The creation of images using any AI system is fast and easy. Many people have tested the systems and experimented with the more or less explicit prompting needed for LLMs to come up with several suggestions. Through the use of AI in the creation of images you are indirectly become your own curator of these creations as you choose among many suggestions of AI for the same prompt. The next step in the process of these artifacts it to assemble several ones and submit your selection of images to a gallery for an exhibition. If you have a coherent approach or a specifically interesting creative idea you might get selected in a competition to show your AI assisted images in a gallery with a reputation to exhibit photography. The Brussels Photo Festival (2025) presented the submissions to a call for AI images with a broad range of AI assisted imagery. The focus of this project was on „historical events and figures“. In situations where images are absent such a newly created imagery might be helpful in re-creating narratives about undocumented wars or conflicts. Speculative fiction about other historical options or „roads not taken “ have found their way into museums of history even. Decolonizing imagery is an interesting aspect to get a grip on another way to view historical evolutions. Projecting biological growth processes into the future with pervasive bio-engineering allows is to imagine potential future scenarios. As AI in biology, pharmacy and nutrition is only about to rake off, the AI artists play an interesting role of new avantgarde in the 21st century before we shall be submerged by AI images on all social media platforms. (Image taken at Hangar.art 2025) 
Existence as Eggsistence
Artists have their own ways of hallucinating. They don’t need an AI to generate ideas beyond the normal, even allowing for 2 standard deviations off the usual. As a result of the thorny question about your existence, Ram Katzir came up with the impressive statement about his „eggsistence“ being subjected to a squeezed experience. Ever increasing shares of the labor force would subscribe to this statement about the modern workplace. Each turn of the screw risks to crack up the egg‘s shell. Rather focus on the egg, try to get a grip on the screw. There are thousands if not millions who crack up under the excessive pressure of economic and political circumstances. The new platforms of food, grocery and parcel delivery at home have become the latest example of AI-assisted and algorithmicly managed screws. What is driving your eggsistence. It is about time to ask fundamental questions again. (Image: Eggsistence, by Ram Katzir 2021 in Brussels, Galilas Collection Belgium) 
Artists networking
Creating a network between rather idiosyncratic artists is no easy task. The more they develop a unique style separate from other painters mixing with other artists can be a challenge because you might find yourself in the position to continually defend your new style. Therefore, building a network of artists that understands the concept or emotion that drives you is a great advantage. In the catalog of the Caillebotte exhibition in the Musée d’Orsay Paris the map of living and working spaces of Caillebotte and his artists’ friends like Claude Monet is a great way to demonstrate the degree of networking and creative spaces that propelled the impressionist movement. The galleries and greater exhibitions of the impressionists took place in the vicinity of the established art institutions, but were not admitted into the traditional exhibition centers like the Louvre. The map from the catalog provides insights into the cognitive map of Paris which Caillebotte had in mind at his time. Artists see cities as opportunity spaces which facilitate or impede the creative processes. 
Drawing Drafts
The exhibition “Drafts – From Rubens to Khnopff” at the MRBAB offers an art historian’s view on the role of drafts in the creation of art across centuries. You will not be surprised to discover that drafts played and play a crucial role in creative works. With a restriction to drawings, paintings and sculptures, the exhibition highlights the “creative gesture” originating in a sketch of a detail of a body, a face, the body, compositions of forms or perspectives on space. In some instances, infrared reflectographic camera technology or similar techniques were used to reveal the so-called underdrawing of a painting to allow the comparison of a draft with the “finished” or “published” version as an oil painting. The time span across centuries allows to stress the importance of drafts and drawing rather than the spontaneous creation of a unique piece of art. The 20th and 21st century saw this process of creation challenges by several artists and performative versions of art. The basic creative process, however, remains an important pedagogical access to better understand art and its creation.
The curators of the exhibition Bücken and Maréchal (MRBAB) encourage visitors to use pencils and paper to try out the technique of pencilling or just to try to a sketch of something of interest. This certainly contributes to let the message and encouragement to create yourself sink in to the memories of visitors. All in all a very modern view on old and not so old masters.
