Joana Vasconcelos….

During our trip to Paris last month, the Partner and I made the pre-requisite visit to the Palace of Versailles as any good tourist should!  Truth be told, this was my second visit to the Palace, however my first visit consisted of a 45 minute mad dash through the main grounds due to poor planning we ended up showing up an hour before it closed!  Needless to say my memories of the space are fuzzy (or blurry) at best, so it was a treat to be able to revisit the spaces and really spend time lingering in each of the rooms and strolling the grounds.

During my visit, I was lucky enough to be introduced to work of French artist Joana Vasconcelous, who is currently based out of Lisbon.  According to her bio, her work is,

…based on the appropriation, decontextualisation and subversion of pre-existent objects and everyday realities. Starting out from ingenious operations of displacement, a reminiscence of the ready-made and the grammars of Nouveau Réalisme and pop, the artist offers us a complicit vision, but one which is at the same time critical of contemporary society and the several features which serve the enunciations of collective identity, especially those that concern the status of women, class distinction or national identity. From this process there derives a speech which is attentive to contemporary idiosyncrasies, where the dichotomies of hand-crafted/industrial, private/public, tradition/modernity and popular culture/erudite culture are imbued with affinities that are apt to renovate the usual fluxes of signification which are characteristic of contemporaneity.

Translated she appropriates commonly found items and places them in contexts that highlight and celebrates them.  Breaking it down even further, she takes helicopters and puts peacock feathers on it and puts in Versailles…..

For several years, the foundation that oversees Versailles, invites contemporary artists to create installation pieces for the grounds that not only showcase the artist’s work but speaks to the past of the Palace.  Vasconcelos created a variety of whimsical and simply amazing installations speaking to the excess of the royal court, using her approach of using appropriated objects and putting them in context…..

The installation is amazing – it is bold, beautiful and at times simply funny.  Honestly, the crocheted lobster had my giggling long with the rest of the visitors. But upon inspection, you come to understand that crochet has a long history between France and Spain with the lobster representing the excess of food that was prevalent to the royal court when the rest of France and Spain was starving.  It is this subtle story telling through the use of figure and materials that I loved.

Should you have the opportunity to visit Versailles, I recommend it if for nothing else but to see Joana Vasconcelos’s installation.  As I fondly reminiscence about Paris, I am also battling a to do list that grows longer by the minute.  I think it may be time to start planning that next vacation…..

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Vacation: Technical Difficulties…

We made it to Aix-En-Provence today from the wedding in the French countryside. The wedding was seriously two magical days, simply amazing, and beautiful.  My friend Ines was a stunning bride and was able to bridge the divides between her African, French and American counterparts – the food, the champagne (oh the champagne!), dancing and the miniature hot air balloons at the end of the night – it was perfection.

Sadly, I can’t really show you any of this because my internet connection at our hotel in Aix-En-Provence is a LAN line which is slower than a snail for uploading photos.  Couple that with I have zero patience thanks to a crazy upper respiratory infection I picked up in Paris and this puppy is done for the moment.

However, I was able to upload one photo of the view from our hotel room here in Aix-En….

I am hoping that two days of R&R here in the South of France will help me fight this infection and give me more energy.  If nothing else, I can work on my tan to give the impression I am healthy….

For the next two days, the best way to catch glimpses of my time in the South of Spain is via  Facebook and  Twitter .  Okay I am off to chug Rhinathiol – I don’t know what it is but it tastes like vanilla, stops my coughing and isn’t available in the US – all positive things in my book!

Salute!

Vacation: Days 8-9 – Barcelona to Paris…

Bonjour!

I find myself in the City of Lights for the next three days – yes my friends, I have made it to Paris!  While I loved Spain, I absolutely adore France and could not be happier to be here.  We finished our last day in Barcelona with a trip to the Olympic Village nestled into the city’s hills that played home to the 1992 Summer Olympics.  The complex is within a larger municipal park that holds the city’s former military fort and the Miro museum.   The views from the fort are some of the best in the city and can easily be had for about 9 euros round trip via cable car…

After the trip to the Village, we went back to the hotel, packed up and  headed to the train station.  We arrived early this morning (Wednesday) via an overnight train from Barcelona…

There is something romantic about the dining cars, sleeping in bunk beds to the gentle swaying of the tracks and being forced to leisurely pass time with The Partner.  However, all of that quickly changes when you realize at 7:30am that you need a shower, your hair looks like a rat nest and you can’t check into your hotel until 3:00pm and it’s only 9:30am.

So what does a boy when faced with such a dilemma?  Well this one opted to throw care to the wind and just go with it – rat nest hair and all!  We dropped our luggage off at the hotel (Mon Hotel) and toured the chic bottom level.  On a side note, I am in LOVE with our hotel.  It makes me happy.  It makes my giddy.  It makes me want to figure out a way to move in permanently….

Located on a side street in the 16th Arrondissement, the hotel is centrally located for all the things we wanted to do but isn’t dead smack in the middle of tourist “chaos”.  Each of the 36 rooms has a small terrace (yup that is my view from the room) and is equipped with an espresso machine.  While not a big deal to you, by the espresso machine has already been put to use ….twice.

After our quick tour, we started walking, hitting the Arc de Triumph, the Opera House, Eiffel Tour and Galeries Lafayette with its four levels of high-end men’s shopping.

We finished the afternoon with a delicious lunch at the cafeteria at the Galeries Lafayette – yes we ate lunch at the store cafeteria and I have never had better quiche.  Besides, they have a soda machine that dispenses red wine – RED WINE PEOPLE!  Do you know this was a game changer?!?  Well that and the 84 varieties of yogurt.

American yogurt doesn’t hold a candle to any of this stuff.  It’s tangy, delicious, unpasteurized jars of freakin’ goodness and I plan on drowning in it!

Okay, time for a nap and a shower – then off to meet some friends for drinks!

Au revoir!

Wanna see what I am doing on vacation? Catch me on Facebook and  Twitter for updated details.