I had a big day planned for Tuesday & was a little nervous about finding my way around to various destinations on my 2nd day alone in Paris, but I was ambitious & planned out my route with Shawn before he left for work. I started out going to Monoprix (the closest good grocery store to Shawn’s place – about a 30 minute walk away, almost!) as I decided that I should just buy some of those nice packaged sandwiches to bring as my lunches in my bag for my museum visits to save money & aggravation – Shawn said this place had tons of fresh varieties & he could expense them! I made it there ok with his directions & discovered that the ground floor of the store is a Walmart type store with clothes & pharmaceutical items & the upstairs is the grocery store. I realized half way there that I forgot to bring one of the cloth bags I had brought & prayed that they had bags available (Paris is huge on being green & everyone brings their own reusable or cloth bags to the store). I picked up some yogurts, organic bananas & a couple of other things too & luckily there were some plastic bags at the cash, and many shoppers were using them. Had a little trouble getting back to the apartment, but made it, dropped off the stuff & picked up some bottled water at the Franprix on Shawn’s street.
I was about a half an hour behind schedule, but figured I’d still have plenty of time to visit the Palais de Tokyo and have lunch there. I had a little trouble finding the street that the museum was on, but I got to take see some beautiful sights by the water & the Eiffel tower in the distance (as close as I’d been to it so far) & pass by many designer shops! I was relieved when I finally found the place. I knew that there was a Steven Parrino exhibit being shown by my Net research, so I wanted to start off with that when I arrived. When I walked in, the first work I saw was this one, which was titled “Hell’s Gate Shifter”, which I found pretty funny! As I walked around, I saw a white canvas, and other one colour canvases (a lot of black work), which I later found out are called ‘monochromes’. There were a couple of small tvs scattered around on the ground beside some of the works, one with loud motorcycle sounds emanating from it & one with a woman dressed in s&m clothing moving around. There was a small room made of chiprock with holes punched in it. A heap of pink canvas with grey duct tape on it called “Fuckhead bubblegum”. A half a wagon wheel with crumpled up gold foil, rotating on a stand in an exhibit called “Bastard Creature”. In the next room was an exhibit of works that inspired Parrino, including a photo of Courtney Love by Michael Lavine, a signed self-portrait of Andy Warhol, this structure :
and this neon sign work :
I looked around for more exhibits, and came across a “salle noir” – a pitch black room with a bench & projected images on two opposite walls, with a scary, repetitious recording playing in the background. Here was the description of this work by Claire Fontaine : Get Lost is a new video about the fantasies and phantoms that migrate into our imagination from the pages of fashion magazines. These artificial and enhanced faces appear and disappear, accompanied by an endlessly repeated phrase from Hamlet, “I did love you once”. On the floor are photocopies of a 1999 text by the collective Tiqqun, which denounces the alienation of contemporary relations and remind us that we all belong to the same libidinal fabric, that inside capitalism virginity is not possible, and that power-relations always pass through bodies. Wild stuff!
The whole thing was really surreal & strange & I kept thinking to myself “what have I come to see here?!” (and kept thinking how Shawn would probably hate this exhibit & find it too weird!). The second floor of the building was roped off, and upon further inspection, there were not any other exhibits showing that day (to see special programming, you had to go on a Thursday). I had gone through the whole thing in less than an hour! I felt so disappointed that I had spent 6EUR (this place was not on my museum pass, as I had thought). At the front of the museum was a little lounge with a tv and they were playing an interview with the artist Parrino. I decided to have a seat & watch it, since I had lots of time & it was just starting. After watching the video, I understood the work I had just seen a lot more and hearing about his inspirations, the meaning and intention behind his work (he speaks a lot about “boiling it down to the essence” – the key behind “minimalism” art), I felt a lot more inspired. I decided to eat lunch – I had read about their cafeteria & had intended to order the plat de jour for 12EUR, which turned out to be veal, which I didn’t want to take a chance on (sometimes it doesn’t agree with me), so I ordered a piece of 3-cheese quiche which came with an arugula salad with balsamic vinaigrette, from the self-serve counter and ate it outside on a picnic table (the tables under the umbrellas were reserved for the sitdown restaurant diners). It was a beautiful day, so I relaxed with my book for awhile, then went back in & went through the exhibit a second time & I enjoyed it a lot more.
