Europe
Hello everyone,
I’m writing to you from Paris where it’s a blue sky sunny in autumn kind of day and it’s pretty spectacular!
Since the last update I’ve had basically a week off. I spent four days in Amsterdam and have now spent the last three days here in Paris, where I’ll stay until this time next week where I’ll head to London.
I have found my time in Europe so far to be very inspirational. It’s a term that’s a little over-used and I feel a touch self-conscious using it, but it’s appropriate - I’ve seen some really good art shows, some really great books and some lovely stores - all of which have provided me with a lot of energy and excitement.
In Amsterdam, I was able to visit FOAM and Huis Marseilles, two photography specific museums/galleries. Huis Marseilles, in particular, had some excellent work and also has a large open access library, and I happily spent an hour or two looking over all their books there.
What really excited me, though, was this book which I purchased at their book store: Felwa. This book is an absolutely smorgasbord - it’s eclectic, beautiful, textural, easy to hold and ambitious. I’ll be thinking about it for years.
FOAM actually had an exhibition that I’d seen earlier - a retrospective of Vivienne Sassen. I saw this last year when I was in Paris, however it was still very interesting and I found myself gravitating to the same period in her work. Given I’ve been working in colour a lot more this year and thinking a lot more about surface and texture it was actually a really good reference point.
In Paris I’ve had a ton of excellent experiences. At the Henri-Cartier Bresson Foundation an exhibition of Raymond Meek’s work was really stunning - it was an exhibition that really utilised subtle inclusions of texture, depth and scale - often relying on very fine details to convey something special. Meeks is an artist who looms large for me, as he does for many photographers and book makers, and I’ve found the output of his the last few years fairly bloated. This show was quite good though and it was very affirming.
I also visited the Museum of European Photography, and there an exhibition about plants, science fiction and photography was so up my alley. References to day of the Triffids, very spooky and looming plants and re-purposed archival botanical photographs were all really interesting and exciting - I loved seeing the variety of framing used - from someone making frames from ceramics, to images that had projected palm shadows over the top. Really lovely.
In Paris I’ve also found on bookstore really lovely: Yvon Lambert. It just feels like a book store should and a few friends now have a dozen messages from me with book flip throughs. A new goal for me: have some books stocked there.
Yesterday I visited the Museum Quai Branley which is, and I don’t know how else to put this, an indigenous people art museum. There was just incredible work from Papua New Guinea that freaked me out (including shrunken heads!), textiles from Central Asia, Indigenous Australian bark painting, Christian frescos from medieval Ethiopia, Hmong ceremonial robes, Maori canoes, etc.
Of course you can’t go to a museum like this in a city like Paris and wonder ‘is this just colonial loot?’ - and to that question I don’t really know, I assume some of the collection is, basically, stolen artifacts, but there were also pieces purchased in 2003, for example, so I hope not everything was the produced of imperialist thievery.
Today I’ll go see some modern art, some paper stores, walk along the river and see a large park in the sunshine. Tomorrow I’ve decided to catch the train to a regional forest and then see the Museum of Modern Art and Sacre Coure in the evening. Wednesday Polycopies starts - 8-10 hour days for five days :)! I’m hoping to sell 40-50 books, fingers crossed.
As my trip continues I find myself inevitably turning towards 2025. So far it’s looking like already a somewhat full year: I have 2-3 exhibitions, 4-6 books, 10-15 workshops and a handful of weddings to travel to. I’ve started getting in touch with people about some further workshops or residencies and it’ll be lovely if one of those comes through. I’m excited and feeling happy. I know last week my newsletter was full of trepidation and some worry, and that’s ok, that’s part of the journey, I still have some of those concerns, but equally looking forward there’s lots of exciting and wonderful things coming up to. I feel confident that I will not need to retreat from this life at the end of the year and, if I do need to return to working a day job, it will be part time or casual.
I hope you’re all very well.
A few reminders:
The Tall Poppy Press Open Call is still open for 4 more weeks - please consider applying, sharing with a friend or tapping someone on the shoulder.
If you’re in Paris, London or Taipei please let me know, I’d love to see you :)
Till next week, where I’ll be coming to you live from London with the Paris Report.