Egon Schiele.Jean Michel Basquiat.Fondation Louis Vuitton.October 2018-January 2019

Hi Folks,

the little Art Seeker is back with an amazing exhibition dedicated to two monsters of Art history Egon Schiele and Jean Michel Basquiat at la fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.

Egon Schiele is an Austrian painter,torn by his desire to express a new form and creation and the difficult period he lived in just before the first world war I in a city Vienna,where all trends of creation burst and where great artists as Klimt try to make secession from the traditional academy ,Breaking the codes in a country on the verge of collapsing .

Coming of age amid the tension and conflict between the traditions of a stifling  Austro-Hungarian monarchy ,Schiele remains inseparable from fin de siècle Vienna.Inspired by the decorative style of art nouveau and his predecessors as Gustav Klimt,Schiele broke from the traditional Framework of the academy when he was only 16.He thus formed a group with other artists in search for a new form of expression.

In the Following years,Schiele would produce a work that broke entirely with the norm,marked by striking introspection.Through his relentless exploration of the human  form,he gave shape to his inner struggle while capturing the apprehensions of the upcoming war.

Egon Schiele.Self-portrait

The first  exhibition of Egon Schiele,in Paris in 25 years ,it displays more than 100 works largely from private collections as well as international institutions.

Lovers.1918.

The little Art Seeker loved the geometrical version of his city that Schiele,used to reproduce only by memory.The lines and the graphic aspect of the painting inspired artists of the 20th century as Hundert Wasser.Schiele died at 28 from the spanish flu and his work announces the revolution in art of the 20th century with modernity and realism.

The bridge.1913.

The small town.1914.

The sunflowers.1914.

The second part of the exhibition is dedicated to another artist who lived in New York in the 1980’s Jean-Michel Basquiat.As radical in his life as in his practice, Basquiat left school in 1977 before his high school graduation.

He made the streets of New York’s lower East side his first studio.In less than a decade, he created an intense pictorial and graphic œuvre,marked by an ever-growing success.

A brillant draftsman,his inimitable line mixes the rythms of his immediate surroundings with its vitality and subversive nature.In painting,collage and drawing ,he used images and words as weapons against pressing social and economic issues.He sought to give physical,political, and symbolic visibilty to the black body.

Basquiat incorporated elements taken from both his environment and vast cultural references.In his work,the most diverse sources and realms of knowledge coexist,from, jazz to early hip-hop,the Bible to Voodoo,comics to classical literature,Cassius Clay to anatomy,African diaspora culture to Leonardo da Vinci and Cy Twombly,Beethoven to Charlie Parker.He anticipated our post-internet era and its fast exchanges of images and networks.

The exhibition brings together more than 120 works upon four levels!The Little Art Seeker loved his series of heads,very colourful and all different!

Basquiat will die very young of an overdose at the age of 27 but his work remains years after his death vivid and full of the Energy of the 1980’s.

So if you pass by Paris this winter,run to see this incredible exhibition.The little Art Seeker warmly recommends it!