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Returning from summer holidays to Paris (rentrée) is one of the capital’s obsessions. There is no shop or public event or private speech that does not exhibit it. But the months of September to October (the first half) generally do not offer the great exhibitions and fairs that make Paris the World Capital of Culture and Art. Events concentrated in the months of November and April. With some exceptions.
Moving museums and utopian bestiaries
The first concerns the most recent and important Parisian institution dedicated to contemporary art, the Bourse du Commerce, home of the Pinault Collection, defined by Jean-Jacques Aillagon, the true demiurge of the luxury magnate, as a “moving museum”, with a permanent mise en scène signed by Tadao Ando. «Mythologies américaines» (from 21 September) explores the archetypes and dystopia of the frontier through the gaze and works of four artists who cover half a century of research, from Mike Kelley to Mira Schor, from Lee Lozano to Ser Serpas.
«Soul (ex) music. Bestiaire Utopique” is the journey proposed by the small Music Museum of the Philharmonique de Paris (from yesterday until January 7th), in which recycled and assembled musical instruments take the shape of 15 gigantic insects.
Picasso, Manara, Samba
On 3 October, “À ton de faire, ma mignonne” opens, an amazing solo show by Sophie Calle at the Picasso Museum, dedicated by the French artist to the painter in the 50th year of his death. At six years old, Sophie made her first drawing of her: «my father framed it; this drawing made my mother tell me that we finally had a Picasso in the house.” On the second floor of the Museum, a wall collects 200 miniatures by the artist on a surface exactly corresponding to Guernica, 27.0824 square meters.
The Musée Maillol is a small, precious and very dynamic institution in the 7th Arrondissement. From 17 October it opens its doors to the work of the Congolese painter Chéri Samba, with a retrospective covering forty years of the career of the most important African infirmary artist, in collaboration with the Jean Pigozzi Collection.