Modern Art

On the day after finals, I woke up with the strangest feeling -- being in Paris with, for the first time in months, nothing pressing to do! I walked to the Centre Pompidou with my friend Derrick to see two special exhibits there, one of Kandinsky and one of Alexander Calder. On the way, I had the last glimpse of one of my favorite walks through Paris: from my apartmnet, past the Eiffel Tower and Ecole Militaire, through the park in front of Invalides, and over the river to Concorde and down Rue de Rivoli.

The Centre Pompidou is really interesting as a structure -- it is completely inside out, and has the "inner workings" of pipes and metal on the outside, in multi colors. The building is all glass and virtually see through, with panoramic views of the city. It houses the most modern art of the Paris museums.





The Kandinsky exhibit was interesting, and very bright and colorful. Kandinsky was a Russian artist who painted mostly in Paris and Munich, and reverted painting to its natural, basic form, of lines, shapes and simple colors. The works they had there mainly spanned his mid to later periods, and were very free and experimental. I definitely appreciate modern art more now that I've finished a course in impressionist art, and I felt very happy looking at some of his paintings. The colors and combinations of shapes were very interesting in a large part of the collection.







The Calder exhibit was fun to see, as well. Alexander Calder was an American artist who worked with wire. He transformed wire into creatures and sculptures, and it was cool to see some of his smaller pieces (the exhibit didn't have his huge mobiles). There were portraits done in wire, and an entire mini-circus that he created.

After the exhibits, I went home for a while and then our ACCENT group had our last organized dinner at an adorable restaurant close to Bastille and Gare de Lyon, down the street from the dorms we stayed in the first week. We've really come full circle and it was nice to say goodbye to everyone before they started heading off!