(Image: Triple view of Jacques Jordeans, Allegory of fertility of the earth, 1623-25 MRBAB).
Zerreissprobe
The term „Zerreissprobe“ has been chosen by the curator team of the Neue Nationalgalerie In Berlin for the Retrospective of „Art between politics and society“ in the years 1945-2000. In this time period after the 2nd World War until the other „fin du siècle“ the politics of creating a new world order, the cold war and the liberalization of societies had profound impacts on art as well. The positioning of art in the dynamic context and conflicts of these decades is quite well reflected in the title of the exhibition. The English title „extreme tension“ suggests somehow that these years were rather extreme compared to ?, probably today? Although on the territory of Ukraine we witness a hot war rather than a cold war initiated by Putin‘s Russian imperial illusions. The cited work of Günter Brus „Zerreissprobe“ is translated as „stress test“. And maybe, this translation characterizes the post war period even better as these years are a forerunner of what happened after 2000. We continue to be put to tests in politics and societal developments. Accomplishments from the last century are put to crude tests again. Solidarity of people and nations are under pressure to demonstrate their reliability under extreme tension or stress. Art throughout the 5 decades of the last century was a precursor of stress tests for politicians and challenged society in its basic understandings. The comments on the notice board next to the exhibition show the themes of tension in the 2020s. Tensions in families and partnerships, often more extreme around christmas trees, have taken center stage for younger visitors of the exhibition. Sociological research has observed such trends and coined this societal phenomenon „individualization“. Art embedded in society seems to be part of that evolution as well. Art movements are less visible as collective movements. Artists appear more individualistic or ideosyncratic nowadays, just less inclined to be part of a defining larger group. If artists are no longer avantgarde but rather followers of societal trends, the whole „raison d‘être“ of art changes as well. We are likely to witness yet another „ Zerreissprobe“. Cuts to art and culture budgets constitute an additional „ Zerreissprobe“ in the original sense of the word and of art between politics and society in 2024/2025. 
Art Physics
Art is a matter of perspectives. In physics the change of perspectives and even theories about perspectives using optical instruments or illusions enlightens our understanding of the universe. 2D or 3D perspectives by V. Vasarely add yet another dimension through the oppositional hanging facing the Hollow Mirror Objects (convex and concave) by A. Luther (see images below). The curators succeeded in putting both art works with their incorporation of physical principles in an enriching dialogue. Art speaks to us in many languages. In more general terms, there is an underexploited aspect of exposing art. Rather than focusing on a single artist or school of artists in particular, exhibitions may focus on the interrelationships and new ways of combining or communicating images. This is human intelligence. Artificial intelligence will do this without prejudice and my own private collection of images of art works as a similar fountain of innovation as well. (Image Exhibition Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin 2024-12). 
Films of Stills
The exhibition of multimedia artist Nan Goldin at the Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) in Berlin presents a retrospective of her work using slideshows of stills including soundtracks (Image below). The topics and narratives range from autobiographical work on own traumatic experiences to works entitled „memory lost“. The sequences of stills are a form to deal with trauma through art like overcoming the suicide of a family member. Drug or sexual dependency enter the stills and it becomes clear that stillness is part of the coping mechanism she employs. It is hard to watch, sit still and endure the films of stills. However, there is a kind of therapeutic experience to be gained in coping with trauma through art. The installation in several tents increases the reclusive atmosphere and entering the still rooms invites is, somehow including a warning of what kind of chilling experience we are up to throughout the exhibition. The almost therapeutic experience needs to be handled with care and a visit with friends or family is highly recommended in my view. Community and communication are key to coping with these experiences and even still images contribute to building resilience. 
