Paris - Artistic Impressions at Musee d'Orsay

Sculptures displayed at Musee d'Orsay

The Louvre is an intimidating place to visit as it's so large and filled with masterpieces that it's an overwhelming experience.

A more approachable art museum that focuses more on the Impressionists is Musee d'Orsay, in a former train station still retains its original ceiling mouldings, but also a contemporary look.

Monet's Poppies or The Promenade

We got timed tickets the night before and thankfully we did because the next morning when we arrived at 9.30am when it opened, there was a massive queue for those who didn't have tickets or timed tickets.

When I showed them our tickets, we were ushered into another entrance where we went through security and then were in.

The museum has expanded its gallery space to the fifth floor, the top floor where its Impressionist collection is. There's also a balcony area where we could go outside and across the Seine see the Louvre and the giant balloon (minus the fiery cauldron) parked in the Tuileries Gardens.

It's interesting to see the museum's collection of Impressionist works arranged by collectors who bequeathed their paintings to the French state.

The Starry Night by Van Gogh

There is a short introduction of the collector, how they got to know the artists and following their deaths, how their collections were donated to either the state or Musees Nationaux.

It's not often that we know about the collectors, and how they supported artists financially, and these short biographies give visitors a chance to get to know them, and appreciate the role they had in artists' careers.

We saw numerous works by Claude Monet, like Poppies, also known as The Promenade, with a woman and child walking through a field of red poppies, or Vincent Van Gogh's Portrait of the Artist, the Dutchman painting himself in a light blue suit with a wavy background, and his Bedroom in Arles.

But there were other paintings that caught my eye, like Van Gogh's The Starry Night -- not the one in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, but the precursor to it that he painted in 1888. A few months later, he was committed to a psychiatric hospital, and that's where he painted the work we all know.

Caillebotte's The Floor Scrapers

There's also an artist by the name of Gustave Caillebotte, who had a knack for painting scenes of blue-collar workers, like The Floor Scrapers in 1875.

Three bare-chested men are on their knees on the floor of a Paris apartment where the are stripping away the wood on the floor. Some critics at the time felt the work was vulgar and how it focused on the working class.

However, that's what makes the painting so interesting for us today, seeing the work they did was back-breaking and very physical, working hard for the benefit of the rich.

Caillebotte has another interesting perspective of being in a rowboat sitting in front of a man in a top hat who has the oars. The angle is one we'd probably take today with our phone cameras, but at the time was considered "audacious immersive framing" according to the caption.

Polar Bear by Pompon

The ground floor of Musee d'Orsay is well known for its display of sculptures, and there was one of a polar bear by Francois Pompon from 1923 to 1933. Pompon worked with Rodin, but focused more on animals. His Polar Bear is so contemporary looking, it's surprising that it was made a century ago.

A pair of sculptures caught our eye -- Chinese Man and Chinese Woman by Charles Cordier in 1853, the busts of two real people, Chung Atai and his second wife, Yung Achoi. Perhaps the spelling should be Ah-tai and Ah-choi?

In any event, according to the caption, the couple were originally from Canton (now Guangzhou) and traveled to London for the 1851 Universal Exhibition before touring Europe.

The Chinese Man, Chung Atai

The busts are made of bronze and have a lot of detail, like Atai's long braid, the embroidery on his chest, and he holds an opium pipe, whereas Achoi has butterfly and floral hairpins in her hair, the intricate designs on her silk robes, and her long fingernails.

Paris - Montmartre's Colourful Past

Sacre Coeur is the famous landmark in Montmartre

From a tourist point of view Montmartre is a neighbourhood known for Sacre Coeur, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on top of the hill. Visitors congregate on the white front steps to take in the panoramic view of the city.

But historically Montmartre has much more significance, as it became the place where artists thrived and for locals, where protest, rebellion and anarchy is respected.

