Or maybe he just likes to play…
Mister P times three
François Poisson works and plays at 59 rue de Rivoli.
He shares clay and paint,
and will make room for you at his table
if you’re nice.
So much happened since I last posted, it has left me at times without words, but now I’ll find them.
Front door of 59Rivoli on May 15, 2010
On my birthday, les Omnis arrived in Paris. Beautiful coincidence.
Poets, artists, musicians.
From Cuba, on a European tour.
An extension of their Festival de Poesia Sin Fin.
Friends of my friend Sara Roumette (journalist who spent much time in Cuba), it was arranged that they use my studio at 59 rue de Rivoli for one of their performances because the gallery was occupied by Ruban Vert. The magic of photo studios, you can transform them into anything you want. I was thrilled to be useful.
Amaury standing on his head, in the pot that he wears there, which reads in Spanish, 'this is not a casserole.'
From the moment Nilo, Amaury and Luis Eligio walked in (a 4th member didn’t get permission to leave Cuba), I could see these people were awake, alive, excited, participating in life with full hearts. They’ve worked together for 15 years, have friends all around the world and connect directly, hands-on. People so open are a strong contrast in Paris.
Luis Eligio, makes eye-contact with everyone, after each piece of clothing that he takes off on the sidewalk in front of 59.
Amaury and Nilo wrap Luis in Cuban newspapers so that he can barely move...
...nor talk, nor see
Performance continues upstairs with projections, poetry, music.
Amaury and Nilo
That evening after their performance it took us three hours to walk just over two miles. Everything was new for them, and their interaction with it was energizing for us.
After Paris, they went to Barcelona and there the trip was cut short. Papers. Bureaucracy. A premature return to Cuba. If that wasn’t disappointing enough, they just sent out an email with recent news. When they arrived in Havanna they were “randomly” searched (all three of them) and all of their belongings were confiscated : disk drives, computers, memory cards, cameras, poems, paintings, all images from their tour, all of their work and private correspondence. For 30 days their belongings will be held hostage.
Poets, artists, strip-searched and held for six hours. For what? For thinking differently? For behaving as free-thinkers? For inspiring people in Amsterdam, Denmark, Prague, Paris and Barcelona?
Thousands of kilometers away, this leaves me feeling helpless.
' ' Libres ' '
http://omnizonafrancaen.eltinterocolectivo.com/
Avenue Laumiere is dressed in violet, top to bottom.
My favorite tree is blooming, and forever back-lit. Research determines it to be a Paulownia tomentosa, introduced in Europe via Japan in 1834. This makes me love it even more.
My dancing tree
On my way down to the metro, I collect the cadaver blooms that have fallen.
I take out the Polaroid camera, and in the milli-second that my bag is open, a violet flower gets sucked in by the wind.
Pola in cadavers
I wait on the corner for the pola to develop and I take out the digital.
I love the polaroid so much, I have to photograph the photograph.
The Polaroid Impulse in action on rue de Meaux
I think of giving someone the polaroid, but I’m not ready to break my attachment to it.
I decide to think about it a while.
Instead, I give these violet buds to kind Mr. B. at the internet/telephone shop. B is for Bangladesh, his native city. He thinks I’m an architect because the day I met him, I was on my way to an interior architecture shoot.
Despite the suspicious look, he seemed very happy to receive my rescued flowers.
A suspicious Mr. B.
I was on my way to the studio yesterday and got side-tracked with the May 1st parade. I thought I’d just stop by really quick and check it out. Yeah, sure. I stayed several hours and never made it to the studio.
Dancing for Tamil Eelam to be recognized as independent from Sri Lanka. In front of the arches at Strasbourg St. Denis.
When so many people are in the street, the energy and diversity of people are irresistible. I’m not the best manif photographer. Not like my friend Gaelic, who I ran into today (and has been shooting May Day for years). He is up there within inches of faces with a 12-24mm. It’s a rare occasion that I feel bold enough to get that close without a conversation first. Yet I’ve seen probably all of my male photog friends walk right up close and shoot without a word. They claim their space, their role, with an apparent confidence I sometimes envy. I don’t know many female photogs unfortunately, and it’s too easy to wonder if this approach has something to do with having a penis. I don’t like to generalize. But I do wonder.
'For us, retirement is at the age of 60!'
I think I’m more subtle, and the intimacy of these situations is one reason why the manif is so irresistible. Everyone is close, squeezing, shouting and dancing through the street. You walk along with Kurds, communists, feminists, Jeunes Socialistes selling roses, Iranians announcing that organization of any kind puts you in prison. Everyone is labeled with their cause, telling an important story.
At Place de la République, a boy leans on a van next to a poster of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez looking very paternal, and request for release of five Cubans detained in the United States
Girl walking with the Paraguay-Uruguay-Bolivia crowd
'A woman is raped every 10 minutes' So if I spent, let's say, 4 hours at the parade, that means...
