<br />AMELIE CHABANNES - FRAGMENTS Galerie Hussenot <i>by French_In_America</i>

New York City Based French Artist Amelie Chabannes takes her latest exhibition to Paris.

“FRAGMENTS”
From the 28th Of April to the 6th of June 2011

Opening thursday the 28th of April 2011
5 pm

Galerie Hussenot
5 bis, rue des Haudriettes
75003 PARIS
T : +33(0)1 4887 6081 – info@galeriehussenot.com – www.galeriehussenot.com

Amélie Chabannes / Fragments
Texte de Julie Boukobza
La première exposition personnelle d’Amélie Chabannes à la galerie Hussenot à Paris est constituée d’une somme de « Fragments ». Dans « l’Archéologie du Savoir », Michel Foucault évoque « ce qui transforme les documents en monuments ». Chabannes empreinte les façons de l’archéologue, cherche et devient l’objet de sa quête. Elle évoque les grottes de Chauvet, comme Paul Thek en son temps les catacombes de Palerme. Sculpture après sculpture, strate après strate, elle enfouit, dégage, excave et replonge les matériaux, animaux, traces et vestiges. L’identité, plus que la quête de l’autre, est le prétexte utilisé par l’artiste pour expérimenter et forger une pratique protéiforme. Entre sa fascination pour le Lagerstatte, lieu de conservation des fossiles, et son obsession pour le couple que formait le peintre Kokoschka et Alma Mahler, femme à hommes du XIXème siècle, Amélie Chabannes réalise des oeuvres à sa mesure. La biométrie est transformée en arme pour préserver l’identité de l’artiste à travers ses sculptures, dessins et installations. Les amours tempêtueuses de Kokoschka et Alma font l’objet de dessins au calque ou les corps se mélangent, où l’artiste s’immisce dans ce pas de deux, quand la fusion prend le pas sur le sentiment amoureux. Les visages en plâtre décomposés rappellent les travestissements multiples et autres brouillages de pistes de Leigh Bowery, contenus dans un carré de plexiglas. L’artiste décrit ces boîtes comme des « espaces mentaux ». Même espace dans lesquels évolue une autre forme, le clitoris, l’organe féminin par excellence, libéré de ses fonctions. Au creux d’une sculpture on découvre parfois des apparitions de Betty Page ou Linda Lovelace, des visages de femmes archétypales des années 50 à 70. La notion d’identité sexuelle ne cesse en effet de rattraper l’artiste et de questionner l’aliénation qu’elle représente pour les femmes. La méduse, forme libre, nageuse et sexuée, fait aussi partie de ce bestiaire empêché, présence impossible à définir, tout aussi animale que végétale. Des chapelets dégoulinent de plâtre sur le carcan de l’identité religieuse. Amélie Chabannes vit à New York, ville en passe de devenir un vaste terrain de fouille, avec l’influence de Urs Fischer, Matthew Day Jackson, David Altmedj comme fiers étendards d’un retour à l’ordre antique. Identité sociale, sexuelle, religieuse, ou le « get over yourself » répété par Thek à maintes reprises dans ses carnets. A Chabannes de sacrifier le lustre et la porcelaine familiale pour en finir avec les conventions sociales liées à un milieu figé. Un index en cire pointe l’une de ces sculptures stratifiées, la main de l’architecte semblant avoir remplacée celle de l’artiste l’espace d’un instant, afin de constater l’œuvre déjà accomplie.

Great article in the WSJ.

Mr. Henry can't quite put his finger on what it is about New York that he finds so seductive. Part of it is the sports scene—he is a rare example of someone who can explain third downs, double plays, pick and rolls, and the offsides rule, all in French. He expects to become a fixture at Madison Square Garden, where he has friends on the court and courtside. Spike Lee, practically the mayor of the Garden's sideline, was a devout Arsenal fan during the Henry era. And the Knicks' new French signing, Ronny Turiaf, numbers among Mr. Henry's closest friends—he even attended his introductory news conference at Red Bull Arena, in Harrison, N.J., towering above the crowd of reporters to snap pictures of his buddy.

Great story about petanque on NPR
 

The people playing are old, young and from everywhere. Biltsted points out players. "I'm from Denmark, we have a British guy, we have French people, of course. We have probably 17 to 19 different nationalities." The president of this local petanque club, which is called La Boule New Yorkaise, is Ernesto Santos.

Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect - The Drawing Center NYC

Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary explores the fundamental role of drawing in the work of Greek avant-garde composer Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001). A leading figure in twentieth century music, Xenakis was trained as a civil engineer, then became an architect and developed revolutionary designs while working with Le Corbusier. Comprised of nearly 100 documents created between 1953 and 1984, this is the first North American exhibition dedicated to Xenakis’s original works on paper. Included are rarely-seen hand-rendered scores, architectural drawings, conceptual renderings, pre-compositional sketches, and graphic scores. Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary is co-curated by Xenakis scholar Sharon Kanach and critic Carey Lovelace and will travel to the Canadian Centre for Architecture (June 17 – October 17, 2010) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (November 7, 2010 – February 13, 2011).

January 15 — April 8, 2010 
Hours: 2-4pm 
Location: The Drawing Center 35 Wooster Street 
Phone Number: (212) 219-2166 
Website: www.drawingcenter.org <http://www.drawingcenter.org/>

New York: Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century at MoMA

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) is one of the most original, accomplished, influential, and beloved figures in the history of photography. His inventive work of the early 1930s helped define the creative potential of modern photography, and his uncanny ability to capture life on the run made his work synonymous with “the decisive moment”—the title of his first major book. After World War II (most of which he spent as a prisoner of war) and his first museum show (at MoMA in 1947), he joined Robert Capa and others in founding the Magnum photo agency, which enabled photojournalists to reach a broad audience through magazines such as Life while retaining control over their work. In the decade following the war, Cartier-Bresson produced major bodies of photographic reportage on India and Indonesia at the time of independence, China during the revolution, the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death, the United States during the postwar boom, and Europe as its old cultures confronted modern realities. For more than twenty-five years, he was the keenest observer of the global theater of human affairs—and one of the great portraitists of the twentieth century. MoMA’s retrospective, the first in the United States in three decades, surveys Cartier-Bresson’s entire career, with a presentation of about three hundred photographs, mostly arranged thematically and supplemented with periodicals and books. The exhibition travels to The Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53^rd St.
New York, NY 10019
(212) 708-9400

Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (8 p.m. Fridays). Closed Tuesdays.
Exhibit runs April 11, 2010 to June 28, 2010

The Caravan Palace is quickly becoming one of the top international electro-swing bands. They played at our wedding back in 2006 and are currently on tour for the first time in the US. Check them out!

Thibaut Estellon a.k.a. The French Creative Connection shares a place in our hearts, as a leading purveyor of French Creatives here in New York City. We applaud his effort to help push the "French in America" cultural exchange in the right direction and we encourage you to read his blog often. We will be highlighting many of his blog posts and we hope that you enjoy his latest portrait of Artiste: Amelie Chabannes. (my wife)

Last night my wife Amelie and I attended Raimund Hoghe's, Boléro Variations at The Dance Theater Workshop. This was his premiere tour in the US and this fact created major excitement throughout the theater. People were extremely elated, especially the theater loyalists. After finding out that Homeland Security would not allow one of the French performers to enter the states, because of "passport issues", we were presented with a strong piece of organic, honest and vulnerable art. In my mind this was not a performance, but an art piece. The reason I make this distinction is because to view this as a performance, would not set your frame of reference properly. Many people where not prepared for the deliberate pacing and freedom that the piece established from the very beginning. I for one had difficulty dealing with the first act due to the fact that most of the things you see in this city are set to entertain the audience. We are not used to a slow pace, slow makes us uncomfortable, it's almost a dirty word. When you speak about pace, you start to think about performance, when you think about art you lose the reference of pace. If you where in a museum and were looking at something that unfolded at it's own pace, you probably wouldn't make judgments about the timing. It is when you are seated in a theater, where the elements of time and audience engagement are considered. These things are difficult to grapple with when you witness something like Boléro Variations, that doesn't even consider time on purpose. Overall, the experience was refreshing, unique and moving. The beauty and strength of the piece where exceptional. I hope that you all can see it tonight and let us know what you think!

Performer and choreographer Raimund Hoghe’s work questions conceptions of difference and expectations of the dancing body, advocating inclusive views of humanity and acceptance and celebration of self and others.

Created in Paris in 2007 and co-presented with Dance Theater Workshop, Boléro Variations features the music of Ravel’s Boléro, folksongs, and the soundtrack from the TV broadcast of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean’s ice-dancing performance at the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo.

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