Le Moulin de la Galette where Renoir painted

We did a walking tour of Montmartre and our guide was very informative. We started across the street from Moulin Rouge, famous for dancers who did the can-can, lifting up their skirts to give men some titillating entertainment.

In 1831 the population of Paris was 759,000 and by 1846 grew to more than 1 million, and it was overcrowded, dirty and lots of disease spreading. Emperor Napoleon III was disgusted by what he saw and called for the city to be revamped, with gardens, tree-lined avenues and a modern sewage system.

That's when Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann, an ambitious civil servant, took on the task and revamped most of Paris with his Haussmann limestone apartment buildings that ubiquitous in the city.

Van Gogh lived on the left, top floor

By gentrifying Paris, those who could not afford it had to move to Montmartre, just outside the city limits, and this was where many artists like Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent Van Gogh lived for a time. It also became one of the seedier areas, hence the Moulin Rouge, where Toulouse-Lautrec sketched and painted the famous dancer Louise Weber, known as La Goulue.

Originally Montmartre was where vineyards, and orchards growing peaches and cherries were. Later 13 windmills were built here to grind wheat, barley and rye; only two windmills survive today. One is at Le Moulin de la Galette, where Renoir painted Dance at the Moulin de la Galette.

Gypsum was mined here, and the windmills were also used to grind it up into powder to make plaster. 

We also saw the apartment building where Vincent Van Gogh lived for two years with his brother Theo; this was before Van Gogh found city life too much for him and retreated to Arles in the south of France in a mental hospital.

Michel and the anarchy symbol

Our guide took us to see a bust of a beautiful woman called Dalida, who was an Egyptian singer famous in the 1950s and 60s. People touch the statue's breasts in the hopes of good luck in romance, which is ironic, considering one of her lovers committed suicide in 1967 and two decades later she did too.

She was also known as French president Francois Mitterrand's mistress, and it was he who had architect I.M. Pei design the pyramid structure at the Louvre -- some say as a nod to Dalida's Egyptian roots. 

On walls in Montmartre you will see the letter "A" with a heart. It is the symbol of anarchy, relating back to Louise Michel, who was a teacher, a poet, writer, philosopher, feminist and anarchist.

In 1871 she actively participated in the Paris Commune, where a revolutionary government seized power in Paris and controlled parts of the city for two and a half months. The Commune promoted policies that were progressive and anti-religious, including the separation of church and state, self-policing, abolishing child labour and the rights of employees to take over the business if the owner deserted it.

A mini vineyard in Montmartre

Michel was punished for her role, deported to New Caledonia, and later returned to mainland France in 1880, where she continued to promote anarchist thought. She also promoted the concept of animal welfare and denounced animal cruelty.

Montmartre is literally translated as "martyr's hill." It refers to Denis, Bishop of Paris who was executed by the Romans in the 3rd century. He and two others were decapitated, and the legend goes that soon afterwards, Denis picked up his head, went to wash it, and then walked several miles while preaching about repentance.

There are statues of him holding his decapitated head. 

Towards the end of our tour, our guide showed us a tiny plot of land that is being used to grow grapes. Apparently that area was supposed to be redeveloped into a tall building, but the people in the neighbourhood protested and won; they decided to grow grapes and make wine with it. The wine produced is apparently the most expensive plonk because it is sold at auction every year, but it's not the taste, but the tradition of standing up for themselves. 

Approaching the basilica from behind

That made me think how Montmartre resonated with Hongkongers, defending their neighbourhoods, protesting against oppression, and Michel leading the way.

We finally made it to the top of the hill to see the Sacre Coeur from the back. The guide told us the back of the basilica was very quiet, and we concurred, seeing locals lazing on the grass, reading or having a rest. It was a big contrast to the front, where all the tourists were.

Paris - The Story Behind Pagoda Paris

Pagoda Paris is now a private gallery

Many of the apartment blocks in Paris were designed by Baron Georges Eugene Haussmann, who had a hand in gentrifying the city, building public works like water and sewers, train stations, and boulevards. The limestone apartment buildings are uniform in size and had standard layouts.