Question Tomorrow
« Tomorrow is the question ». This is the imprint on the 8 table tennis tables in the Martin Gropius Bau 2024. As part of the Contemporary art exhibition by the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, the tables are very busy throughout the day and invite people to meet, play and greet. If tomorrow is the question, today is the answer. Is it? Maybe the answer is the day after tomorrow? Time appears to be the answer and the question. Such questions touch on basic philosophical questions about our relationship to and concept of time. Future orientation or even the belief in life after death touch upon basic religious beliefs. Intergenerational transmission is useless if there is no tomorrow or concept of tomorrow. Sustainability is most relevant if we are convinced there will be a tomorrow. Fatalists or warmongers rate today so much more than tomorrow that everything is subordinated to the urgency of now. Not easy to strike the right balance between „for now“ and „for tomorrow“. Simple financial discounting of benefits which accrue only tomorrow do not solve the urgency issue of behavioral concerns. My personal discounted value of ice cream tomorrow might be superior to ice cream now, but it is based on the tacit assumption that the shop still exists tomorrow or any other time in the future. The exhibition invites people not only to play table tennis but also to discuss the question of tomorrow across language barriers and across tables and cultures. 
Kids Space
Political claims to reserve more space for kids in cities have a tough time. Kindergardens or child care in general are scarce and the lobby for kids is often limited in time and extent, since it is the parents that usually are the ones to advocate while their children are small. Jointly parents and children of young age experience the tough atmosphere to find, preserve or extend the space for kids.
The Gropius Bau in Berlin has opened up an exhibition space reserved to children 3+ as part of an art project “BauBau” designed by Kertin Brätsch 2024. A colorful room and installations as “loose parts” are the starting point to delve into a real/fantastic world were kids reign. There are a few so-called “playworkers”, who accompany the endeavours, if need be. At the end of the day the room was still in pretty good shape I would say assuming that “children set the tone and decide what happens in this place”. Safe and supportive environments for children are scarce and parents are always challenges in their attention to watch out for risks of all sorts in public city spaces.
Even if the “play space” is free of charge, it takes parents or kindergarden managers to reserve the space.
An early experience of a museum from the inside is likely to have lasting effects on children and the parents. They might have fond memories of a museum as an exciting space also for them. It constitutes a nice continuation of the outdoor “radical playground” project during summer 2024.
String Quartets
There is a plural form of Quartet. Philip Glass has composed a piece for 3 string quartets. Thanks to the Kronos Quartet performing and celebrating in Brussels, modern compositions are continuously added to the repertoire written for and performed by string quartets. Contrary to received wisdom the tradition of string quartets is still alive and kicking. At Bozar (Brussels) the marathon performance of 27 quartets, not all at once, but spread over a day and several locations, afforded a great free-of-charge opportunity to wipe off the dust from the sometimes rather introverted form of string quartets. Despite the high share of young musicians who performed well at the occasion, the afternoon focused more on new compositions. Concerning the audience, however, there is still an older age bias in listeners, more the standard Bozar clientele so far.
The afternoon reminded me on listening CDs entitled: “I don’t like classic music, but this one I do”. Many people came for art exhibitions at Bozar, but then (re-)discovered on the sideline the atmosphere of chamber music at this occasion. Closing the age and social gap in classical music is quite a challenge. It is surely more like a marathon than just a few sprints here and there. The new format at Bozar in cooperation with the Kronos Fifty for the Future Marathon will sooner or later find extended audiences beyond the happy few this time. I would recommend listening to string quartet music more often until the “Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)” will be the new hype. 
On Temporality
Time is passing, or is it? We tend to confound time, with passing of time or an occurrence at a specific point in time. Time has a static use, which refers to a date of birth or date of death. Time refers to durations like the lifetime or time in office of a person or a political leader. In most such cases time is considered as a continuous and linear process. The concept of temporality questions these common perspectives on time to allow additional time perspectives in the description and understanding of time.
Temporality is linked to a more flexible view on the periodization of history. The time before and after the 12 years of Nazi-terror will then be part of the extended periodization of the Nazi-Regime in Germany and Europe. Similarly, temporality widens the perspective on social phenomena by linking historical events to the time before and maybe even to what follows, seen as a consequence of the temporal and spacial co-evolution.
A deviation from the static view of time and a rigid periodization of fascism allows to study the Russian male dominated political authoritarianism as a new wave of fascism in Europe, which negates the right of existence of the state of Ukraine in its neighborhood.
