From a Kitchen in Kassel

Hello from a kitchen in Kassel!

Yes, a letter about Paris from a kitchen in Germany; how I ended up here is related to the matter at hand.

Prepare yourself for Paris as best you can, because no matter how prepared you are, if it’s your first time to the city, there are just some things you can’t even imagine to anticipate. It’s crushing, fast-paced, potent, and charmed—and that is just the city itself—combine that with the course and there are few words that describe it better than the word “whirlwind”. 

Even when our day was dedicated to one place or theme, the experience is so concentrated and we’re absorbing so much, that afterwards my head would feel heavy and floaty all at once. My mind would whir away with information and sensory overload, so having a plan to help you process through your experience can be crucial. 

Take advantage of the view—Paris loves to show off its city, whether sky high up in Notre Dame or out the window of a local café, Paris is about seeing and watching the world around you. 

Chris and Eric pack in a lot to do, and they are mindful of offering items and excursions for people from all majors and interests, but they can’t take you everywhere, so you have to be willing to seek out what interests you if it’s not in the curriculum. 

Push yourself to try new things, whether it’s as adventurous as trying escargot or something as simple as trying out your spotty French at a local patisserie—an approximation of the words and hand gestures can go a long way, though nothing is more invaluable than being polite and giving it a go. Challenge yourself in regard to the course, because Chris and Eric will no doubt push you to see and think in ways you may not be familiar with. 

Drink lots of coffee, eat more pastries than necessary, and wave at people from the metro trains; always depart with a bon journeé or bon soireé. Discover an artist you’ve never heard of before and pick them apart and put them back together. 

Have at least one group dance party and don’t worry if you never make it to the Eiffel Tower, you’ll always find it in the skyline. 

Bring comfortable shoes for miles of walking—that’s not really a suggestion. 

Your map is also pretty invaluable with its suggestions on places to go and its map of the metro

Research the free days and events throughout the city; Paris has a lot of great opportunities to experience things without paying a lot. Find a neighborhood you like and visit it as many times as you can—though it’s nice to try and visit as many places as once, frequent trips to the same place has just as much potential for new discoveries. My personal favorite was Le Marais—lots of independently owned shops, galleries, and book stores—check out the galleries and shops on rue Quincampoix.

Have a plan for your post-trip aftercare, whether you return to the States right away or continue with your travels, plan for a chance to decompress and reflect on your time in Paris. My route was to continue travelling—visiting friends in Germany and returning to my favorite places in Ireland—I knew I couldn’t return right away with a head full of thoughts and ideas, this additional travel has allowed me to put Paris in perspective outside its city limits. If you return home right away, plan some time to treat yourself with your favorite things you might have missed while you were abroad. 

Don’t take the opportunity for granted—whatever your experience of the trip or the city, you’ll have had a tremendous opportunity to travel somewhere most people haven’t and seen things even fewer people have seen, that’s a remarkable thing. Home will always be there when you get back, and it’s never far away even on a shoddy internet connection, so plant yourself in the place you find yourself and see what chance you have to grow.

From a kitchen in Kassel, this is Tanya signing off.

Labyrinth of Art

When you have to display some of the largest and most prestigious collections in the world, often times in buildings repurposed for this new intention, it’s no wonder your museum often ends up being like a maze. It’s been calculated out how long it would take, non-stop, to look at every work of art in the Louvre, and let’s just say it’s longer than we had for this trip as a whole. I suppose it’s no wonder, then, that people just cruise around from gallery to gallery snapping pictures like it’s pokemon (“gotta catch ‘em all”), instead of taking their time with a few selected pieces. I think I saw more people look at their view screens than I saw people look at the art. Not that I think everything needed to be looked at and fawned over, but what is an experience of art if you walk around blinded by your camera and directed by a premeditated destination? This is where I have to stop and consider what a privilege it is that I have had any time in my life to spend at the Louvre, and that I had experienced it for the first time with a group of people who weren’t hell bent on dragging me to the predetermined hotspots. 

I had a chance to wander and discover what genuinely caught my interest. The Louvre really does offer a lot of beautiful moments, and not all of them have to do with the art. Up on the top floor in the Richelieu Wing, in some of the galleries, there are inset windows large enough to sit in that look out over the courtyard and gardens. It’s lovely opportunity to exist around the art that surrounds you in turn without it necessarily demanding your attention. 

It was this chance to wander and discover at my own pace that lead me to finding a captivating portrait of Gustave Lucien Dennery by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. In a gallery done up much like a salon, a modest-sized painting hung amongst several other portraits. His formal dress and shoe-clad feet belie his casual reclining pose. His gaze is confident as he looks out at the viewer—I found myself wondering if he had wanted his portrait done or if he was asked to sit when he was least prepared for it.

I wasn’t the only one intrigued by him, I saw several people pause in front of him, inspecting the nameplate and looking at a man who seems to only exist in posterity thanks to this painting. Perhaps it was his reclining pose, so uncommon for a male sitter, at least in the context of the rest of the Louvre or it was his engaging gaze or his black shoes and bowler hat, but he seemed out of place, and all the more interesting. 

Not long after leaving the gallery and the portrait behind, I felt quite out of place myself. Trying to find my way back to the center room beneath the pyramid was apparently not as simple of a task as I had thought. I soon found myself lost in Ancient Egypt, but still no closer to the pyramid I was trying to find. Each exist I tried to take some how lead me back to a place I had just left, and since it is the Louvre and space is seeming infinite, just walking to the end of one way wasn’t an option. I was too turned around by one point I couldn’t even retrace my steps. Once I finally found the necessary exit signs, I made my way out as quickly as I could, when I finally emerged, I exited from a completely different wing than the one I had entered; it’s no wonder I was so turned around. It was an unforgettable experience in a labyrinth of art.

The View

Paris is the city of the view.

At first thought, seemingly not unlike any other large city perhaps. You think about all those tall buildings in Chicago and New York and you imagine there’s a great view from such a vantage point. Paris is different though—it’s not about how high up can we get you, it’s about what will you see once you’re up there. They’re aren’t actually that many towering structures within the majority of the city limits, and any that you can see stick out like faithful landmarks that they are. It really isn’t about how high up you can get, but what you’re able to look at while you’re up there. And it isn’t just the major buildings, it’s every building. You see it all around you, French windows open up to allow you the chance to lean out and watch the world. People step out onto their balconies or sit in their window sills and just watch what passes by. Looking out onto the world is one more opportunity to understand it. The view may not always be beautiful (though it usually is), but it is always arresting. 

Just like Milwaukee is best seen from the Lake, Paris is best seen from above the horizon line.

Paris also has a particular view at ground level as well. They’ll set chairs around just about anything (fountains, gardens, etc.) just for the enjoyment of the view. Almost every café has rows and rows of seats and tables set outdoors. The chairs of the cafés are not placed cloistered around the table but face outwards, not only so that the world is opened to you, but so that you might be open to the world. At any moment you can place sit yourself down, order your espresso and enjoy the real-time “movie” that happens before you.

The Sphinx--cast and carved

She beckons you from her corner atop her pedestal; the flirtation curve of her body is hardly longer than a foot. The tilt of her head could be curious or knowing. She is as sprite-like in her demeanor as she is in her stature—certainly not the typical impression one has when one thinks of the Sphinx.

This little model at the Rodin Museum seems typical in his approach—feminine forms titled with names of mythical creatures—the titles are used to suggest and inform the viewer of a possible quality of the figure, rather than depicting the figure as the mythic beast in question so that the form overpowers the read. Rodin played with perceptions of the figure, especially that of the feminine, often imbuing figures, which might as well have functioned as portraits, with symbolic qualities and genderswapping from creature to creature. All things considered it’s hard to say whether he had much of a positive consideration for the feminine form, but her certainly paid it a great deal of attention. 

