MAM and Rodin: A cultural evening

So I have become quite lax on updating this blog. Which is exactly what was not supposed to happen.

Paris is a creative city. Everywhere you look there are remnants of a long history of artists, writers, musicians, designers, architects. A trait that has been inherited by the Parisians of today. Every time I walk through the streets of Paris I feel inspired. My venture to the Musée d'Art Moderne (MAM) and the Musée Rodin left me very much in this state; itching for a pen, a pencil, a paintbrush or anything with which I could fashion a creation of my own.

MAM is an impressive building overlooking the Right Bank of the Seine. On a lovely summer evening the tables on the verandah are bustling with young artists and below them the steps are frequented by skateboarders who enjoy testing out their skills on the rails and ramps there.

This summer at MAM there has been a fantastic exhibition of the lifetime works of Keith Haring. Advertisements for the exhibition has covered the boards in the métro since I arrived, tempting me to go and see what all the fuss about these stick figures was and what the artist had to offer. As it turns out, a lot!

Haring was a fascinating man who started his career in the Subway of New York. He believed that art should be available for everyone so he started to sketch in chalk on unused blackboards in the underground. This way thousands of people could see his work everyday. He later moved his street art to Paris and other cities around the world. If you have ever been to Paris you will know that Street art is massive here and it is partly due to this man who made it very popular.

His work is quite cartoonistic and I was unsure whether it was going to impress me at first, because I can be quite harsh in my criticism of art sometimes, but I was pleasantly surprised. The bright colours were immediately captivating and a welcome change from the worn colours of the portraits I had become accustomed to in the Louvre and Orsay. There was a lot of striking imagery, much of which was symbolic of politics and wider issues of consumerism and capitalist societies that is still current to us today.

I would thoroughly recommend the exhibition to anyone who has the opportunity to see it. It was enlightening and certainly showed a side of art that I certainly hadn't been exposed to before.

After MAM I took the metro the Left Bank to the gardens of the Musée Rodin which are open to the public until 23:00 on Wednesdays in the summer months. These famous statues by Rodin that are dotted around the gardens draw many aspiring artists who come to draw or photograph these monumental figures. I was recommended the gardens by an old friend of mine who is in fact Parisian and she was right to do so, because they are beautiful.

It was amongst the sculptures, the artists with the poised pencils and the beautiful pathways that I had that moment of inspiration. That bolt of lightening that strikes down everyone that has ever visited Paris. (If you have visited Paris and you don't know what I'm talking about you are soulless.) It happens to me daily, but on this occasion it was particularly strong. I pledged to myself in these gardens that I could never have a job that wasn't creative. I guess it was the spirit of Paris washing off on me. It has finally sunk in. This is why I am back to blogging, because what better creative outlet is there than the internet.

(I apologise that I was unable to take a still picture of Le Penseur (The Thinker) I assure you I took several to no success and this was the best of the bunch.)