Temporality expresses the need to go beyond a simplel periodization to include a spacial dimension in the defintion of time, much like modern physics does in relativity theory. Temporality, therefore, opens up a “thought space” beyond just the timing of events, which may challenge many of our day-to-day experiences. Cultures with a different understanding of time or the pace of time become a “sound board” for our way of considering and being captured in a time space. Probably many artists are forerunners in playing with time and the way time is “treating” them. Most of them face(d) hardship during their lifetime, but have an extended “after life” in terms of reputation. Some contribute to the perodization in the arts and of their time. They all shape(d) temporality.
(Image: extract from Hans Bol, 1593 Ring Jousing in front of a pond inan imaginary city, MRBAB, Brussels)
On Plurality
Most people are familiar with plurality under the term pluralism with respect to political parties or political systems. We have gotten used to have more than one political party tp represent the right or left in party politics. This is a challenge to people and parties as coalition formation can be a tough challenge to negotiate with a spectrum of parties rather than single representations of opinions and values. Plurality is, however, a more far reaching concept, which is applicable to many other fields of interest. Plurality of living styles are common fields of applications as well. Gender issues beyond binary gender identities qualify as yet another example for the pertinence of the concept. Nature has foreseen a wide variety of species even within subcategories of whatever classification system you apply, just think of trees. A broader variety of individuals is likely to increase the « requisite variety « of evolutionary processes as well. Plurality of modes of transport are another recent example of a widening of technological options available to reaching the same destination. A lot of progress and social progress is relying on allowing plurality to thrive before eventually narrowing down the spectrum. (Image: Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Composition with circles and rectangles, 1932, p. 256 from exhibition catalog 2024) 
History’s Weight
The artist Damien Deroubaix is currently exposed at the BNF.fr in its historic site Richelieu. Together with and next to some of the historic treasures of the BNF collections the unique exhibition allows to experience history’s weight on our current existence. The work of Deroubaix is following and pursuing historic art trajectories with a special historical and ethical consciousness. Techniques of art are insensitive to the moral compass of the painter in history. The collections of the BNF like all major European collections have to handle their colonial past and immoral depictions throughout history. Deroubaix accomplished to liberate techniques of art of their colonial linkages and imagination of emperors focusing on humanitarian values. War is horror, in the past and in the present. Genocide in Rwanda is war crime and dealing with the memories of people an honorable way to look forward conscious of the past. Hybrid forms of art allow multiple contextualizations of his work. In the Galerie Mansart and Pigott of the BNF the historical embedding enriches the art and vice versa. Art allows us to rise beyond the ashes mankind has and continues to inflict on us. (Images: extracts of Damien Deroubaix at BNF, Paris 2024)
Theatre Artists
Performances in the theatre are called pieces. The artists performing are actors of a play. The « Théâtre de la Madelaine », which celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2024 puts on a new production in celebration of the biography of the famous painter Claude Monet.
«Dans les Yeux de Monet » is the inspirational title of the play written by Cyril Gely and scenario by Tristan Petitgirard. Looking through the eyes of Monet puts you into the sometimes tormented head of the great artist. The challenge Monet faces is his very own perspective on a new vision for painting. In order to capture the impression of the cathedral of Rouen on him, he experiments with colours and lighting to capture just the right moment in time. Interesting to remember, there is not just one single moment he paints, but many versions of it with each realization offering a special insight or impression. Just on the sideline we learn about the importance of plurality rather than the one and only unique moment in time.
His own personal difficulties of sufficient funding for his art work and the depression he struggled with are well represented in the script and by the actors.
Galerists as well as donors (Mäzene) encourage artists, but somehow may also contribute to the pressure on artists to produce more creative work. Precariousness of living and living conditions are often a corollary of creativity or the creative process. This is a usually forgotten part of the biography of many past and present artists. Artists have and still contribute so much to humanity, but in most countries the public or private support for artists is sketchy. This remains a societal challenge particularly during times of employment and skill shortages in OECD countries.