That makes this curious Chinese-style building near Parc Monceau stick out even more. 

The wooden gate and green tiled roof

Not only is it red in colour, but has a jade green tiled roof with mythical animals perched on top, and carved wooden window frames.

It's called Pagoda Paris and was the home and gallery of Chinese antiques dealer Ching Tsai Loo (1880-1957). The building was originally a townhouse and then Loo bought it in 1925 and had it refurbished.

It's now a private museum, and I contacted Pagoda Paris to see if we could arrange a time to visit, but were told it was closed for renovations.

While Loo is known for introducing western collectors to Chinese and Asian art, his reputation was later mired in controversy because of how he illegally obtained these items, some of which were considered state treasures.

Here's the quick bio: Loo is originally from Huzhou, 300km west of Shanghai. He was orphaned at the age of 10 and as a teenager went to Nanxun, where he worked for a successful merchant named Zhang Baoshan. Zhang's son, Zhang Renjie was appointed to the Chinese embassy in France and Loo followed him to Paris in 1902. Few Chinese were living there at the time.

Zhang's family had a Chinese goods import company, and he would obtain Chinese antiques to sell; he would later return to China and financially support Chiang Kai-shek.

Loo was a controversial collector and dealer

When Loo first arrived, he wore traditional Chinese robes and a queue, but soon transformed, wearing western clothes and short hair. He called himself Cheng Tsai Loo and opened his own antiques shop, and cultivated relationships with Caucasian sinologists.

The fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911 led to weak supervision of antiquities which made it relatively easy for Loo to procure items. He developed a chain of middlemen who would help him find things he might buy, sourced from impoverished families, imperial tombs and monasteries. Loo soon developed a reputation for selling out China to Europeans and Americans for his own profit.

World War I stopped the flow of Chinese goods to Europe, but not to the United States, where collectors and museums were keen on Chinese art and antiques. Loo discovered Americans were interested in Chinese antiques when he went to New York and opened a gallery there in 1915. 

However, the boom ended with the stock market crash in 1929, but things began to ramp up again in 1941 as there were more experts in Chinese art and history. His clients included the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Freer Gallery, Fogg Museum, the Rockefellers, and Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical executive. 

He bought this building in 1925

But once the Communists took over China in 1949, Loo was cut off from his sources, and some of his associates were arrested, and his nephew, who was his agent in China, fled to Hong Kong. Eventually Loo had to liquidate his stock. He tried to salvage his integrity, by stating that if those objects were not removed from the country, they would have been destroyed. 

After Loo died at the age of 77 in 1957, Pagoda Paris fell into disrepair, and it wasn't until 2010 when a private French investor bought it and turned it into a gallery and events space. Loo was survived by his French wife and four daughters. 

Paris - Paying Homage to Monet in Giverny

The pond features a Japanese bridge, very photogenic

Visiting Claude Monet's home and garden in Giverny, France, is a magical experience. The massive garden is most impressive, filled with all kinds of flowers, from roses to irises, dahlias, tulips, sunflowers, wisteria and on and on... you can't help but be in awe of such a place. It's kind of an organised chaos.

Then the pond with the waterlilies, complete with the Japanese bridge helps you immediately see why Monet painted his famous waterlily paintings.

Monet's house is painted pink with green shutters

He lived at this house for 43 years, from 1883 until his death in 1926. 

I visited his home over 10 years ago and was so transfixed by the experience that I promised myself I had to come back if I had the chance.

So when I found out we were going to Paris, Giverny was definitely on the list.

The first time I went was part of a tour, and the tour bus took us directly there. So this time we were on our own and I did a bit of research, as Giverny is about a one hour away by train from Paris. There are a few blog posts explaining the process, which is pretty straight forward.

First check the train schedule, and we took the 10.12am train from Gare Saint Lazare to Giverny. 

