ART – Thirty Seven East

At Your Home Without Me: The Artistic Mankind of Betsabeé Romero

May 11, 2020June 16, 2020 by JC Agid Leave a comment

At Your Home Without Me: The Artistic Mankind of Betsabeé Romero

“Art needs to express itself to safeguard humanity.” These are the words of Betsabeé Romero, a Mexican fixture, sculptor, and a generous, greedy painter who is exhibited around the world. She is a poet and activist too. This humanity—a damaged, confused and self-reflecting humanity—was not prepared to face the brutal consequences of the Covid19 pandemic.

Betsabeé Romero is now listening to the suddenly silent streets of Mexico City, North America’s largest city.

From her little street house in the Villa de Cortés district, the artist is on the lookout for the sadness that invades the world faster than the disease. The absence of funerals. the hidden violence against the women and children in her country. And of course, her own personal fight fight for female artists.

Confined, she writes, draws, and reads, mostly philosophy at the moment. She is thinking about art installations to illustrate the staggered mourning that many people will experience. Incidentally, she has been invited to create and speak on this topic at the Frieze in London this Fall, as well as in Sydney and Rome.

At Your Home Without Me: The Art of the Virus with Olivia Tournay Flatto

May 5, 2020June 16, 2020 by JC Agid 1 Comment

The Art of the Virus with Olivia Tournay Flatto

A moving body, notes in harmony, an emotion, a knowledge, a narrow door toward a new idea, an engine inherent to life, to the mere concept of human beings’ survival, science and art maintain an intimate relationship, two mirrors reflecting each other and focusing on the hope of creation.

A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) actually just metamorphosed Covid19 into a musical existence, similar to the work of a composer, an exceptional melody that could help science to better understand the mechanics and weaknesses of this devastating virus.

Art in the service of science, science in the service of art. Olivia Tournay Flatto is no stranger to the crossover between these two fields.

A scientist herself and President of the Pershing Square Foundation, she has developed a fund to support young researchers with bold and new ideas in the fight against cancer. Passionate about ballet, she is a member of the Board of the Friends of the Paris Opera and President in New York of the American Friends of the Paris Opera & Ballet (AFPOB), created 35 years ago in response to Rudolf Nureyev’s request to support a tour in the United States of the ballet company, which he directed.

The halls of the Palais Garnier and the Opéra Bastille are now closed until further notice; laboratories are mostly concentrating their research on a Covid19 vaccine. Yet science and art—brain and heart—remain more than ever the essence of our lives.

At Your Home Without Me: Marc Levy Beyond the Walls

April 28, 2020June 16, 2020 by JC Agid 2 Comments

Marc Levy Beyond the Walls

There is a small bookstore on the corner of 10th Street in the West Village. In this little shop so reminiscent of the past, old and new books squeeze together on the shelves and give off that special scent of cracked ancient floors and living pages. Just a block away, if you look up, you can see through an open window that belongs to the most widely read French novelist and storyteller in the world.

A conversation with Marc Levy usually takes place over a good lunch on the terrace of Sant Ambroeus café. But Sant Ambroeus is closed now, as is the Three Lives & Company bookshop.

We could have also dined on a dish he would have cooked. But Marc Levy is currently a recluse in his haunt, sitting at his desk, among his books, computer screens and ancient typewriters. Surrounded by his characters, he gathers the letters of the alphabet and creates stories, like the one he just published in Des Mots Par La Fenêtre.

At Your Home Without Me: The Immobile Voyage with Art Dealer Éric Mourlot

April 26, 2020June 16, 2020 by JC Agid 1 Comment

Not At Your Home with Art Dealer Éric Mourlot

Éric Mourlot tried to be a banker for a few years after training with Senator Ted Kennedy and dreaming of—and yet never pursuing—a political career. The grandson of Fernand Mourlot—who was one of France’s most famous lithographers—took over his father Jacques’ position 20 years ago as the representative of the family’s historic collection of thousands of lithographs, created by some of the greatest modern and contemporary artists, from Picasso to Alex Katz, from David Hockney to Le Corbusier, from Françoise Gilot to Man Ray.

In his Upper East Side gallery, Eric Mourlot pursues his grandfather tradition of unearthing and promoting young artists. He also keeps on building the digital exhibition on MourlotEditions.com of dozens of exceptional lithographs, often signed and numbered.

No matter the confinement, he did (not) welcome (us) dressed as usual: straight in his navy blazer with a white pocket square, an unbuttoned tie-less shirt, blue jeans and cowboy boots, smoking an American Spirit cigarette and with a flask of whisky at hand. Éric Mourlot has everything of a rare dandy in the art world, one-third Clark Gable, two-thirds French gentleman Farmer.

The Black and White Photographer at the Deauville American Film Festival

September 8, 2019September 8, 2019 by JC Agid Leave a comment

The Black and White Photographer at the Deauville American Film Festival
Fire-chat with Stéphane Kossmann, Photographer

Stéphane Kossmann could have been an American football player. He was built for it. Yet, he became an artist instead. Tall and almost bold, his looks are unmissable. His true strength is not his physical force, but his unique, sharp eye at people and objects, which he captures through the lenses of his Nikon camera. A selection of his work is currently exhibited in Deauville at the 2019 45^thAmerican Film Festival.

Kristen Stewart—the actress who performs the role of Jean Seberg in the eponymous upcoming movie and to whom the Deauville Festival will pay a special tribute, but also Catherine Deneuve—President of the Jury, Robert de Niro, Meryl Streep, Brad Pitt, and of course Michael Douglas—who romanced in Deauville in 1996 his wife Katherine Zeta-Jones—are all among the actors and actresses whose candid looks have been captured by Kossmann.

Deauville . Waiting For The Barbarians Photocall - 45th Deauville American Film Festival — Stéphane Kossmann and Johnny Depp at the 2019 American Film Festival | Deauviile | (c) Jacques Benaroch