Book Performance
Some texts are written in view of a performance, a theatre performance or an opera in mind. We have had dance performances and choreographers emancipate themselves from the music to claim dance is an art in its own right. Books are books in their own right. However, the hybrid forms of performance of a book was on display in the 2024 edition of the Wiels Art Book Fair in Brussels. It is common practice to invite speakers and authors for a book launch event. It is more rare to invite a choreographer and dancer to perform a book. This is exactly the what the publishers of A.R.D.V.L. did. Garance Debert put the editorial work and conceptual work on a book into a moving performance. There is much more to a book than just the letters and paper. The „mise en page“ turns into a „mise en scèene“ by an artist. The Wiels Art Book Fair has raised our attention to the larger creative potential of books, certainly art books, but also beyond books on art. Performative readings and book performances will enrich our repertoire of interacting with printed materials. Just before we might believe this is the next big hype, remember the bible is probably the book with the most theatrical performances linked to it.
Nature Spectrum
When it comes to colors, nature has shown us the way forward for a long time. Before mankind „invented“ bionics, nature had opened up the full spectrum of colors. It took us thousands of years to understand how to recreate the colors of something technically rather simple like the rainbow. The colors continue to impress us independent of our cultural background. More interesting than, maybe the Atomium in Brussels, is the almost daily reproduction of a rainbow in a park in Brussels (park Bois de la Cambre). All it needs is a sunny day, water fountains and the right angle of observation. It is magic, but still simple science. Enjoy.
Wave Length
The links between art and science are manifold and run in both directions. Artists challenge science or the outcomes of science and scientist refer to or maybe inspired by the work of artists. If artists challenge scientists by proposing an alternative theory they become subject to empirical scrunity like the unfortunate fate of the theory of colors of J.W. Goethe. The physics of colors has long been established and the theory of colors and light are best represented in science using wave lengths as the unit of measuring different colors. Hence, in this theory of colors or light the spectrum of colors runs from violet, dark blue, indigo (short wave lengths) passing yellow (medium wave length) to orange and red (longest wave lengths).
The painter Ellsworth Kelly has also challenged the science-based view of colors in “Spectrum IX” from 2014 currently part of the exhibition “Ellsworth Kelly. Formes et couleurs, 1949-2015” at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris (extract of image below). As a provocation to the scientifically trained vision Spectrum IX breaks up the running from short to long wave length to take the scientific linear colors of the spectrum and split the spectrum in the middle (yellow) and join the ends upside down. Alternatively, take the spectrum and glue both ends of the color spectrum together to a circle and cut in the middle of yellow to form again a seemingly linear evolution of colors.
Now, let’s meditate in front of this new spectrum of colors and follow your senses. The challenge of the theory of colors is a provocative statement of all those imaginative potentials we exclude through a solely science-based view of colors. Art opens up virtual space and fills it sometimes with abstract reflections on colors. It is raising the question of beauty versus science, beauty in science or beauty through science. (Image: Ellsworth Kelly. Spectrum IX in exhibition Formes et couleurs, 1949-2015″)
Phase Shifting
The Berlin “Hamburger Bahnhof Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart” recently acquired “Phase Shifting Index” by Jeremy Shaw. As part of an exhibition of new acquisitions, Sam Bardaouil, the director of the museum and curator of this exhibition has installed the large-scale video and sound installation at the end of the long corridor of the “Rieckhallen”. The impressive, even overwhelming art work was created in 2020. It was first shown at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. 
The piece consists of seven large suspended screensand creates a space like in dance club, discotheque or dance studio. The visual and sound experience is allmost psychedelic. The near obsessional dancing shown on the screens represent different periods of dancing with their particular patterns of movements and choreographies. The phase of the electromagnetic waves is shifting from one screen to the other and towards the end of the performances it becomes clear, that they all follow a similar wave or rave pattern. Sublimation or ecstasy are the underlying index-like common traits. Each period or decade 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, all had their peculiar dance and movement patterns. The video-installation is like a history of art of expression through body movement, amplified and indexed through rhythm and sound.
Electromagnetic waves can be characterized through wave shifting in various forms. This work gives us a feeling for the fascination of movement and phase shifting emotions. Don’t worry, the immersion ends after 10+ minutes and, if you like, you might read up on the physics of electromagnetic waves and phase shifting to calm you down.
