Zaniness à la française

Jean-Paul Goude is a man born for the limelight. His multifaceted work has already traversed half a century. From his beginnings as an art illustrator to his fully fledged career as photographer, brand and image-maker, he has been the darling of publicists and advertising agency directors. Hard as it is to categorize such a talent, the amassed oeuvre shown at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, and entitled “Goudemalion. Jean-Paul Goude. Une retrospective”, reveals to visitors a brilliant self-promoter with a humorous and somehow poetic penchant. Much has been said of his Pygmalion approach to women. In fact, one of the most respected French intellectuals, Edgar Morin, coined himself the term “Goudemalion” to signify his ability to convert into myth living flesh and yet preserve the real creature within the legendary creation. His encounter with Grace Jones in New York in the late seventies shaped much of his personal mythology where he “corrects” rather than creates the personal style of his models. King-size shoulder pads, lofty platform shoes and contrasting human sizes make up for much of his universe. A universe that stays on this side of comfort, pleasing and titillating never straying too far from its self-imposed limits. The French insist in labeling Jean-Paul Goude an “auteur d’images”, a grandiose appellation for such a charming jester. I am not sure of the venue for this show. Paris offers more appropriate locations like the Cirque d’Hiver where I would be inclined to bet that Goude would not last a long season.      

A museum view of hotels particuliers

The Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine located in the east wing of the Palais de Chaillot houses an exhibition with the appealing title of “L’Hotel Particulier: une Ambition Parisienne”. Frankly, if the title had been drier I would still have jumped at the occasion. As it is, it conjures up enough drama to remind me of one of the most solid pillars of the artistic and urban history of Paris. One of the quiet pleasures of this city is to walk along many of its streets and be suddenly astonished by the magnificence of a porte-cochere or some long wall with an elaborate entrance flanked by carved stone. The hotel particulier is both witness to and protagonist of the history of the Parisian elites. My love for it is fed as much by literature as by its visual elegance.

Sadly some of the best specimens of its former glory have ben razed by well-intended planners and not so decent speculators with results that are nothing but disastrous. The best documented part of the exhibition traces the doleful demise in the XIX and XX centuries of places like the Hôtel de Thélusson built by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux for the widow of a rich Geneva banker. Or the splendid Palace Rose erected by Boni de Castellane with the help of his American wife Anna Gould’s fortune. Of those still standing some have not had a much happier ending. Witness the Hôtel de Toulouse, formerly known as Hôtel de la Vrillière built by François Mansard and acquired by the Banque de France in 1811 and since then, amputated, expanded and modified.

Yet the 1913 law enforcing the protection of historic buildings did much to reverse this trend. Today, we can still enjoy exceptional mansions most, if not all, in the hands of the French state from the Hôtel de Cluny to the Hôtel de Soubise-Rohan.

I must confess that the show has not given me more reasons that I already had for my ongoing love with the hotel particulier. The artifacts on show fail to convey any sense of grandeur or significance. They are of domestic rather than palatial scale. The reduced  spaces are hardly the ideal setting to illustrate the three dimensional richness of the buildings and the insufficient maquettes, although offering a much needed perspective, do not redeem the overindulgence of academic drawings of the housing plans.

Alexander the Great at the Louvre

Today Paris is wistfully mild, perhaps missing the sharp cold of the traditional Christmas week. Rushing crowds flow in and out of stores loaded with bags of presents awaiting the surprise of the recipients. Recession? The locals seem to have decided to forget about it and an uneasy mixture of good seasonal feelings and an urge to give and receive gifts is in everyone’s heart.

Without feeling nauseated but determined to turn my back on it, I head to the Louvre. “In the Kingdom of Alexander the Great-Ancient Macedonia” is the title of a dazzling exhibition retracing the artistic manifestations of the old kingdom of Macedonia from XV B.C. to Roman times. It is rather startling to learn that most of these magnificent objects have only been excavated less than a hundred years ago and more recently around 1978 thanks to the indefatigable efforts of the Greek archeologist Manolis Andronikos. The most outstanding objects come from the funerary conglomerates unearthed at Vergina, the site of the ancient Aigai, capital of the first kingdom of Macedonia. The juxtaposition of history and artifacts in a dramatic display provides much enlightment about a period of the Hellenic cultures little known. The nobility and beauty of the pieces is indescribable. I was in awe of an extraordinary golden crown of oak leaves. The fine work is timelessly executed and its preservation perfect. Jewellery,  pottery, funerary sculpture and mosaics speak to our sense of beauty and somehow elevate it with their silent magnetism. From the large statues of the Roman period to the intimate pottery of the early Bronze times, the exhibition confronts you to pieces not only of immense archeological value but specially to an emotional experience of beauty that reaches back from long past centuries. What a joyful experience! What a sense of empowerment the exhibition gives us! I stepped out in the windswept Place du Carrousel with a fortified soul.