Romainville, Fiminco and Isaac Lythgoe

Posted

Romainville is one of the old industrial suburbs that stretch out north of Paris along the Canal de l'Ourcq. It is now forging ahead, as part of a broader regional plan, with an ambitious, even spectacular transformation project, focusing on what's called the Quartier de l'Horloge. This project includes the creation, on the abandoned sites and in the empty but listed art-déco buildings of the now-departed pharmaceutical industry, of what's meant to become one of Europe's biggest contemporary and performing arts complexes.

Already, a couple of years or more back, pre-Covid, a handful of intrepid Paris galleries moved out to 'Komunuma', on a site re-designed by the Freaks architectural agency for Fiminco, a property developer with its own arts foundation. Five miles from central Paris and a good quarter-hour's walk from the nearest métro station, surrounded by rubble, mud and bulldozers, they must have wondered what they'd got themselves into, especially after Covid shut everything down.

Anyway, to cut a potentially long story short, the same site now brings together those pioneering galleries, the 'FRAC Ile de France' (i.e. the greater Paris region's publicly-funded contemporary art collection), a large and, in good weather, magnificent industrial-style exhibition space, Parson's Paris, and residences, studios and workshops for about 20 artists. There are also plans, so I read, for an 800-seat theatre at the complex, and probably more I don't know about. This link is to a related Art Basel article.

One of my first visits, perhaps the very first, was to see, in the then-freezing boilerhouse, Jeune Création's 69th selection of young artists. This week, I was back to visit the end-of-residence show of Fiminco's 17 current selection of artists in residence - the link is to information about it, including a photo gallery, on Fiminco's website. Here, I'll post a few of my own photos, starting with some of the one work installed by Guernsey-born artist Isaac Lythgoe, which to me was the most striking of all: seductive, unsettling, beautifully crafted and finished, to the last detail.







The other photos start with Ismail Alaoui Fdili's elaborate, cheeky project about a university for car park attendants:





More than one project on show involves references to war and soldiery, whether during WWI, or the occupation of Iraq:









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paris tips: visiting

Posted
Image
  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
Read more

Paris tips: eating out

Posted
Image
Note : this post and the April 30 one, about things to see, 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... ***** THREE STRONG RECOMMENDATIONS These are the three places I'd most strongly recommend during your visit, as I think they offer a nice variety of quality Parisian eating experiences. 1. Dinner at Le Train Bleu When the underlying idea was to recommend places off the tourist track, it might seem odd to start with Le Train Bleu, at the Gare de Lyon. But this is surely one of the most extraordinary restaurant spaces in the world. You can only experience it in Paris, of course, and I usually take any first-time visitor there for dinner. It's Lyon-influenced brasserie food at more-than-brasserie prices, but they have simple set-price menus at 55 and 74 euros, and anyway, as usual, the final bill depends above all on what you drink. It's worth it (and
Read more

Anna Uddenberg: an interesting new development

Posted
Image
Anna Uddenberg is a Swedish artist whose work has, I think, something quite original, distinctive and perceptive to say about the image of women in certain, specific currents of consumer culture that might otherwise be overlooked. I hadn't seen much of her recently, but she now has an exhibition, at her Berlin Gallery, Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler (or K-T Z), of totally new works focusing, this time, not on women but on men. The resulting woodcarvings are an interesting and quite surprising development, and add to what seems to be almost a 'fashion' for reliefs in art at the moment. This is the link to the new exhibition, 'Big Baby' , at K-T Z. This is the link to a video about the new work, on Vimeo , but the video is also on the gallery website. This is the direct link to the page about Anna Uddenberg on the gallery site. The following are some photos of Anna Uddenberg's new and previous work, 'borrowed' from K-T Z.
Read more