Paris Art Fair 2012 at the Grand Palais

LIZSAYS: It’s a study in what contemporary art galleries are flogging and it happens every year in one of my favorite buildings in Paris, the Grand Palais. No matter what the event is, it will be made grand by the luscious verdigris green ironwork and billions of angles of paned glass. If the sun comes in, there is no avoiding it and if its raining you can feel the grayness of the skies. The day we were there it was partly cloudy, really nice.
We went to see the Paris Art Fair for the 3rd year in a row. It’s really an interesting barometer of culture at the moment. It’s like reading tea leaves, I don’t know what they say, but they look veeery interesting.

Op art seems to be making a comeback. 



I actually liked one painting that I thought to be Aussie aboriginal art, with repeating patterns that seemed to form a three dimensional cone in different places on the canvas as you walked around the room.
Works; paintings and sculptures of books were numerous. The wax books on a metal shelf was really quite nice, whilst the painting of several shelves of art books left me nonplussed. 





I was relieved to find only one large mickey mouse with a gun. Last year, it was all Mickey and Minnies and guns in fluorescents.
This year the whole thing was more somber, not ominous, just somber. The palettes were cooler and there were more black and white and ghostly photographs.
Computers are becoming obvious as elements in making art. From the tiny sculptures gleaned from motherboards to the obviously laser cut metal constructions.

The thing that was most noticeable was that the galleries seemed to be putting out what looked easier to sell. Works were more easily understood at first glance. Images were sure, solid, like photographs of recognizable things.



Not much went out on a limb, but there was one exhibit that caught more attention than the candy cart that roamed the isles at one point.

We heard voices and came upon what looked like a man and a woman sitting behind glass and talking. When I tried to take a photo, I came up with a picture of faceless bodies. It was a holographic projection. Okay, that was just fun.