Caring for our Brains
Conversation with Professor Lionel Naccache (part one)
What is the brain, if not an exceptional organ, a machine of fascinating performance, I asked Professor Lionel Naccache of Paris Brain Institute?
“What is the brain in 2024?” as Naccache rephrased my question.
Last March 5th, Naccache, a neurologist/neuroscientist/thinker/author, was the guest of a fundraising, intimate dinner hosted by Le Bilboquet Palm Beach and Paris Brain Institute America, the philanthropic arm of Paris Brain Institute in the United States, which Martine Assouline—of the eponymous publishing house—chairs.
So, based on what we know, what is the brain today?
Category: Uncategorized
Make Art, not War
Make Art, Not War
A conversation with New York artist Dove Bradshaw
Exhibition at ARTe VallARTa Museo, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico | Zero Time, Zero Space, Infinite Heat
February 2nd – May 5th, 2024
Meet with Dove Bradshaw at ARTe VallARTa Museo on February 3rd, 2024
The first time I visited the apartment of conceptual and minimalist artist Dove Bradshaw, I barely let my eyes wander around the living room, busy with paintings and books everywhere, a piano in a corner, and an old chess table. Two friends had asked me to join them for an intimate dinner at Dove and her husband’s, artist William Anastasi (also known as Bill), Upper West Side home, blocks away from Morningside Heights and the Hudson River. I vividly recalled this evening when, years after, Dove invited me back, this time to show a few people some of the artwork soon to be exhibited in Puerto Vallarta at ARTe VallARTa Museo. “A first for this museum, which had presented only Mexican artists before,” and a premiere in Mexico for this artist, whose work is part of the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum and MoMA in New York.
As I was riding the Broadway-Seventh Avenue 1 train to 103rd Street, I remembered how her husband—who passed away just a few weeks ago—had described his famous Subway Drawings. Every time Bill Anastasi would sit in a subway, he would balance a piece of paper on a board on his knees, close his eyes, and let a pencil or felt-tip pens draw lines as the train would vibrate, and lurch when it stopped at a station, and depart again until he reached his chosen destination. During my only dinner with him, his wife, and our shared friends, Bill told endless stories of his daily chess games with composer John Cage. Dove Bradshaw, Anastasi, Cage, and his companion, choreographer Merce Cunningham, formed a band of artistry and friendship for years, all dedicated to conceptual art, along with Carl André, Sol LeWitt, and Robert Ryman.
Biased? Certainly. But Working on It
Biased? Certainly. But I’m Working on It
A conversation with Dr. Violetta Zujovic, Neuroscientist at the Paris Brain Institute
Talk at FIAF and meeting with Violetta Zujovic and Alyse Nelson
New York | March 15th | Decoding Gender Bias | Register Here
Everything that follows in this post is biased.
I would like to write you the opposite, to reassure you, even to convince you of the authenticity of my words. But in the interests of sincerest dishonesty, and according to Violetta Zujovic, a doctor in neuroscience and team leader at the Paris Brain Institute, I am biased.
I might as well accept it. Besides, I am not the only one. “We all are,” Violetta explains.
“Everything around us is a reproduction that our brain creates to simplify our lives,” Violetta tells me. “Our brain spends its time storing information and sometimes reconstructing a reality that is sometimes an illusion.”
By simplifying, taking shortcuts, analyzing, and judging the other as quickly as possible, our conclusions are not based on the reality of a person or a situation. Instead they are the result of a narrowed perception influenced by our experiences, our culture, and our education.
I believe that I should also share here the motivation and context of this paper.
When Art Meets Wine, Champagne Loves It
When art meets wine, champagne loves it
(Post based on a conversation held at the Payne Whitney Mansion in New York City on October 26th, 2022 during a fund-raiser dinner presented by the American Friends of La Cité du Vin).
In 1973, Château Mouton Rothschild paid tribute to Pablo Picasso, who passed away on April 8th of that year, by decorating the Premier Cru Classé with an Atelier Mourlot printed label reproduction of the 1959 master’s painting, Bacchanale. A century before, in 1874, Louise Pommery created the first brut champagne and became famous for patronizing art and artists.
To celebrate the symbiotic relationship between art and wine, which was highlighted in the 2022 Cité du Vin exhibition ‘Picasso, the Effervescence of Shapes,’ the American Friends of the Cité du Vin invited Maïlys Vranken, President of Vranken Pommery America, and Éric Mourlot for an exclusive conversation. “There are serious dinners in New York,” said the co-host of the evening, France’s Cultural counselor in the United States and director of Villa Albertine Gaëtan Bruel, “and there are joyous ones; this one is a mix of both.”
So, while tasting a vertical of Pommery Champagne, including a Blanc de Blancs Apanage and a Cuvée Louise 2005 paired with a dinner prepared by Tastings NYC-SoFlo and Alain Ducasse veteran chef Laetitia Rouabah, Maïlys Vranken and Eric Mourlot told the tales of their artisanal companies’ own relationships with art and artists.
Révélations
Révélations, Entretien avec l’artiste Jean-Pierre Formica
Les plissures du visage du peintre et sculpteur Jean-Pierre Formica, ses yeux aussi, le choix méticuleux des mots et sa façon inattendue de les lier ensemble laissent apparaître à la surface un univers coloré et poétique, une volonté de rendre visible l’invisible. Si cette œuvre était une photographie argentique, Jean-Pierre Formica en serait le révélateur, l’agent essentiel qui permet à l’image d’apparaître et se figer sur le papier.
Il y a aussi inscrit sur le visage de Formica la force du soleil salé de la Camargue, la curiosité insatiable d’un homme mû par l’incertitude, un regard presque détaché, surpris peut-être de l’intérêt que son œuvre suscite, sa reconnaissance polie.
Une sélection des œuvres de Jean-Pierre Formica sera visible à New York du 6 au 30 septembre 2022. Cette exposition, « Révélations », juxtapose des peintures et sculptures récentes dont les déchirures pour les premières et les accumulations pour les secondes donnent « forme à l’informe ». Elles « révèlent » pour reprendre l’expression de l’artiste.