It was still only mid-afternoon and after stepping outside of the museum to take pix, I noticed the musée d’art moderne de Paris right next door, and a sign saying that there were free exhibits! I went in, expected to see just a few works, and ended up spending the afternoon there, seeing so many different & interesting works, set up in a way that takes you through the history of modern art chronologically through the ages. There were daycare classes in some of the rooms sitting on the floor with their monitors doing arts & crafts, which I found such a good idea for an outing for small children. The exhibit started out with some Matisse works and there were more ‘salles noires’.
Some of the noteworthy works I saw included a room full of children’s clothing stacked on shelves, it was on a lower basement floor & it stank of must! Weird!
I got a kick out of this screenprint :
I finished the exhibit in time to leave for my next stop : Fauchon, a famous sweet shop/charcuterie/boulangerie in the Place de la Madeleine area, known for it’s different colored macaroons (4 EUR or more each!). Let me tell you, finding this place was not easy! Paris is a circle in the middle of it with a whole bunch of streets branching out of this circle, so every major intersection is like this & offers like 8 different possible directions! You think you’re traveling in a straight line through the intersection, but then all of the street names change, and if you have a ‘big’ map (not detailed), a lot of these streets don’t appear on it! Plus, some Arab guy was being friendly to me on the street & tried to pick me up, so he distracted me big time! I was just about to give up when I finally found Place de la Madeleine, a strip-mall type of setup in a crescent, but no Fauchon.
Place de la Madeleine
After going around in circles a couple of more times, I looked across the street & saw a huge billboard with Fauchon’s signature pink gift-wrapped lips on it. As I approached what was the OTHER SIDE of Place de la Madeleine, I saw that it read : “Re-ouverture en automne 2007”. I was like ‘NOOOOO!’, thinking I came all this way to find it closed, but then I looked to my right & saw the pink awnings & pink café chairs – I think only 1 of their 3 addresses was closed for renovation. Phew! I didn’t have much time left before meeting Shawn, so I had to hurry through & chose gifts for me & Shawn’s family that we had not bought for yet. I took many pics of the delights offered there & finally chose what I was going to buy. I was running late & knew I’d be at least a few minutes late meeting Shawn at the cheese shop we had planned on having a tasting at for dinner.
This place was supposed to be walking distance from where I was, and not a long walk either. But, I could not find my way back to the main street I had walked on previously & while rushing around & panicking & turning in circles, becoming more disoriented as I went along, I knew I was lost. I stopped a cab & knowing I was a lost tourist with a map, he spoke to me in English, told me I was far away from where I wanted to be & that the ride would cost 20 EUR (at least he warned me!) – I said no way, even when he offered it for 15. I located the closest metro I could find, which turned out to be Concorde, only 2-stops from where I was to meet Shawn. When I finally met up with him, it was 45 minutes later than when we were supposed to meet. I prayed he’d wait for me & not go home – without any way to contact one another, I was beyond frustrated! On the way to our meeting spot, I noticed that the address I had was not even a cheese shop, but an apartment building! Needless to say, Shawny was upset & worried when we finally met & it took him a few minutes to realize that I didn’t purposely meet him late & that I really was shaken up from being lost. We asked around at a tabagie & a bar about a cheese shop & were told that there were none around the area, and we were directed to the next district where the bartender knew there was one but didn’t know if it would be open. After much walking & wandering around streets with everything all closed, we literally accidentally ran into l’Androuet – the very cheese shop that we were looking for! But, it closed at 7:30, it was now almost 8:30. I was exhausted & starving. Shawn thought about going out to the La Villette area, but after realizing it was a pretty long metro ride away, we figured we’d probably get home pretty late after supper.
We headed back towards the apartment & decided to eat at a local place that Shawn loves called Chez Justine for a goat cheese salad. It was packed & the service a little slow. We got seated beside a pretty lady with her preteen daughter, they heard us speaking English & struck up a conversation with us. They were from Connecticut & were staying in a house nearby (they swapped houses for 2 wks with friends of theirs). It was their 2nd day there & they seemed a little overwhelmed & slightly frustrated with the language challenge, but were in good spirits & were very friendly. Shawn gave them many tips & ideas on what to do & they were so grateful. They had a credit card issue when paying, so Shawn served as their translator & they were happy about that too. Our food was great, and I was surprised that Shawn enjoys this dish so much (he usually hates hot cheese or pastry and the main part of the salad is a large phyllo package with warm goat cheese inside!). I told him he’s 1-step away from eating things like quiche! We ended up finishing late after all, but least the walk home was a short one.
No comments:
Post a Comment