945

A Cadaca - Monteiro - 1923 

 

Jeune Fille en Verte - Tamara de Lempicka - 1927

Apocalypse - Seraphin Soudbinine - 1921

Deux Nus - Ivan Babij - 1930

Espagne - Edmond Kuss - 1937

Tete du Taureau - Luis Fernandez - 1939

 

This exhibition was a delight to visit - the curating was perfect for me as it kept my enthusiasm and interest from one end of the building to the next.

There were other cultural departments of this vast building to visit - devoted to film, computer technology, literature and other creative mediums - but my head was spinning after so much colour, I took my leave from GP to get back out and wander the streets of the historical Paris that is charming me so.

 

Tomorrow I'm off to visit a flea market, but you're going to the Pantheon ...