I bought the tickets online, but it was quite a hassle to figure out how to scan the QR code for us to pass through the turnstile! Nevertheless, it was eventually sorted and we got on the train.

One of the rooms upstairs in the house

An hour later we got off the train found a mini electric open-air train in front of the station with a woman selling 10 euro return tickets per person to get us to Monet's home. It turns out her tour is 20 minutes, winding around some other landmarks, whereas a giant coach can take tourists to the house in half the time.

After we were dropped off at the parking lot, we still needed to walk another 15 minutes through the small village to the actual house. I bought timed tickets (12pm) ahead of time so we were able to go straight in (along with a lot of other people).

First up -- the house. There was a long line to get in, and it took a while for it to move because visitors were excited to take pictures of the first room, the gallery, which was filled floor to ceiling with paintings and photographs. 

The house, painted pink with a green trim, is large for 10 people, as Monet and his second wife Alice Hoschede-Monet had a total of eight children from previous marriages. While the gallery is quite large, as well as the bright sunny kitchen in yellow, the bedrooms are actually quite small.

A large stove with a beautiful tiled backsplash

Visitors can also see Monet's fascination for Orientalism, or things Japanese in particular, with Japanese prints in the kitchen -- including one of a women's bath house -- and others sprinkled around the home. There are also two ceramic sleeping Siamese cats.

However it's the garden that's much more interesting! The flowers are so photogenic, everywhere you look you can easily compose a nice photo. Some influencers are wearing dresses to take selfies.

The pond and waterlilies are in another area, which entails going through an underground passageway leading to a large pond surrounded by greenery, including large stalks of bamboo. Everyone flocks to the Japanese bridge, which is covered in green wisteria leaves; could you imagine when the wisteria flowers are in bloom? 

Off to the side of the house is where the gift shop is, and it does a brisk business selling all kinds of things Monet, from photography books to children's books about the artist, colouring books, scarves, T-shirts, and jewellery.

One can easily picture Monet painting this scene

We had to hurry through the gift shop because we had to catch the 1.40pm shuttle back to the village in order to get the 2.52pm train back to Paris. It's a pity there isn't another train after 3pm -- it doesn't come until around 5pm.

One tip we discovered is not to go on a Sunday -- almost all the restaurants in the area are closed! We managed to find one enterprising restaurant serving mostly pasta and pizza that was open. The pizzas we ordered were freshly made and delicious. 

Many other people who were at Monet's house the same time as us were catching the same train back. 

Nevertheless we arrived back in Paris around 4pm, invigorated and inspired by Monet's garden!

Claude Monet's home

84 rue Claude Monet

27620 Giverny

Paris - Cloud of Mist the Bourse de Commerce

A large cloud forms out of water mist in the rotunda

For our first day in Paris started with blue skies and temperatures in the low 20s. We made our way to the Palais Royal, and from there walked to the Bourse de Commerce (Commodities Exchange), which holds the Pinault Collection.

We were lucky to catch the tail end of the Fujiko Nakaya show -- the only thing going on at the Bourse de Commerce.

Visitors being enveloped in the cloud

The 93-year-old Japanese artist is best know for her fog sculptures. They aren't sculptures per se, but art installations, where water droplets are spewed into the air and create cloud-like formations. In this case it is called "Cloud #07156."

Visitors had to wait in line before being allowed to enter the circular space designed by Tadao Ando. On the floor are rows of grates on the floor in the middle shaped like a square, and they are timed to shoot out the water droplets that move from one side of the room to the other, enveloping people in the mist as they sit.

After a few of these sprayings, which is exactly the same as water mists sprayed on vegetables in the supermarket, visitors are invited to stand up and take pictures, but not to stand too close to the grates.

Ando's design contrasts the building 

The whole thing lasted about 15 minutes. It was quite the experience to be enveloped in this way, and it reminded me of when I saw the Ryuchi Sakamoto exhibition in Tokyo, where the courtyard was filled with mist!

