John Baldessari opened up his show at Marian Goodman’s
massive Paris space a night after the FIAC’s grand vernissage, a
strategy destined to leave no doubt which artist launched a million
photomontagists into mainstream contemporary art. Baldessari’s works,
combining digital images with signature painted-over primary-colour
patches, easily seduced the French with their stoplight acumen and
gave collectors a good reason to spend time ambling from opening to
opening in the cobblestone-paved Marais, comparing notes with New
York’s Chelsea and East London’s surging art ghettos.
Emmanuel Perrotin, who appears hell-bent on acquiring as
much real estate in the 3rd arrondissement as possible, opened a
show of Martin Oppel sculptures and objects, Light Matters, in his
main gallery on rue de Turenne, and another exhibition of new Bernard
Frize paintings, Longues lignes (souvent fermées), in the spanking new
art space behind the mother ship, on impasse Saint Claude. Frize, a
French and international favourite, plunges into new surface and
design devices, taking his brushwork to a new level. Karsten Greve
launched Chinese artist Ding Yi’s career in France with large-scale
red-hued tapestry-inspired paintings focused on the cross. Next
door at Ropac’s gallery, British artist Richard Deacon’s exhibition of
phenomenologically-challenging sculptures in glazed ceramic, shaped
and altered wood, and stainless steel was causing a stir. And upstairs,
Nonvillages et Ouivillages, an exhibition of dense, mysterious drawings
and collages by German Bernhard Martin kept visitors climbing.
Eric Dupont reported good success with Swedish photographer
Regina Virserius’s drop-dead gorgeous photos at Show Off, and
complemented his booth’s works with her one-person The Folds of the
Earth at his Marais gallery, on rue Chapon. Large-scale portraits of the
earth’s creases, clouds and volcanoes from farflung corners of the globe
reinforced Virserius’s stature as an artist of great power and subtlety.
above: Agnes Fierobe, senior director, Marian Goodman Gallery,
with John Baldessari, Three Elbows (One Blue) (detail), 2007,
three-dimensional archival inkjet prints with acrylic paint
mounted on sintra, 151 x 389 cm
above: Courtyard to Marian Goodman Gallery
above: Martin Oppel, Light Matters, 2007
(installation view), Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin
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