Polly’s daughter Hadley, who was visiting from the U.S. and majoring in art management at college, was on a mission to see some form of art everyday while she was here. I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to go to the Bridget Riley show at the Musée d'Art Moderne
We met at 12 to avoid the possible crowds, so luckily there wasn’t a line to get in. Bridget Riley is a British painter best known for her strong op art paintings in the 1960’s and 70’s.
The first room had early works which showed the strong influence of Seurat’s pointillism. You are drawn not only to the radiant colors, but also to the surprising romanticism in such abstract paintings. Following this, the exhibit moves into the full-blown op art works, starting with the works mostly in black, white and gray. The deceptively simple geometric shapes started to play with my eyes and turned into waves and prints and colors not on the canvas. Polly nudged me to look at a painting titled White Discs, which was a strange name for a painting with black dots against a white background. But after staring at it for a few minutes, Riley’s genius of visual trickery had you seeing white circles, which weren’t really there. Polly suggested that the series reminded her of Escher’s work, which I agreed with.
Part of the fun was trying to figure out exactly where the minute subtle changes in pattern begin to alter the painting. Again sometimes they weren’t there.
In the 70’s, Riley moved into color using wavy and horizontal lines in some of the paintings. She used muted colors but they were no less effective in causing a visual impact than the bolder black and white series before. At one point the wavy lines started to make me a little woozy and I said to Polly, if I look at any more of these paintings I might need a Dramamine.
There is a room that has studies of the paintings on graph paper. You can see how the artist meticulously worked out the paintings using mathematical measures. Now I began to understand the preciseness and concise way each painting was thought out. Not only is Riley an incredible painter with a stunning sense of color but she must also have a highly mathematical mind to do such masterful paintings
Near the end of the exhibit, the bold beauty of protracted black circles painted on a curved glossy white wall astonished me.
We all left inspired by the work of this great painter and agreed this was a wonderful way to spend our Sunday. Hadley was happy that she discovered an artist she was not familiar with before.
It was a hot day with glaring sun, and we had lunch under the shade of the umbrellas on the terrace that faced the Seine with a partial view of the Eiffel tower. I had a delicious and filling quiche surrounded with four side salads and refreshing gazpacho, an excellent bargain at only 14 euros including bottled water.
Polly & Hadley-you can see where Hadley gets her good looks
Sunday was the final leg of the Tour de France and the whole city was gearing up to celebrate the winners coming to the finish line on the Champs Elysees, close to the museum. Hadley went ahead of us to the sidelines on the street while Polly and I were more aloof, watching from our perch above on the marble terrace of the museum. We noticed all of these cartoon-like, kitschy vehicles, custom designed for advertisers to promote everything from yogurt to cell phones buzzing down the Ave. New York. Oversized six packs of beer, a frighteningly large, yogurt container with a cow’s head with dangling earrings on it and a truck bearing Haribo’s delectable candies passed us by. We laughed at how each vehicle had people in colored T-shirts forcefully smiling and waving their arms in the air while doing silly dance moves. I commented to Polly that I couldn’t believe this was an actual job and that people were paid to do this.
P-A-R-T-Y with the fat boy
A Big MOO to you too
Can you drink all that beer?
Finally we decided to come down from our royal perch to join the commoners because Polly was afraid if we waited too long, she would never find Hadley in the crowd. We asked a policeman what time the cyclists were due and he said it would be at least another hour. Polly and I both looked at each other with the same no-way-Andre-am–I-waiting -in -this–heat-with –thousands-of people expression on our faces and both made our excuses of how we had to get home.
We let Hadley, who represented the young and the restless rather than the old and the sedentary (Polly and I), have all the fun and excitement.
Now read Polly's version of our Sunday.
Bridget Riley
Till September 14
Musée d'Art Moderne
11, avenue du Président-Wilson, 16th. Arr
Tél. 01 53 67 40 00
Metro: Alma-Marceau or Iena
Open Tuesday-Sunday 10AM-6PM, Thursday 10AM-10PM
Website
Note: Please read the very nice article about my Girl Scout Tour by E. A. Seagraves in the News & Record, their local paper in North Carolina- http://www.news-record.com/content/2008/07/25/article/girl_scouts_will_always_have_paris
I am pleased as punch to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I will personally be leading. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour
includes many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.
I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris.
Check it out at www.eyepreferparistours.com
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