Gay Paree ....

So here we are, back at college for a the last push before summer holidays (and wedding!). Easter has been lots of wedding planning (and avoiding college work) and a well deserved break with friends in Paris. Sunshine and I have both been before, so it was less about being touristy, and more about relaxing and chilling with friends. We hardly took any photos, spent a lot of time chatting and sitting in parks and being laid back. We were fed really well (by a French-chef-in-training), visited some super flea-markets (didn't buy anything though), but most exciting thing was that we visited THREE really good exhibitions:

Alexander Calder at the Pompidou


It was stunning - not just his mobiles, but also all this wireform work, especially the portraits, and his circus ... mmmm ... really my kind of thing ... (details here).

Also at the Pompidou was the Kandinsky retrospective:


This was even bigger than the Calder exhibition and covered his whole life ... Can't say we liked every bit of it - he seems to have done his best work when he was at the Bauhaus School. Still, it was good to see the progression, and how he got to where he got to ... and if his best work was in his 60s, there's hope for me yet!

But my favouritest exhibition of all has to be "The Jazz Century" ("Le Siecle du Jazz") at the Musee du Quai Branly:


Oh my goodness, there couldn't have been a happier bunny on the planet! We were fated to go there (I'd seen an ad in the inflight magazine, but also one of our hosts had decided they were going to take us as they thought we might like it...). It was a century of jazz, AND the visuals that accompanied it! Record covers; gig posters; short films; animations; paintings; drawings; all manner of art that was influenced by, and influenced Jazz. Lots of stuff I recognised, but lots of stuff new too me too. I was SO hugely inspired - want to do more jazzy things in my final year. I also desperately want the exhibition catalogue/book - its one of the best reference materials out there. Just waiting for an English version to come out (the French version was, well, French; and pricey considering the Euro to Pound exchange rate). I've taken lots of notes and will be looking LOTS of things up ...

Anyways, that was our Paris trip - this next week is heads down with essays, then full steam ahead till the beginning if June!