Interestingly, the fog sculpture don't seem to affect the paintings above it. They are four paintings by four different artists, depicting the trade France had with different countries and continents, like Asia, North America, Russia and the Mediterranean.

None of the artists had been to all these places, so they were stereotypical depictions of the people represented. The paintings were all painted on canvas before they were glued onto the circular wall.

The Bourse de Commerce has an interesting history in itself all the way to today.

Built in 1763-1767, the circular building was originally used to house grain, and later became a marketplace for residents to buy and sell food stuffs. It was an open air interior courtyard that was later enclosed with a wooden dome, one of the largest of its kind in Europe.

But in 1802 a fire destroyed the dome and it was later replaced with a copper frame with glass.

The paintings above depict trade with continents

In 1854 the Bourse de Commerce became a commodities exchange, buying and selling items like wheat, rye, oats, flour, sugar, oil, and alcohol. But then in 1998 with the ushering in of the age of the internet, market activity ended in the building, and was left abandoned.

In 2016, the then Mayor of Paris, Anne Hildago, offered Francois Pinault, one of the richest men in France, a 50-year lease of the Bourse de Commerce for his art collection for 15 million euros and yearly fees, to fund the renovation of the building, which was finally opened in 2021.

Pinault chose Japanese architect Tadao Ando to design a massive concrete cylinder inside the building at the cost of US$170 million. It was quite controversial because why did concrete cost that much and what would happen to the integrity of the building?

The double spiral staircase

But it turns out it's quite interesting, smooth concrete that has holes in it to display works of art, and down below in the basement level is a small auditorium where visitors can watch videos or presentations.

Bourse de Commerce

2 rue de Viarmes

75001 Paris

Tribute to Kusama, Queen of Dots

Kusama brightened our lives with dots

The Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama passed away on Thursday at the age of 97 in a hospital in Tokyo. 

We were just reeling after the death of country singer Dolly Parton when news of Kusama was announced, though she died on August 14.

Many fans went onto social media to post pictures of themselves posing with Kusama's giant polka dotted yellow pumpkin on Naoshima Island, between the main islands of Honshu and Shikouku.

Her pumpkin on Naoshima Island

I have seen her smaller sculptures at Art Basel in Hong Kong, but in May this year I was able to experience one of her installations at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.

Entitled Infinity Mirrored Room -- Let's Survive Together limits a maximum of four people at a time, with only a minute in the room. Once you walk inside there are lots of shiny silver balls in a mirrored room, which makes it look endless, but is actually quite small.

In the middle is a hole you look through, and that too is infinity.

And your 60 seconds are up.

Since she was young she had hallucinations of seeing dots everywhere, and portrayed the world she saw in this way. Kusama seemed to have a penchant for wavy tentacles, voluptuous pumpkins, and balls. Lots of balls and dots.

When I first read about Kusama I was surprised to find she lived in a mental hospital, but perhaps it was easier for her to live this way, having others look after her while she just focused on her art?

It seems sad that her parents didn't appreciate her artistic potential -- they were more focused on getting her married off, something she completely detested. 

The mirrored room in the Art Gallery of Ontario

According to Wikipedia, her father was a womaniser, and Kusama's mother made her daughter spy on his affairs, which instilled a contempt for sex, and in particular men's sexual organs. Imagine how traumatic it must have been to deal with adult issues as a little girl!

Her parents' inability to accept Kusama for who she was only made her more determined to pursue art in the United States and went to New York.

While there she was poor and living in obscurity, though Kusama persisted in her vision of polka dot motifs, and eventually was noticed. Many liked the accessibility of her work, which was not pop art, nor splashing paint onto canvases like Jackson Pollock. She established her own style and stuck with it her whole career.

Interestingly she befriended artists like Andy Warhol and Georgia O'Keeffe, though Kusama returned to Japan in 1973 after living in New York for 15 years.