Images: “Phase Shifting Index” by Jeremy Shaw, 2020, Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof, 2024-9
Innovation Painting
Innovations have fascinated painters just as much as photographers. The impressionists have painted trains and steel bridges as well as modern city life. Innovations change the atmosphere of a situation and new forms of transportation have been admired for many decades. Artists and painters have dealt with this phenomenon in various ways. Either the innovations have puzzled the normal vision of people or things or the artists hinted at curiosities or incompatibilities. Gustave Courbet has depicted in a unique style (Realism), as early as 1865, a seated woman with a paddle on something similar to a catamaran. It is maybe surprising that the modern form of stand-up paddling looks a little bit like the „podoscaphe“ painted by Courbet. Innovations in sports continue to evolve and become part of Olympic Games as well. Some disciplines make it into the Olympic canon rapidly, others never make it. The exhibition of „Artists and Sport“ gave ample opportunities to reflect on the the relationship of artists and innovations as well. (Image Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris 2024, Extrait de Gustave Courbet, Femme au Podoscaphe. 1865)
Games over
All nice things eventually come to an end. So do the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics.
The images have been impressive of both events and the millions of spectators give a good testimony in this respect. The cultural by-program of the Games was equally remarkable. The live performances of dancers not only on the opening and closing ceremonies attracted big audiences. Many well-known sites of Paris prepared their own events and inspired as well as entertained the visitors.
On the small stage in front of the “Marie de Paris”, the city hall (Image below), ballet performances (video) were staged to hint at the possibility to see more artistic performances throughout the year in Paris opera houses and other stages.
Showcasing many forms of cultural, inspiring and entertaining events gave a valuable additional flavour to the Paris Olympics. Many good reasons to come back and renew unique moments in Paris beyond 2024. Paris hotels will be more accessible again for moderate budgets and waiting times for entries should come down to normal levels as well. Back to a new normal for Paris. Well, maybe. The millions of spectators who followed the Games on television and social media might eventually decide to rank Paris higher in the “cities you have to go to at least once in your lifetime”.
Painter Sociologist
In going to a gallery and exhibition of paintings from the 17th century (Gemäldegalerie Berlin) you do not really expect to attend a class of sociology. However, this is exactly what the Flemish painter Frans Hals does with his paintings of various genres of society of his time. His sociological categories are for example unmarried young persons, married couples or pensioners living in a shared home. Other social categories of interest to him are a caregiver or, more common for the time, persons from noble or wealthy families. His painting „The Regents of the old men’s Almshouse” (ca 1660), the male pensioners home is one of his last paintings when he himself was already about 80 years old. Similar to a College of students the elderly home was run by a house father and house mother who took care of the daily living. The paintings of Frans Hals covered the entire life course with a cross-section perspective of society at his time. From few of his supporters he painted even several images moving towards a kind of longitudinal perspective on a person’s life course. Certainly, with “Oude-mannenhuis” (image below) he was interested not only in individual life courses, but of the conditions, forms or images of aging at his time. He probably was one of the first to challenge the negative stereotypes of aging.
Lost Objects
Project yourself into the future more than a hundred years from today, maybe even more than a thousand years from today. Some archaeologists will work on the planet earth to uncover the story behind the disappearance of the once very advanced species of homo erectus. They start drilling near some of the mystical sites of this civilization, the cities where mass celebrations were held called Olympic Games. These archaeologists use huge drilling machines to take samples at previous Olympic sites and uncover the remains of the thought to be modern civilizations on earth. Amongst all these samples they find all sorts of artifacts and layers left over. Plastics and metal structures appear in the samples as well as other forms of „artificializations“, transformations of earth’s principal „natural“ raw materials. The inhabitants of earth apparently lost or destroyed the planet‘s capabilities of CO2 storage and eventually became extinct. After fighting for survival on another planet the archeological expedition on earth saved this block of the remains of a doomed civilization. All this is pure science fiction, yet the specimen sample is exposed on the roof of the futuristic Fondation Louis Vuitton building near the Jardin d‘Acclimatation in Neuilly sur Seine. (Image of „Where the slaves live“ of Adrian Villar Rochas, 2014).
