Parisian Whirlwind

I’m in Beirut right now, counting the hours until the opening of my solo exhibition ‘Portals‘. More about that later. On my way to Beirut, I came through Paris and stayed there for four nights so that I could check out the first ever edition of the Outsider Art Fair to be hosted in Paris (after something like 20 years of it taking place in New York). I had a great time and while I don’t really ever speak to anyone during these things, or if I do it tends to be in somewhat of a subdued manner, but this time even just being myself and acting natural, there was a fluidity at times which was really pleasant. I met some interesting people and had an altogether different experience. There was still strange stuff in the air, sure, but that’s to be expected. But anyhow, I arrived on the Eurostar (£34 ticket!) at 6pm and then had just an hour to go drop off my luggage and find my way to a 2 hour conference on Art Brut from America.. It was a great way to start the trip, going head on into re-configuring my mindset to listening and trying to understand French. I got at least half of it. Having a French eduction until the age of 9 or so, my vocabulary is limited but I do ok.     I spotted two people in the audience that my eye returned to a few times. One I was quite sure is Ody Saban, an artist I have admired for many years and have had a little correspondence with over the years. The other, I felt was Christine Sefolosha, though I’d only seen a couple of photos of her before and so couldn’t be sure, but she did glance over at me a couple of times, and we had also corresponded a little bit. I love Christine’s work also. Magical stuff. It felt funny to start the trip in the presence of two such ‘heroines’, neither of which I’d never met before. I chatted with Christine a bit and we took the train.. The following day was the opening of the fair, which interestingly took place at a hotel that had been hired in its entirety. Each guest room was used by a different gallery, with art works propped up in bathtubs and folders of drawings spread out on beds, stuff hung on the walls, etc.. Some of the gallerists even slept in the beds (at night)! I liked it in theory, but it wasn’t very practical at the opening with the narrow corridors etc.. Naturally some great works were on show. I was particularly pleased to see this small Raphael Lonne drawing kind of hidden at the bottom of a wall.. I showed John Maizels from Raw Vision magazine the advance copy of David Maclagan’s Line Let Loose that I had with me, and he agreed that it was beautifully printed and proceeded to show it to a few people in the surrounding area. I also showed it to Ody as she had an image in the book also, and of course hadn’t seen it yet. I went from there with my friend Julia Elmore to another gallery where a group exhibition was taking place, featuring works by Christine Sefolosha and it was an absolute joy to have Christine give us a tour of the show and to talk about her work. It meant a lot to me that Christine liked my work when I showed some of it to her. To get a genuine positive reaction from someone you look up to, there’s nothing quite like it. Both Christine and Ody were very friendly and supportive. I had a nice time chatting with Ody over a coffee the following day and then we went for some lunch with Laurent Danchin, which was very pleasant indeed. We spoke on various topics and it was a rather insightful experience. The following night my friend Anne-Cecile and I checked out the  party at the Halle st.Pierre celebrating the Raw Vision exhibition which was spectacular (and will be on until next August I believe!), and then on my last night I went to the party at the Christian Berst gallery and caught up with artist Cathy Ward and Jennie from Outside In while the Eugene von Burenchenhein photography show was in effect. I’ve got to send a special shout out to Rebecca Hoffman for making this great trip possible! Here’s a photo of Ody Saban and I.. and one I took of her with Laurent Danchin..

Portals

My solo exhibition at The Running Horse in Beirut. I’ve been working on spiral-based paintings for this show since last year, and I’ve been painting spirals for long enough to forget when that all began. I’ve been jotting down a lot of reflections on how this show came to be, what making spirals means to me, various observations about the spiral in nature, life, ‘art’, and in history in general. So, I really don’t feel like writing more about it right now! I could copy my notes into here.. it might make for excruciating reading. I will spare you for now I think. So the show opens very soon, what I’ll do is, I’ll write a next post all about it then..

Cashew soon..

Carlo.