November 2023: bits and bobs 3 - New exhibitions at the Palais de Tokyo

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At the Palais de Tokyo, while Hugo Vitrani's big, graffiti-centred show Il morso delle termiti, which opened in June, continues, the rest of the summer's exhibitions have now been replaced, so along I went to catch them, before my annual season ticket ran out. Three (or let's maybe say two-and-a-half) of the new things turned out to be memorable.


The 'half' was a roomful of agreeable paintings by an artist called Rakajoo, again assembled here by Hugo Vitrani, under the title Ceinture (belt) nwar ('deeply dark, dirty; contraction of noir - black in French - war, and zwaar - heavy in Dutch').

Then, in the sprawling group installation Hors de la nuit des normes, hors de l’énorme ennui, which, says the Palais, 'envisages plural visions of love and friendship, of romance and desire, of bodies and sexuality,' I was very taken by the work of an artist new to me: Jimmy Beauquesne.






And finally, deep in the subterranean bowels of the vast Palais, I enjoyed Doppelgänger, a big, blue-green installation, slightly nightmarish and cartoon-pop-cum-cool-60s-baroque in feel, beautifully detailed and beautifully done, by Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl. This time, the first photo below, from the PdT's website, is by the ubiquitous Aurélien Mole as, for obvious reasons, he's done a much better job of photographing this underground extravaganza than I ever could. The rest are, however, mine.














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