Digital Museum
Paris has lots of museums to visit. At times, this can lead to a kind of mental overload. The ” Musée Marmottan Monet, in Paris allows to take home a digital and printed copy of your preferred, your own curated collection of images from the museum. This is a great learning experience. You scan the number of the item you want to include and a specialized application retrieves the image of the painting or object from their database into the App. After the visit you take a break in the café in the garden and sort your collection and if you like have it printed within a couple of minutes after you paid for the print or digital version. Upon special request I was told that I am allowed to share the link to the small booklet even on the web (Link to pdf below).
Since the visit to the Musée Marmottan Monet we have come back to the digital and printed versions several times and reading of accompanying texts and perfect quotations of origin make learning about art a fun experience. Going back to lived experiences makes more lasting impressions on our memories. Knowledge coupled with emotions is a powerful way to memorize. Sharing the experience with other persons like the readers of this blog is an additional advantage. Attentive readers of the blog entries will find references to many of the themes dealt with over the years in this series of blog entries. Such topics are: gender and art, technology and society, reflections on time, life courses, inequality, art history, funding of artists, lifelong learning or beauty.
(Booklet below in German LINK-pdf of 6MB. The app allows many language versions. You can produce those yourself from you collection within the App) 
Olympic culture
The Paris 2024 Olympics make a great effort to attract athletes, their families and spectators to the many splendid museums of the city. It is an exceptional offer in the multiplicity of museum experiences the city of Paris and its surroundings have to offer.
The Trocadero near the Eiffel tower, is the place of the Musée d’art moderne de Paris (MAM). For the Olympic Games in Paris the Museum selected works that demonstrate the early impact of sports in the painting of modern times. (See the small extract below on rowing).
A dedicated visit of the permanent exhibition with art works that portray sports is on display during the Olympic season in Paris. The exhibition is a perfect example that you can visit a permanent exhibition with a special interest in mind. In this example it refers to the link of Olympic sport disciplines, their setting in time, space, society and environment). Alternative perspectives on the same collection of art works might deal with the depiction of sports in society or the life course or social status of athletes.
Choose your favourite sports and artists and you will probably find an example that would fit such an exhibition. People looking for depictions of rowing might like the painting by Raoul Dufy, Bord de Marne, Les canotiers painted in 1925.
Almost 100 years later La Marne hosts the rowing competitions of the Olympics. Raoul Dufy shows us that there is much more to rowing than just the sport or exercise. It is a social event not only for the rowers and the onlookers who watch the passing-by of boats and waves.
Artists Robots
We know that the scientific and artistic dealings with robots have a long tradition. Whereas art of impressionism took up the challenge to paint the world outside the studio and embellished technological achievements like bridges and trains post hoc, modern extensions of science fiction to the world of robotics has extrapolated from the present. Artists became forerunners of technical evolution and thereby contributed to the acceptance of artificial intelligence to broader audiences. In 2018 The “Grand Palais” in Paris hosted an exhibition on “Artists & Robots” (Pdf booklet). Jérôme Neuters contributed an essay to the catalog of the exhibition on “L’imagination artificielle” which identified a additional role for artists in combination with AI. Some of the early adopters of the new possibilities of robots assisting artists, Nicolas Schoeffer is quoted to state: “l’artiste ne crée plus une oeuvre, il crée la création”. Like an invention of painting techniques or light or perspective in painting, robots allow a new way of representation of emotions or space. (Image Manfred Mohr, 1974 video Cubic Limit, Artists & Robots p.92-93)
Swimming Pool
Summer time is the time to enjoy outdoors. Hiking, biking, climbing as well as swimming are high on the agenda. With the Olympic games 2024 around the corner we rise to the challenge and get started again with more sports activities. Swimming has many health advantages. Most people think of cardiovascular training and relieve of back pain. Exercise without carrying your body weight is great for your joints and ligaments. The benefits for psychological wellbeing have long been underestimated. Diving into silence under water even if it is only for some seconds or a minute calms your spirit. The water pressure holds you tight without restricting your movements. Breath control is an almost meditative experience. Everyone can do it, again and again. Childhood memories, good and bad, are associated with swimming. Choose your style, costume and pool. The summer break is an ideal occasion to test the marvelous experience again of cold or warm water. The cold water bucket challenge of everyday life takes a break. Time to find your pool again. (Image extract from Susanne Hay, Swimming Pool II, 1996 in private collection, exhibition in Yerres, summer 2023)
