(A review of a place:)

The Museum of modern art of the city of Paris (Le Musee d'art Moderne de la ville de Paris) (MAM Paris (official site))

A note on the museum of modern art, as a link to contemporary art.

The museum of modern art is situated in the same building (namely the Tokyo palace) as the museum known as the Palais de Tokyo on the other side of the beautiful terrace overlooking the dry bassin full of grafiti, running down towards the Seine.

The spacious building is barren and open, and the original monumental intentions are preserved (in marked contrast to the Palais de Tokyo's more contemporary take on architecture).

The museum has a huge collection of modern art, and occasionally presents exhibitions of artists which are key to understanding contemporary art. They are usually of the highest quality.

A sample exhibition (see MAM Paris (official site) for all practical information and present exhibitions):

-> Dan Flavin (until 04 oktober 2006)

The superb exhibition is charaterized by large rooms entirely dedicated to Flavin's neonlights. Although the first room is rather crowded with the early work exploring various colours and positions for the neonlights, and developing a simple vocabulary, the following rooms are much saner in their display of a few elegantly placed neonlights in a corner, or a wall of green light blocking a passage (with a yellow shine on the side, indicating yet another neon screen). The Flavin minimalist use of colour and form, its human size, the art of simplicity and economy, and its standardized measures, over the course of his productive years have grown into a wonderfully complex world that is, amongst many other things, an artistic simplification and critical and cautious rendering of our neonlit urban landscape.

Copyright 2006, by Jan Troost