Supersize me

It is a tale of two giants in the art world, Thaddaeus Ropac and Larry Gagosian, squaring up to each other as only giants can, by each opening massive spaces on the outskirts of Paris at exactly the same time, and filling them both with the work of Anselm Kiefer, an artist whose epic themes and equally-epic works bust the conventional four white walls of lesser galleries.

Vici and I had wanted to visit both Ropac Pantin and Gagosian Le Bourget. Ironically, both new spaces are in the Northeast reaches of Paris, beyond the Périphérique. Although we know the centre of Paris well enough, this was certainly new territory for us. But after consulting the Gagosian website and google maps, we concluded that getting to Le Bourget, although not impossible on public transport, would be challenging. Once out of the RER station, there was a 3.5 kilometre walk up what looked on the map like a dual carriageway road – not very pedestrian-friendly. The fact that the gallery is actually a former airplane hangar in Le Bourget airport should have given us the clue – if you don’t have your own plane, too bad. And that’s because this new Gagosian enterprise isn’t for the likes of me and Vici, it’s for other giants who have giant wallets and giant walls vast enough to accommodate a Kiefer or two.

Ok, I’m exaggerating slightly. There are lots of places in London which are difficult to get to unless you have a car (London being vastly more spread out than Paris). But there is a difference of approach to the two galleries which is notable. While the Gagosian website had very little information about Le Bourget and the current show, Ropac’s website says this:

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is delighted to announce the opening of its new exhibition space in Pantin, located in the northeast of Paris, in October 2012. Formerly an early 20th century ironware factory, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Pantin will allow for the display of large-scale works alongside a programme of related events. “We created this new space which will give the artists the opportunity to realize their vision without the usual restrictions of space.” (Thaddaeus Ropac) The architects Buttazzoni & Associés who already redesigned the existing Parisian gallery in the Marais have worked on the redevelopment of the new space in Pantin, where they have preserved the historical character of the listed buildings. The site has eight separate buildings allocated for exhibitions, performances, private viewings, archives and offices … The project also includes a multimedia space for performance, dance, lectures, conferences, screenings and other activities that complement exhibitions and attract a wider audience.

And it’s not that difficult to reach. Pantin is on the Metro, and then it’s a 15-minute walk through rather characterless light industrial country. But Vici and I are always up for a journey through the more charmless bits of cities. And anyhow, the gallery was signposted, and once there, we felt the hike was worth it.

Kiefer’s work is always ambitious, reaching. Some find it bombastic (and perhaps the fact that he has become embroiled in the clash of the art titans will not help this perception). It is true that the work is very dense in its field of reference, taking on mysticism, alchemy, history. The Holocaust is ever-present in the work, a dark line that runs through all, and the poet Paul Celan sits on his shoulder, the imagery of the Todesfuge present in Kiefer’s motifs, the dug earth, the black milk. I don’t always understand his references, but I feel the same way when reading late Stevens – there is something so complicated being grasped at, an understanding of the world and its deeper workings, not just physical, but psychic, cosmic. That sounds a bit new age, but I feel I don’t have the vocabulary to describe how Kiefer works, without falling into the grandiose, the abstract. If I try and express it in imagery, it’s like there’s wide field before you, sometimes cluttered with the rust of our discarded machinery, sometimes flat and reaching into a distance you can’t see. The landscape is dead – it is winter here always. I think Kiefer is saying that’s where we are, as a people, standing in this barren field with our rubbish all around us. Nothing can grow here; it’s our winter.

The other great artist who is present in Kiefer’s work is his teacher, Joseph Beuys. In another building on the Ropac site, there is a display of Beuys’s work related to his 1969 performance piece, Iphigenie. Seeing the work of both artists together made me look again at the motifs and materials they share: ash, rust, stone. While Kiefer remains outside of his work, Beuys is always the subject, the conduit for change and protest.

It was disappointing not to get to Le Bourget, perhaps a journey for another time. Kiefer’s work is so important and vital that it’s a shame it won’t be easy for many people to make the journey. But I was glad to have made the effort. And I look forward to future trips to Pantin.

