Any other business

  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 en...

The Palais de Tokyo has no air-conditioning, and some of its galleries have glass roofs, so in the summer the place can get very hot. I well remember, during Prince.sse.s des Villes , the sprawling summer exhibition of 2019, it was stifling. It has, however, an abundance of labyrinthine, relatively rarely-used underground spaces in bare concrete. The drop from the avenue in front of the Palais to the streets at the back, at river level, is considerable. (The long flights of stairs are familiar to me from visits to the Iranian embassy's visa department.) I've no idea how many buried levels the building actually has. Anyway, this year, the curators have had the clever idea of going down nearly as deep as possible, creating a new pathway starting at least two floors below street level, where it's dark and cool. Exhibition halls on the main and upper floors aren't used at all; only the ticket offices, shop and restaurant are still open. Guards and visitors can all be gratef...