Any other business

POUSH is an interesting place. This is how it presents itself on its website : ' Opened in March 2020 on 9 floors of a former office building that lay vacant in Porte Pouchet in Clichy, the POUSH project moved to Aubervilliers in April 2022, with the ambitious aim of developing a creative and cultural neighborhood there. 'In this 20,000 m² industrial campus, with buildings that date back to the 1920s, (formerly owned by the perfumery L. T Piver and now belonging to the Société de la Tour Eiffel), POUSH brings together an impressive array of 250 established and emerging artists that showcases the vitality of the French art scene, enhanced by the work of artists from more than thirty different countries. 'The artists benefit from studios and additional support with their artistic development, production, administrative matters and communications. ' My own first encounter with POUSH was marred by one of those frequent examples of unprofessionalism in the contemporary art w...

As I said in my previous post, DAWA is the name of the last exhibition to be organised at 3537 in the Marais before the town house is transformed into a flagship store for Dover Street Market. I first saw it on the evening of the opening, when the sun was going down and it was full of people, and was underwhelmed. But when I went back in daylight and had it nearly to myself, it was as if it were a completely different show. I liked it. Here are some photos I took while there.

There seem to be periods when I get way behind with art, followed by sudden spurts of intense activity: gallery openings, exhibitions, fairs and the like. This past weekend brought one of these spurts. It's typical of me only to find out something is famous when it's about to end. Apparently, the space occupying a typical, 17th-century Marais town-house at 35-37 rue des Francs-Bourgeois (more about the house at the end of this post), called simply 3537, has been going for some time and is exceedingly trendy. But, if I've understood correctly, it belongs to, or is leased by, Comme des Garçons or whoever it is that owns Dover Street Market, and is about to be transformed into a Paris flagship for that brand. To mark the occasion, 3537 has put on an extensive group show, called DAWA, and last Thursday, June 1, was the opening event. The reason I knew about this - and was present - was that my friend Mamali Shafahi was one of the artists chosen. As well as showing some reliefs ...