Oslo in the mind

In a previous post I speculated about Oslo, a city I had yet to visit. Now that I have been, I can say that the buildings, as pictured in my guide book, were very much what I’d expected. The City Hall is very much like the City Hall in Stockholm, a severe red brick structure that is unadorned and unpretentious (and beautiful, in the way that Tate Modern is beautiful – utilitarian but perfectly balanced). And the palace looked like a palace, with a manicured park surrounding it. And even in the centre of the city you find vernacular houses painted in red and yellow – more at home in the country perhaps – settings for Ibsen plays and Munch interiors. Oh, I can see Norwegians wincing at the obvious clichés …

But cities are never quite what you expect before you actually set foot in them. What the guide books don’t show you are streets where there is nothing to see, just the places where people live, where they buy groceries or batteries, in other words, where nothing much happens. It is in these areas where you might speculate how your life would be different if this were your city. Walking around such neighbourhoods in a foreign city always reminds me of this passage from Paris by Julian Green (an Englishman in the French capital):

I shall always see Paris as the setting of a novel that will never be written. The times I have returned from long walks through ancient streets with my heart laden with all the inexpressible things I have seen! Is this an illusion? I think not. It happens frequently that, brought up short before, say, a large window draped with mock lace curtains, tucked away in one of the old quarters, I embark on an interminable fancy about the unknown destinies unfolding beyond its dark panes. My eye makes out a little bunch of flowers, which will change or disappear with the seasons, set in the middle of a table covered with it dark cloth; that is all, yet it may be enough. Who lives in that room? Who is dying between those four walls? In the novelist’s eyes every life, even the humblest, possesses that itch of mystery, and there is something about the sum total of all the secrets contained in a city that he finds by turns stimulating and oppressive.

What I didn’t expect to find in Oslo was an edgier Oslo, a place where there is graffiti, where weeds spring up from vacant lots. Perhaps it is naive to think that Oslo should be any different from any other city. But in comparison to Stockholm or Helsinki, it feels smaller, shabbier. When I say “shabby” I am not being pejorative. I like cities that are a bit shabby (London has its fair share of shabby amidst the grand), that display signs of ordinary life. The centre of Washington DC, with its perfect, pristine monuments (and homeless men sleeping in the shadows of those monuments) is one of the most depressing cities I have visited.

But although I enjoyed my wanderings, I failed on two counts. Firstly, I have come back without seeing ‘The Scream’, the most famous Norwegian painting by the most famous Norwegian artist. How is this possible, for a tourist like myself whose priority destinations in every city I visit are the main art gallery and the cemetery? The answer is that the Nasjonalmuseet happened to be closed this past Sunday, 1^st May, a public holiday. The idea of a public holiday on a Sunday is bizarre to me (and to the other bewildered tourists climbing the steps of the museum, scratching their heads, then shuffling off towards Tourist Information). I console myself by thinking that maybe ‘The Scream’ would have been like the ‘Mona Lisa’: disappointing in the flesh, too ubiquitous to still be powerful.  I did manage to visit the great man’s grave, adorned with his bust; it reminded me of my favourite self-portrait of him, moody and handsome, surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke.

I also failed to find any English translations of current Norwegian poetry. A very helpful bookseller in Tanum told me he thought there had been a bilingual anthology which is now out of print. So I have poets in translation from all the other Scandinavian countries, but not Norway. There was a beautiful series of little pamphlets in the bookshop, some with CDs of the poets reading; all very tantalising, and the Norwegian looks beautiful simply as a printed language, but perhaps I’ll wait for the next translation to come along …

So in the absence of Munch and any Norwegian poetry in English translation, I leave you with this installation by the Oslo-based artist Jon Gundersen, which is called Water on the Way to the Sea (Vann på vei mot havet). It sums up what Oslo felt like for me; a city on  the water, on the edge of the country. Gundersen picked up these battered kettles and coffee pots in flea markets, and so the whole installation has the feel of something that’s been assembled from simple means, but which adds up to a beautiful and moving statement.