She found success with her mirrored room in the Japanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1993, and later collaborated with fashion brands like Louis Vuitton thanks to Marc Jacobs, and even established her own fashion brand in 1968 called Kusama Fashion Company Limited.

I admire her wholehearted devotion to art that never strayed from her motifs like polka dots. She was dotty to the end.

Picture of the Day: Hello Dog

A dog carrying a blue, white and red bag

While walking around downtown Montreal, I saw this statue of a dog carrying a blue, white and red-checkered bag which immediately reminded me of the durable nylon canvas bags in Hong Kong!

I have no idea why the dog has a bandage under his left eye, why he is carrying this bag, or what he is doing!

But I have found out the canine is a creation of Montreal-based illustrator Felipe Arriagada-Nunez, who is also known as @chien.champion on Instagram. 

Arriagada-Nunez explains on his Instagram that a series of sculptures called Bonjour Chien, or "Hello Dog" has a narrative about movement, culture, sport and memories, creating a sense of belonging, and building an idea of home.

While the artist, the son of Chilean immigrants, doesn't explain much about the scarf-wearing dog and its blue, white and red checkered bag, I'd like to think it is related to moving, carrying one's possessions around and establishing himself somewhere new. 

It's not easy to pick up and move; sometimes it is out of necessity, on a whim, inspiration or opportunity. Each move takes courage, and in turn helps us grow and learn more about ourselves. 

A Quick Visit to Quebec City

Chateau Frontenac has over 600 rooms

We woke up early for a 6am start to drive from Montreal to Quebec City. It was pretty smooth getting there in just under three hours and we arrived at the Fairmont Chateau Frontenac, the iconic hotel in old Quebec.

Looking for the washroom in the basement, we looked at some great exhibits showing the history of the place.

Remnants of the original fort

The hotel is located on a hill, and in 1620 is was the former site of Fort Saint-Louis, and over the decades expanded as the number of people settling there increased.

And yes the hotel is named after Louis de Buade de Frontenac, who was a governor of Quebec from 1689 to 1698.

In the 19th century, as people began traveling, tourism to eastern Canada ramped up, as tourists could reach Quebec City by transatlantic ships and then train. As a result, in 1882, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company established Chateau Frontenac, a luxury hotel.

By 1919 the hotel was so successful that the Canadian Pacific Railway Co. doubled Chateau Frontenac's capacity so that it had over 600 rooms. 

The hotel still retains its old school charm

There are also other interesting bits of information, like how in the early 17th century, porcelain china from China was highly prized by royalty and the aristocracy for its translucency, but it was very expensive.

As a result, many aristocrats, including Governor de Frontenac, turned to ceramics from Delft the Netherlands, which was cheaper to purchase, though not as refined as Chinese porcelain. 

Another fascinating story is that in 1939, on the eve of World War II, King George VII and Queen Elizabeth had a royal tour of Canada and hosted a banquet at Chateau Frontenac. For the occasion, the hotel ordered a special porcelain design that was produced in Limoges, France.

The interior of the hotel, like the cascading symmetrical staircase continues to command grandeur, and one can only imagine what it was like back in the 19th century!

Our breakfast which took an infuriating long time

Outside the hotel is a panoramic view overlooking the St. Lawrence River.

Afterwards we looked for a place to have a late breakfast and settled on a cafe that operated at a snail's pace -- it took us 40 minutes from the time we sat down to when we finally got our three breakfast orders on the table -- after we complained.

The best the staff could do was offer us more coffee... we couldn't accept because it was pathetic compensation and also our parking meter was almost up (which was why we were in such a rush). We paid our bill as soon as the food finally came.

After driving the car around and around for another spot, we finally parked it at the bottom of the hill in a parkade and wandered around some more. We stumbled on a massive mural in trompe-l'oeil style that shows the history of Quebec.

