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Lettres d’Uzès #32: Chelsea Girl

14/6/2013

13 Comments

 
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Your word for today is vernissage, literally the varnishing, but today applied to the opening party and preview for a new art exhibition. Last Friday, Jill and I joined four score or so art-lovers at Unity Cantwell’s vernissage  at the Espace des Capucines in Uzès.

The gallery was packed and the generosity of our hosts,together with the animation of our fellow-guests, made it difficult to examine the paintings in any detail, so it was only subsequently, over a number of visits, that we were able to look with a measure of tranquility and to engage with the work.

The exhibition is entitled Rencontres – meetings or encounters. At first sight, and from a distance, the paintings might be decorative, abstract patterns. In this sense, as I overheard someone say, they are ‘easy to live with’.

But look more closely and you see that those motifs are in fact figures – they are real people - and that what one is witnessing here is a series of encounters, of meetings. And what fascinated me was the imaginative creation of narratives to describe, explain and clarify the hundreds of individual interactions which make up each painting.
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Rencontres
There is passion here; and there is indifference. There is embracing and avoidance. There is loneliness and sociability. There is sharing and selfishness. There are confrontations and retreats. There are chance meetings and appointments.

But each figure exists only in relation to the others: to its immediate neighbours and, through the group, to those more distanced, more separate.

In other words, each painting is proving that there is such a thing a society, that we are defined by the company we keep, that we celebrate our humanity in community, in companionship, in camaraderie.

Each painting is showing us that we are never completely isolated, that ‘no man is an island’.

Each painting is portraying us, each of us, as one element in series of connections which are both general and particular. As one drills down to the specific figures, one appreciates that, if  ‘to particularize is the alone distinction of merit’, then Unity has achieved this.

But she has also forced us to consider wider and more universal questions about our position and role as members of humankind.

Rencontres closes on the 19 of June. If you are anywhere near the Gard, I commend it to you.If you can't, check out Unity's website: www.unity4art.com. 

Today's listening: with Jill back in the UK visiting her new grandson, I have been able to check out some of the less travelled items in my collection. Today, it's MC5.

13 Comments
Allan
14/6/2013 03:06:25

Interesting piece and it looks as if it's an interesting exhibition. Does she exhibit in the UK?

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Max
17/6/2013 04:55:02

Yes, but nothing imminent I understand. Keep checking her website.

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Lou
14/6/2013 03:11:59

Would very much like to see this show - your photographic skills are not improving, Max! Not sure the Blake is apposite for the point you are making. He did, after all, preface the remark by stating that to generalize is to be an idiot ...

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Max
17/6/2013 04:58:01

He did. And I confess I have never been clear of the point he was making. I am clear that one should never generalise from a particular and certainly not particularise from a generality.

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George
14/6/2013 07:16:31

How many degrees of separation between each of these characters?

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Max
18/6/2013 04:07:39

Fewer than six!

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Matt
14/6/2013 09:45:28

It is a point which needs to be made over and over again: no man is an island. Forster - only connect?

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Max
17/6/2013 05:00:15

The Forster quote is seminal. I live by it, together with Bob: to live outside the law, you must be honest.

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Charlotte Ford
14/6/2013 10:49:46

Hello Max,
One of those paintings certainly brings Lowry to mind (the painter, that is) I enjoyed your exploration of thoughts in your criticism, you understand the meaning of 'only connect'. My thought is , are your insights more your own , drawn from the contemplation of the paintings or those of the paintings alone. The insight is in the eye of the beholder of the work,but was it in the intention of the artist who created it ? !. Xx P.S Raining and cloudy here, hoping you are enjoying merrier weather in Uzes.

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Max
17/6/2013 05:02:39

This is my take. But, here's the point, doesn't matter? I am yet another connection and my version of the painting is as valid as the intention of the painter. (But I will ask!)

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CJ
14/6/2013 14:01:35

MC5 - Kramer and Fred Smith. Great band. Kick out the jams, man and turn it up.

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Max
17/6/2013 05:05:11

It is great stuff. In your face. Relevance to today? Have to say probably minimal. Like listening to Diana from Airplane/Starship. A reminder of those days.

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JaneG
19/6/2013 06:46:54

The scale interests me. Judging by the picture of the artist these are gallery works, or at least for those with large spaces. So, 'easy to live with'? Only if you have the room. But then the subject matter if you are right is a big topic and deserves such a space. Interesting, though. Would like to see them.

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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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