I was quite taken with the curious depiction of the fabled Sphinx (no parts of her seeming beastly), so it was especially curious when I came across several other surprising depictions of the infamous creature while at the musée d’Orsay in the special exhibit "The Angel of the Odd: Dark Romanticism from Goya to Max Ernst". Another model version of a larger piece, Christian Behrens’s Sphinx sets a whole other tone for the beast in question. Instead of sculpting a lone figure, Behrens’s sculpture depicts a charged scene between Oedipus and the Sphinx locked in a brutal, unforgiving kiss.

Needless to say, I don’t remember that part of the story.

It wasn’t the only work in the exhibition that depicted a kiss between the riddle-master and the “hero”; clearly the Symbolist drew a great deal of inspiration from the formidable embrace of the wise and mysterious Sphinx, no doubt casting themselves as the hapless man willing to subject themselves to this dangerous creature. 

Both depictions are striking, curious, and indubitably contain commentary on role of the feminine figure in art, mythical or otherwise. Where Rodin used the title of the piece to imply certain characteristics intended to be read in the piece, Behrens’s sculpture depended more heavily on the symbolic (no surprise there) nature of the scene depicted to convey an overarching theme of the price of knowledge

 

Looking forward/looking back

Maison La Roche is a house that is easy to see in. By seeing I mean, that it is a house whose interior comes together into almost effortless composition that give due credit to Le Corbusier’s masterful skill with a clean line. Though when we were given the assignment to take photos in the house that represented Le Corbusier’s sensibilities as a painter (pictures previously posted), I like everyone else had a hard time pulling my eye away from his clean lines in order to find the painter/sculptor’s eye amongst them. The flow of inspiration between Le Corbu’s architecture and his artwork is fascinating, and when you’ve had an opportunity to spend time in house like we were able to, you begin to see how those sensibilities match up and overlap. 

There was a similar occurrence at the Maison de Verre—it was pointed out that Pierre Chareau, a man with a discipline in interior architecture design, approached the design of the house of Madame Dalsace more like an interior or a piece of furniture than necessarily an exterior building. Whether that is the case or not, whatever drove him to push the possibilities of the façade and the interior of the house, it is quite the marvel. Once again, it was a distinct pleasure to see inside this house; though the residence wasn’t quite so spare (since it still is a private home) and it wasn’t a house of clean white lines, there were still elements of the house that were charming and had a strong compositional flow. 

The things that struck me about both places were these attempts to imbue social ideology into the design of the house. For Chareau, starting with something as simple as having everyone, visitor-patient-service, use the same entrance; for Le Corbusier, envisioning a whole new approach to architecture so that the world might have a renewed outlook after the devastation of World War I. Learning about the concepts behind their design decisions helped ground my appreciation for what I was seeing; it was no longer just an aesthetic quality I was responding to but the quality of the design’s transformative potential.

I can hear the bells*

Each church we entered, I anointed myself and lit a candle.

It was in deference to many things—out of habit of the ritual, out of respect to my mother and her beliefs, and out of deference for entering a place in order to interact with it contrary to its purpose, as a spectator and secular observer.

Nonetheless, the ritual was familiar and I even managed a ‘hail mary’—it seemed the least I could do.

As with so many other places in Paris, when you find yourself up against one of the most significant spectacles in the western world and one of the greatest cathedrals in Europe, you try to find something to ground you—for me I feel grounded when I can spot the flaws and absurdities. Just like Dorothy, I follow my dog and look for the man behind the curtain. Not that I think there is anyone particular individual responsible for the madness that flocks around Notre Dame, though undoubtedly there is someone benefitting from the gains of the gift shop.

