Any other business

Nothing, as far as I know, links these two exhibitions, other than that I liked them both enough to take photos, and make reels of them on Instagram . Liên Hoàng-Xuân is an artist I got to know through Amine Habki, about whom I posted over year ago , before I had the good fortune actually to buy and hang one of his works. They exhibited together at an alternative sort of space, in a disused 70s office block, called the Tour Orion, in Montreuil. Her works blend echoes of traditional Arabic poetry with socio-political themes and aspects of her family and personal life: I believe the figure being serenaded on the balcony in the piece I have at home is her husband, who also features in her videos. Here are a few photos of the current exhibition, at DS Galerie, near République. After the photos, I'll write something about the other show. New exhibitions have opened at the Palais de Tokyo. I can't say I was especially impressed by all of them. Raphaël Barontini's Quelque part dan...

It's been nearly a year since I posted anything on this blog. After the summer, I might have posted something about Tala Madani 's solo exhibition at EMΣT, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, part of their ' What if women ruled the world?' show, but my photos weren't good enough. I was also getting into the habit of posting about the October art fairs in Paris, but honestly, this time round, I wasn't excited enough to bother, and since then I've been lazy about gallery shows. But this weekend I went to La Halle Saint-Pierre , at the foot of the Butte Montmartre, to see their marvellous new exhibition of a selection of Iranian 'outsider' artists. I loved it. I've written before, on this blog, about outsider art being shown regularly in Tehran's galleries, in particular in relation to Reza Shafahi and Amir Kamand . Some of the artists in this Paris show were already familiar to me from Tehran, some quite new. I didn't have ...

  Note : this post and the April 28 one, about eating out, were written for American friends visiting Paris, one of them for the first time, who wanted a few tips from a local. They were staying in a hotel just off République... ***** I guess you'll have your own guide book to help you plan your visit. But whichever one (or more) it is, I thought you might find the Michelin Green Guide 's tourist map of Paris (below) helpful, as it makes it easy to locate the main sights. I think you'll find if you click on the map, it will blow up to a more legible size. The inset box at top left explains Michelin's ratings system, similar to its approach to restaurant ratings. With a decent guide book, you won't need much help from me, but I just wanted to add one or two items that visitors might miss, plus an idea for a north-south walk (or south-north, as you wish) that makes a change from the usual main east-west (or west-east!) drag. Also, finally, one neglected but unique mus...