'In Iran, organizing leads to prison.' The word prison was on ALL of their signs
Growing up in the “Greater Chicagoland Area” as I did, I don’t remember the Labor Day parades. I think we just grilled big pieces of meat in the backyard and shot hoops in the driveway. Sometimes it’s challenging to really comprehend that all of these events happen on the same planet, at the same time.
Sometimes, when you think life can’t get any better, a piano rolls through the door and everything changes.
Thursday night’s vernissage of Vagabond Gallery’s Barbès Pas Grave II found us painting on Gaki and dancing to rag-time. TOUT est possible à Paris, don’t listen to Parisiens who say otherwise.
The list of creatives showing work included myself, Gaki, Adulkid, Yasuyo Iso, Kana Ueno, Etsuko Kobayashi, Sebastien Lecca, Kim Quach and Michel Vray.
Vincent Ange, Vagabond curator and catalyst. Vagabond entrance.
My wall of photos.
Kim Quach and Pascal Foucart watch as Yasuyo preps Gaki.
Gaki-zen
Gaki-zen getting cold on cement floor as we paint on him.
Sebastien Lecca, Kim Quach and Etsuko Kobyashi painting.
Slowly getting up from the collaboration, he finishes the painting, adds glue and other elements to the void where his body had been.
Gaki rechauffé, with Michel Vray.
During a pause in the action, I’m talking to a German artist about her self-explorations in super-8 while someone orders a piano.
Turns out, Philippe Bas doesn’t go anywhere without his upright.
And I thought my camera bag was heavy.
At least I don’t have to worry about parking.
The excitement and anticipation, while he pushes his piano into place, makes it feel like Christmas morning with Saint Nick making a surprise personal visit. And he hadn’t even played anything yet! Somehow we knew.
This music just makes people HAPPY.
Philippe Bas playing stride lit a fire under this woman.
Piano and good times
At 59 we sometimes paint on the walls.
Tonight the artist hosted by our gallery painted in the street.
Emmanuel Flipo likes to throw pigments to the wind.
Gaki arrives through a cloud of Flipo's performance
Flipo draws in the street in front of the 59 Rivoli gallery
Flipo making his déssin on rue de Rivoli
Flipo’s exhibition will be on view in the gallery until May 2nd.
59 rue de Rivoli, 75001. Paris.
Back from the sea with burnt forehead.
I moved my studio today.
By the grace of coincidence I’m taking over a small space just next to my old one at 59 Rivoli, that has been prematurely liberated. I will have a corner! I’ve been working in a rather small space, though I am quite used to working in closets. This one was basically a hallway.
Left-to-right, it was . . .
Back-left corner is where I'll now be working. The wall of photos is in the space where I've been the last several months
The full width of my space/hallway/studio, between the the walls. You can see the orange backside of a painting by Bruno Dumont that hangs in front of the entrance to the 4th floor. In the corner there is also the old bathroom door, provocatively painted by Hao, recuperated from the squat days.
The wall between my and Aliocha's studio. The b&w collage is staying, and growing. The other photos and black background are gone. Francesco's studio is in the distance, with his Don Quixote de la Mancha on the far wall.
It’s lovely
It creates colorful, reflective eye-candy,
A bunch of bling-bling on the windows.
It turns the sky all shades of purple, blue and brown
You see it reflected at your feet,
the direction you turn to shelter your head…
Because it spits in your face
and wets your pants,
it makes odd odors surface
from old winter coats.
It finds the holes in your boots
and quickens your step,
postpones the spring skirt,
sends a chill up your back.
Yet
It is lovely,
if only for that nearing break in the clouds
where the sun will re-appear
while the rain still falls.
Spring night lights
The Vagabond Gallery is back!
For five days only, and with more events possibly to follow.
Tonight it opened with the usual suspects from 59 rue de Rivoli, plus a good crowd of friends and colleagues. The nomadic event is held in temporarily unused spaces in Paris and transformed for short-periods into a gallery. Terry Milgrom and Vincent Ange are the primary organizers, but it takes a village of artists to make it happen.
This one will be around until Sunday, with the finissage being Saturday night.
98 rue Doudeauville, 75018, Metro Château Rouge
Bruno Dumont sits underneath one of his paintings, with Suisse Marocain and Michel Vray, in the store-front section of the current Vagabond Gallery at 98 rue Doudeauville, Paris
The store-front Vagabond Gallery space at 98 rue Doudeauville contains works from Bruno Dumont, Etsuko Kobyashi, Suisse Marocain, Francesco10 and Sebastien Lecca
Artist Etsuko Kobyashi in front of Barbès-Pas Grave
Artist Emmanuel Flipo in front of the piece he made for the Vagabond Gallery
Michel Vray, neon-lit
La grande espace....on standby to find out who did the neon lights...
Suisse Marocain: one of the curators of Barbès - Pas Grave
Art installation, live music, beautiful solid stone walls...
I love these lights, must get some...
L'Amour in front of Suisse's painting, C'est Pas Grave
Vincent Ange, a procurer of space and one of the creators of the Vagabond Gallery
Le Suisse Marocain, such a flirt
 |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |