Tags
Ari, Art, École des beaux-arts, École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Beaux-Arts, Bilal Hamdad, Champeaux, Christine Safa, contemporary art, Jared, Koong Shengqi, La Forchette, Lucas Talbotier, Talbotier, The Fork
Glutton for art that I am, I took in another exhibit on Tuesday afternoon after the Berthe Morisot show. In 2016 Sherard and I had stumbled on a gallery show of work by a student at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts of Paris named Lucas Talbotier. It was the opening night (vernissage) so we were able to meet and talk with the artist. I was impressed by both art and artist and have followed Lucas’ career ever since. He had two large works in a show for recent Beaux-Arts graduates.
Conveniently, the Beaux-Arts exhibit was just a few blocks along the Seine. Canicule or not, the view of the Pont des Arts was still quite gorgeous.
It was a pleasure to be greeted by Lucas in the lobby, and he graciously let me take this photograph of him with his paintings.
After chatting with Lucas for a few minutes I explored the rest of the show.
A few pieces by other recent graduates caught my eye.
Finally, as I was walking down the stairs to leave I noticed these interesting sculptures by Koong Shengqi on the landing. The only caption I saw referred to them as Théâtre Anatomique but I’m not sure whether that referred to only one of them.
After the Beaux-Arts show I headed across the river to meet Jared and another friend he had met during his college year abroad. Ari is from New York but he fell in love with Paris during his own year abroad and moved here permanently after graduating from NYU. I was delighted when he proposed dinner at Champeaux both because I like it and because I would be able to use another 1,000 La Forchette/The Fork “Yums” to et us a 10 euro discount. The food and wine were exactly the same as my previous two meals there: perfectly nice.
This time the manager’s greeting was very warm but the service was spotty, the opposite of my first visit. My 10 euro discount wasn’t reflected on the original bill but the manager quickly rectified the problem. Despite the glitches it was once again an overall good experience, for a quite reasonable price.
After dinner Jared and Ari asked for a picture together so I posed them in front of the nearby listening head sculpture, Ecoute.
Jared and I walked Ari back to his neighborhood, near Bastille, then took the (air conditioned) line 5 back home.
