Paris Shows in Springtime: the Sublime to the Ridiculous

Recently opened exhibitions in Paris cover the whole spectrum. At one end, the Musée d’Orsay’s “Crime and Punishment”, a gruesome exploration of murderous crimes, gory executions and penal history. At the other, the Fondation Cartier‘s “Gosse de peintre” (Kid of a Painter), an exclusive and effervescent show from Japanese filmmaker, comedian, TV presenter and artist, Takeshi Kitano (also known as Beat Takeshi).

Crime, along with love, has nourished art for centuries. The difference with love, as Jean Clair, the curator of “Crime and Punishment” points out, is that you can’t show “the act itself” (at least not in pre-twentieth century art…). It’s not taboo however to depict the moment of a crime as well as its mirror image, the punishment – be it Cain’s murder of Abel or Christ crucified on the cross, both of which appear in the first room of the exhibition.

Coming as more of a shock for visitors expecting just a selection of themed paintings is the grim form of a real-to-life guillotine and, later in the show, a model of Kafka’s torture machine from his short story “In The Penal Colony”.

The guillotine in particular, occupies a special place in the French imagination and goes some way to explain the fascination with depicting decapitated heads in the post-revolutionary years. This exhibit boasts at least 40 ghoulish variations on the subject, including studies by Géricault and Hugo. The guillotine was seen as the swiftest, most egalitarian way to go but nonetheless inspired horror, and doubt regarding the exact moment of death. Alexandre Dumas recounts his shocker: “I have seen criminals beheaded by the executioner, get up headless from where they were lying, and stumble off to fall down ten paces away”.

Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat

As well as the excessive use of the “national razor”, as the guillotine was dubbed during the Revolution, the treatment of crime and justice was seen through a prism of shifting ideals at this time. When religion was rejected in the 1790s, Republican symbolism and martyrs soon rushed in to fill the void.

Jacques-Louis David’s “The Death of Marat”, is famous for mythologizing a secular hero, the revolutionary activist Jean-Paul Marat. Marat was stabbed to death in his bath and David shows him in a paired-down setting, pained but peaceful, holding on to a letter he had been writing – committed to his Republican cause to the bitter end. Charlotte Corday, the murderer, is marked by her absence, suggested only by the dagger which lies on the floor in the bottom left corner.

“Crime and Punishment” also includes sections on Romantic petty criminals, the courts of justice complete with Honoré Daumier caricatures, Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon, late nineteenth century crime scene photography and early mug shots, outsider art produced by prisoners, and the Surrealists.

This broad-reaching show is the brainchild of Robert Badinter, politician and criminal lawyer famous for his campaign for the abolition of the death penalty in France in the 1970s. His main objection was that to execute a criminal is no less a crime than murder committed by a criminal. Perhaps as a result of its origin, the exhibition comes across as primarily historical and didactic. It is though, a well researched and documented project and you leave feeling better informed, even if it is the formidable outline of the guillotine rather than the art that stays with you.

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But kids: it’s been a long, dark winter in Paris, and exhibition programming has been somewhat on the somber side of late (for example this, and these), which is why the real tonic-like gem in the crown of this season’s exhibitions is the Fondation Cartier’s “Gosse de peintre”, which is by turns absurd, comical and bewildering. Better known for his art-house films or his cult show “Takeshi’s Castle” (see below), Kitano seems as baffled as his audience by his first solo “art” show. “I still haven’t figured out why a prominent institution like the Fondation Cartier would want to hold an exhibition of my work. Not a clue,” he told the Guardian.

Some of Kitano’s paintings were included in a Takashi Murakami show at the Fondation Cartier in 1998 and it appears that Kitano has been in discussion with the foundation’s director, Hervé Chandès, ever since. The Fondation Cartier was also the first place to show David Lynch as a visual artist rather than filmmaker, in 2007. This could be something to do with the French’s love for Lynch. But the  Fondation Cartier should also probably take some of the credit for their commitment to innovation.

“Gosse de peintre” is designed for children (but don’t let that stop you!) as a sort of colorful, interactive theme park. A sculptural self-portrait holding his own brain welcomes visitors to the exuberant creative world of Kitano’s imagination, with his “Japanese Imperial Army” made up of weird animal-machine hybrids, a machine to recreate Jackson Pollock’s paintings, giant porcelain models of fish filled with pre-made sushi and new theories on the extinction of dinosaurs.

Beat Takeshi Kitano, 2010 (hippopotamus-ranchu) © Office Kitano Inc. Photo Yoshinaga Yasuaki

The show is bursting with vibrancy but it is not without a serious side. Universal themes such as existence, death (there is even an allusion to the death penalty there too) and war are still present. Kitano seems most comfortable in the Pythonesque area between the serious and the absurd.

A dark room entered through red velvet curtains contains “Beat Takeshi’s real work” – TV clips from Japanese comedy shows, including outlandish costumes and wild stunts that would put “Jackass” to shame. In contrast to Kitano’s films, these TV clips show his ability not to take things too seriously. Many of the installations in “Gosse de peintre” leave room for discussion. Could we consider “Hideyoshi”, a giant, overly-elaborate sewing machine to be a comment on industrialized society’s wastefulness? Sure. Are the sushi-filled fish a comment on the over-fishing of the seas and the strain human-kind is putting on natural resources? Probably.

But they could also be invitations to mock the ridiculousness of over-theorizing art. Kitano’s real artistry lies in this contradiction, the simultaneous urge to make something meaningful and to throw paint at it. Like many good comedians, Kitano  has a darker side. He manages to inhabit the austere Jean Nouvel architecture of the Fondation Cartier with ridiculous animal hybrids, colorful lunacy and stupid costumes without making it look like a complete farce.

Two of Kitano’s films have been made especially for the exhibition. In one the artist is strung up in a harness, guided by a group of men in sumo wrestler loincloths, with a giant paintbrush in an attempt to recreate traditional Japanese calligraphy. He ends up having his head dunked repeatedly into a vat of Indian ink, in this Takeshi’s castle style stunt.

Is it art? Maybe it doesn’t matter – it’s excellent, hilarious and provocative entertainment and sometimes that’s enough. Especially after a trip to the Musée d’Orsay’s educational chamber of horrors.

“Crime and Punishment” is on at the Musée d’Orsay through June 27
“Gosse de peintre” is on at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain through Sept 12