Catching up, June 2023 - 1: DAWA at 3537 - Mamali Shafahi's 'Heritage Fountain'

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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 and a mechanical sculpture already seen at Mitterrand in 2022, Mamali was invited to install a flocked fountain as the centrepiece of the courtyard.

In the event, the fountain - divided up between a number of crates and boxes - was held up at customs till sniffer dogs could be brought in to check its bona fidos, so at the opening, only the little rocking sculpture was actually in the yard. But as there was a sound system with DJs and the weather was fine, the event drew a crowd so large - including some very beautiful, strikingly dressed people - there wouldn't have been room in any case for them and the fountain, which was eventually released and delivered on Friday. It took all day to erect it and plumb it in. But it is now, as the fine weather continues, drawing crowds of passers-by into the courtyard - 10,000 over the weekend, so I was told.





You can read a French Wikipedia article about the 1634 town house, the Hôtel de Coulanges, here.

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