Impressionism 150
How many impressions made impressionism? Too many to be expressed in a single number. 150 years after the movement started with a spectacular exhibition in Paris the admiration of the paintings still attracts huge crowds. As a kind of revolutionary movement the artists mounted their own exhibition as they were not allowed to expose their paintings in the official exhibition of the Academy of arts in 1874. They accumulated a sufficiently large group of artists to form their own distinctive style of paintings. Painting outside in the countryside was a joint predilection. The regions, nowadays in the suburbs of Paris where many people daily commute to Paris has discovered the attraction to review the original scenario of the paintings as well as their living environments. Yerres, for example, hosts in 2024 an exhibition to show paintings from Claude Monet and Gustave Caillebotte which highlights the inspiration both painters took from the surroundings. Nowadays it is also interesting to see that the agglomeration makes efforts to make more people aware of the treasures to see in their own surroundings. Even if conservation of nature is hard to achieve the parks of yesterday have remained visible today. For us to transmit the cultural heritage and landscape to future generations as well. An affordable booklet that documents the cultural heritage allows people to dig deeper into the subject also for those who live in the region only because of a job nearby in Paris or Orly airport.
Planned Inspiration
There many ways to search for inspiration. “Moi aussi, comme les peintres, j’ai mes modèles” wrote Jacques Prévert a famous French poet years ago. Scientists find inspiration in data or theories, or in the combination of both. The planning of inspiration is, however, an other issue. You plan for something you don’t know what it is going to be. This makes the endeavor more risky and at the same time me exciting. As a social scientist going out into the “real” life is a sort of inspiration as multiple challenges await an explanation or deconstruction. The overview of current exhibitions through the scanning of catalogues from ongoing exhibitions is a welcome source to organize inspiration for the months to come. A glance through the catalogues gives a fairly good impression of what will be on display. The ideas can fly to distant locations and bring back more food for thought. It is a great service from the Munt library in Brussels. The combination of work and travel for inspiration is an interesting field of study in itself.
Plastic wasted
The amount of plastic that is wasted exceeds our imagination. Even in the most distant islands we find remaining pieces of plastic from our careless consumption. The European Directive 2019/904 has set the limit on detached bottle tops to July 2024. The industry waited until the last few months to implement the old directive. Great that there is hope to find less detached plastic in oceans across the world in some years at least. The behavioral change to move beyond plastics everywhere in our nutrition delivery system is long overdue. We shall get used to bring our own bottles for a refill or other devices to reduce plastic waste further. The change begins with thinking about the topic and finding suitable reusable packaging solutions for yourself. Children learn in art projects about the importance and creativity potential to reuse otherwise wasted materials. Reduce and re-use can be turned into an own competence. Competence in sustainability has been neglected for decades in school curricula, despite its importance for our own health and survival. (Image James Ensor exhibition and competition KBR, Brussels 2024-7)
Narrative Object
Objects tell stories. Stories get condensed into narratives. Narratives become objects. Yes, we are going round in circles here. Artists have transformed an old splendid atelier and factory building into a new gallery space for “Objects with narratives” in Brussels. We construct, reconstruct and deconstruct narratives almost continuously. However, if narratives are transformed into an object or objects they will become something tangible or a fixed expression of the moment or process. The concept of art objects with narratives invites us to look for the narrative linked to the object. Just like in other disciplines like economics we have ample dominant and heterodox narratives. It is important to reflect on narratives and empirical evidence in their support. When we look at the mountains of plastics and garbage on our planet we see how an economic narrative has been turned into nasty objects. Objects with narratives is also how future generations will confront us with the pollution and waste objects we left and still leave behind us. (Image Bussels Gallery Objects with narratives 2024-7-13 Exhibition Marius Ritiu.)
