Paris Modernism 2008, GWU

The George Washington University ---- Paris, France

Professor Mary Buckley; GTAs Meghan Shea & Gabriella Wyatt

Using the museums and sites of Paris as resources, Paris: Modernism and the Arts, Then and Now offers a multi-disciplinary view of the aesthetic movements that changed the course of art and thought in Europe and elsewhere during the first half of the 20th century. The framework of the artistic past guides students as they design a photographic and literary journal of their experience. Students explore and document the contemporary artistic scene in theatre, dance, music, and the fine arts traditions of contemporary Paris, adding their own voice to this historical perspective.

To view Paris Modernism 2007 Summer Program visit, http://parismodernism2007.blogspot.com/
To view Paris Modernism 2006 Summer Program visit, http://parismodernism.blogspot.com

June 1, Arrivée

Students arrive throughout the morning to the Pension Ladagnous, Paris from NYC, Canada, DC, and LA. New friendships are established as rooms are prepared and everyone exchanges travel stories. At 1pm a first group explores the neighborhood with Meg & Gaby, orienting the students to the charming and intimate shops of the 6th arrondisement. Phone cards, metro cards and food locations are located. A later walk introduces the Jardin du Luxembourg and the temporary art exhibit, “Du vent dans les branches”. A picnic dinner at the Pension completes our first day.

June 2, Vlaminck Show at Musée de Luxembourg

The sun was shining in through the large framed windows casting a warm glow into the red lecture room. Our morning lecture beings with a discussion of selected course readings: Shock of the New, A Fine Disregard, and The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas. The class discussion allows us to begin creating our characteristics and frameworks for Modernism. Discussion of process, form, content, societal and historical influences are central to the discussion. The discussion is paired with images of artists’ work and video from the Ballet Russe.

After the morning lecture we walk across the street and enter the Luxembourg gardens to attend The Luxembourg Museum show Vlaminck. The retrospective of the Fauvist painter follows his artistic journey. It begins during his younger years, which are marked by bold color and saturation, and follows him through his shift to cubist landscapes and portraits. The show provided an immediate experiential way of deepening our understanding of ‘modern’ painters and modern techniques.

La Fille du rat mort, 1905


Nature morte au couteau, 1910

June 3, Musée d'Orsay

Professor Anne Catherine Abessis guided us through the Musée d'Orsay, a former railway station that now houses an incredible collection of paintings, sculpture, and photography from the late nineteenth through the early twentieth century. Like the building that houses it, much of the work at the Musée illustrates the artists' re-appropriation of the conventions of the past in surprising and challenging ways.

The lecture took as its frame the pivotal salon of 1863, and two nudes that were displayed that year. Why was Alexandre Cabanel's Birth of Venus praised by critics as the paragon of Classical sensibilities and good taste, while Manet's Olympia outraged and offended its viewers? Anne Catherine's discussion invited us to consider the ways in which culture and tradition inform how we perceive, and how the visual artists of the turn-of-the-century challenged convention by challenging accepted ways of rendering 'reality'. By situating works by Manet, Corbet, and Delacroix within their historical contexts, Anne Catherine helped us experience familiar works with the original force of their avant garde innovation.

June 4, Centre Pompidou & Théâtre de la ville

Professor Anne Catherine Abecassis met us at Centre Pompidou. The cultural institution, dedicated to modern and contemporary visual and performing arts, was designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, and opened in 1977. Anne Catherine’s thoughtful and lively lecture continued our art journey from early 20th century into the mid 1960s.





In the evening we were invited into a late 19th century family home on the edge of the Jardin Luxembourg. Marie, Jean Paul & their daughter, Ariane, with friend Josette, graciously hosted a beautifully arranged pre-theatre event.

This evening at Theatre de la Ville Akram Khan Dance Company performed Bahok, a work that explores what home means in a society in constant transit. A complex soundtrack supports richly layered movement and text. An overhead departure board reinforces the unfolding cultural stories performed by individuals and groups in highly technical and ordinary movement idioms.

June 5, Photography & Théâtres de la Cartoucherie

The morning lecture by Meghan Shea focused on the emergence of photography into the modernist movement. Accompanied by visuals and discussion the class considered the use of the darkroom, the development process, and the changing role of perspective. Photography exemplifies the cross medium collaboration that took place in Paris in the beginning half of the 20th century as photographers were heavily influenenced by the painters and performers and vice versa.

During the evening we traveled to Bois de Vincennes, which houses a collection of theater studios and dance companies, and includes multiple performance spaces Théâtres de la Cartoucherie. The evening included performances by Stuart Lynch- Concert Pour Solo Corps et Voix and Carolyn Carlson’s Hidden.

June 6, Professor Ulrike Kasper & Haussman Architecture

For the fashion capital of the world, it's no surprise that Paris has re-invented her own image throughout the centuries. Today, Sorbonne faculty member Professor Ulrike Kasper guided us through a tour of the modern Paris designed by the civil planner Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who renovated the city under Napoleon III. In place of the cramped streets, sprawling dwellings, and archaic sanitation systems of Medieval Paris, Haussmann is responsible for its modern-day broad boulevards, as well as the Neo-classical design of the Opera Garnier and Arc de Triomphe. Ulrick led us through the long, covered passages or pavilions that house small shops and connect boulevards while circumventing the bustle of the Paris streets. These removed pavilions were imagined in modern novels and poetry as worlds apart, and spaces in which an individual might enter through one end as one person, and exit through another as an entirely re-imagined self. Leading us through many of these pavilions, and past the Louvre, and Royal Palace, Ulrich re-created for us the feeling of time-travel that writers she referred to must have felt, pointing out moments of architectural collision between old and new, and pointing out unexpected glimpses of an older Paris just beneath the surface. At the beginning of the tour, we all admired Paris as a beautiful city; by the end we had a greater appreciation for its multiplicity and capacity for transformation.