ART. Museums are currently closed in Paris because of the pandemic but, since a few years, certain department stores have exhibited artists. Le Bon Marché – one of the more elegant ones – situated in the centre of Paris, has exhibited world-famous artists, such as Ai Weiwei and Joana Vasconcelos, among others.

This year, the French sculptor, Prune Nourry, has made a gigantic installation best viewed from one of Andrée Putman’s elegant escalators. This nomadic artist, since 2011 based mostly in the USA, has come back to her home country to create this sculpture, specifically for the Bon Marché.

The artist was inspired by the mythological figures of the warrior amazons who supposedly cut off one of their breasts in order to be able to use the archer better. Nourry plays with the archer’s symbols and composes an installation with a target, in the form of a breast; an arc and arrows.

However, the symbols are double as they also represent breast (the target) cancer and the struggles (arrows) women undergo to fight it. In 2016, Prune was diagnosed with breast cancer that she’d bravely overcame. This exhibition is a homage to all women, and all benefits will go to cancer research. Her many engaged works, especially to forward women causes, has had her concentrating on female bodies.

Next to the store’s exit doors, a documentary film about her work can be viewed as well. In the film, we see how Prune Nourry collaborates with artisans and constantly tries out different materials to explore new techniques. She uses science to transform it into art. The notion of equilibrium is at the centre of her preoccupation, whether biological, ethical, ecological or the body, in correlation with the disease. It’s an introspective reflection.

A gigantic arc in wood has been placed at the centre of the store next to another scene with 888 arrows pointed towards what looks like an enormous breast. From death to life, as the arrows can also be understood as a battalion of spermatozoids on their way to an ovule and life creation. That reminded me of one of Woody Allens hilarious movies when he played a spermatozoid.

So there are many ways to view this fabulous work of art. The arrows and the book ”Aux Amazones” are for sale in favor of helping women with breast cancer. If anyone is interested, you can find out more about it here.

I do think that many of us have come to realize the importance of not only of science and research but also of art, during this on-going pandemic. Engaged artists can do so much to raise peoples consciousnesses. Let us hope that this difficult experience we’re all having will eventually lead to a more empathetic and united world.

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ART. A rare occasion to view Barbara Hepworth’s (1903-1975) works of art presents itself this winter at Musée Rodin, in collaboration with Tate. The museum is an ancient palace situated in a wonderfully kept garden. Some of the famous French sculptor, Auguste Rodin’s, works are displayed outside, but most of them are shown inside the palace. His pupil and muse, and to my mind at least, more sensitive sculptor, Camille Claudel, is exhibited there as well. Nevertheless, there is also an exhibition hall for temporary expositions, such as the one with Barbara Hepworth’s works (until March 22, 2020).    

Barbara Hepworth

Musée Rodin

77 rue de Varenne

75007 Paris

This contemporary of Henry Moore, Picasso and Mondrian, among others, brought a new and fresh ethical sense to sculpture. Barbara’s approach is inspired by the poetry of nature, resulting in organic sculptures of remarkable originality. It was difficult to refrain from caressing these pieces, displaying a woman’s sensitivity and sensuality. Only the severe glare of the guard refrained me from doing so.

Barbara Hepworth gained recognition in France during the interwar period. In the 1930s she discovered the European avant-garde with the recently founded “Abstraction-Création” movement. Sculptors such as Jean Arp, Alexander Calder and painters Robert Delaunay and George Braque invited her to exhibit with them.

The first exhibition room puts her work into context, showing several photographs of the sculptor working or contemplating, catalogues and smaller drawings. In the second room, the visitor gets an idea of her atelier with her tools etc. A movie also shows how she worked and polished her sculptures to their soft and smooth texture. It was filmed in St Ives, in Cornwall, where she had an atelier, and where the surrounding landscape by the sea continually inspired her.

Some paintings are present in the exhibition as well, but I was mostly taken by her sculptures that display a magical combination of inner vision, landscape and material. It is very actual in our times of ecological development and fossil-free world that many are striving towards. A back to nature movement we so desperately need starts with the heart: to value what we have and desire to keep it, we must first see and appreciate it. Barbara’s sculptures also serve that purpose.

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