No matter how strange it felt to shuffle past those seated for prayer in Notre Dame, it didn’t feel like nearly as great of an intrusion as it did as the some of the smaller churches we visited. There was no longer the din of the crowd to cover the sound of our footsteps and the clack of our shutters; though we may have not been the only visitors, our presence was undeniable. I thought a bit about the church I attended when I was growing up, modest with its wood pews and abstracted stain glass, architecture diluted and muted for the practicality of a working class town. Though the churches were free and open to the public, it seemed contrary to enter a space as if it were a platform for investigation while it was still being used as a place of worship and prayer. But yet, I went in and marveled at the architecture and construction, in deference to the engineering achievements and visions of man.

 

Perhaps the guilt is ritual as well.









*cause life isn't complete without musical references

château de Versailles: a photo essay

A bust of Marie Antoinette looking at a portrait of Marie Antoinette in the Petit Trianon 

Looking back at our trip to the Palace of Versailles, and many of the images I took there, I realized how much I was trying to disassemble such a large, grandiose, and overwhelming place. The splendor was unfathomable, and the context in which the palace was constructed creates an even more baffling experience.

Only when I was away from the palace and the manicured gardens, did I feel myself relax—I watched residents of the town of Versailles use the grounds for their morning runs and a place to walk their dogs, and I thought what an interesting notion of how the grounds have been returned to the people.

Visiting the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon could not prepare me for the crushing spectacle and madness of the main palace—endless hoards of people storming into the rooms, seizing what they can with their cameras, ipads, video cameras, pressing up on each other eager to capture a prize, oblivious to those who were around them. The tighter the crush, the higher my anxiety ratcheted, the more sour my experience. Seeing the photos I took, I realized I wanted as little of context of where I was as possible and I wanted to find the imperfections and humor in order to ground myself in the overwhelming experience.

 

Le Corbusier--Maison La Roche

 

Don't mind me, just leave me here

The other day was a heady experience.

We spent time at the Palais Garnier, wandering the staircases and mezzanines, peaking into the theater, and later we had an hours long session at the Bibliothèque nationale de France looking at items from their photography collection.

For the first time I felt grounded in the places we visited; I felt grounded in Paris. For the first time I found myself thinking, “What would it be to live here and work here?” Things finally felt like they were at a relatable scale and the environment felt familiar, despite the grandiose scale of the Palais and the prestige of the BnF.

The Palais was certainly bustling with tourist activity, everyone crowding onto the grand staircase snapping photos of the ornate ceiling and wandering the halls just as we were, marveling that the splendor of the building’s interior. As I ascended each flight and meandered back and forth to each display, I found myself eyeing the doors to the main house, wondering about what sort of world lay behind them. As I reached one of the upper levels, I saw a door that opened up onto a balcony into the theater. Entering the space, my eye was immediately drawn to the grandeur of the house, but my attention was quickly drawn to the stage. I quickly realized that they were in a middle of a tech rehearsal for their opera Giulio Cesare and immediately I felt a pull. I wanted to be out there, on the stage, moving in that space—working. As they brought the house lights down to work on focusing a spot cue, I felt myself transfixed, my focus zeroing in just as the spot was narrowing in on its target. I imagined what was possible in a city full of living art.

If I felt a pang of envy at the Palais, it was nothing compared to the exquisite heartache I felt looking at items from the photography collection at the Bibliothèque nationale. Standing in the viewing room, just outside the archives of the photo collection, I felt an even greater pull to cross the threshold and consume the world just in view, but out of reach. I am thankful for what we were allowed to view from the collection. It’s been so long since I’ve been moved by a photographic experience, and I felt reaffirmed in a truth of my heart—I have an affinity with photography that is bone deep. 

There was a strange moment when I was holding a daguerreotype from 1843, try to tilt it just right in order to reveal its image, while juggling my own camera to capture the moment. And when I saw the image on my viewing screen, of my hand and the fragile plate and transitory image, it suddenly felt very real and I felt myself tear up. I was on the verge of tears for much of the experience—viewing certain works that have been integral to my becoming a photographer, and this experience has fueled my desire to become an archivist.