A fun mural depicting the history of Quebec

There are some historical figures commemorated in the mural, like Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain, Governor de Frontenac, and they are intermingled with kids playing street hockey with large jerseys, and a woman pushing a stroller with a child holding a teddy bear.

We also saw some public art, some cartoonish statues that had names and back stories in French. One seemed to be giving me the side eye.

However, not long after, it started to rain and not carrying umbrellas or rain gear, we decided to head back to the car park. It's a good thing we did because by the time we got to the car, it was pouring rain and hailing!

This guy gave me the side eye!

We decided to cut short our visit to Quebec City and drive back to Montreal! The first hour or so it continued to rain really hard, but then the precipitation stopped and we drove into sunshine as we approached Montreal and snarling traffic...

What an adventure!

Remembering David Hockney

Hockney's Looking at the Flowers (Framed), 25th June, 2022

The English artist David Hockney died today at the age of 88 in London.

I was lucky to see an exhibition of his work two years ago at the Palm Springs Art Museum and was in awe of how much work he produced and what he thought was worthy of capturing -- which was everything.

Us in our own version of Hockney's installation

He made his own colourful interpretations of Yosemite Park, a series of photographs of his mother that are pieced together, a long, winding sketch of a country estate, and his famous series of swimming pool works, capturing the moment of a man diving into the water.

I enjoyed one whimsical installation where he painted himself looking at paintings of flowers that he has made and framed on the wall, and then on the other side is a physical representation of the painting, with two chairs, inviting visitors to pose like him.

He made me realise there is art in the everyday, and it can be fun, colourful, and doesn't have to be profound.

Contemplating Art on Your Montreal Commute

Colourful stained glass while waiting for train

Taking the Montreal metro is very convenient, costs C$3.75 for Zone A fares (which was the only area we went around), and if you miss a train, the next one comes in a few minutes. 

What was very interesting for me was to see a lot of public art in the metro stations, either around the entrance, or by a stairwell, or above the train tracks. It was so unexpected to see art in a mode of public transportation that it took me by surprise.

The Tree of Life by Joseph Rifesser

The Societe de transport de Montreal (STM) provides around 1.4 million trips per day in its metro and bus network, and the metro is a kind of underground art gallery, featuring murals, sculptures, and stained glass panels in most of its 68 stations around the city.

When it comes to murals, mosaics are popular because they are highly durable and low maintenance, the colours don't fade and they are relatively easy to clean -- even graffiti can be removed.

I spotted a few pieces that caught my eye -- a colourful disc, more colour from panels of stained glass, and a sculpture hewed from wood.

The STM even has a website documenting the different art works, helping passengers learn more about the artists, and hopefully encourage them to interact with the pieces, or at least contemplate them during their commute.

Wandering Montreal's CBD

Ju Ming's Tai Chi Single Whip

Montreal is a relatively easy city to get around by the metro of subway. We don't know what it's like during the freezing depths of winter, but we already had a good idea from the intense wind tunnels in some of the metro stations. Just pushing the station door open can be a Herculean task as a gust of wind barrels past you.

Nevertheless, we had fun wandering around the city. On the way to the Notre Dame Basilica, we saw the entrance to Montreal's Chinatown, with a Chinese-style gate with "唐人街" on it. When we arrived at the famed church, one of the towers was under renovation and we weren't keen on paying C$16 admission to go inside.

The entrance to Montreal's Chinatown

Not far from there was the financial district, where we saw a number of banks: BMO or Bank of Montreal, TD, or Toronto Dominion Bank, and even Molsons Bank. 

It was started by Montreal brewer John Molson's two sons, William and John. Not only did William serve as the bank's president until his death, but also expanded the family business empire with a distillery, a lumberyard, a foundry, steamships and railways. 

William Molson was also a leading philanthropist who served as president of the Montreal General Hospital, and donated funds towards the establishment and construction of McGill University, where he later became a governor.

After we crossed the street, we came to Victoria Square, where I spied Taiwanese artist Ju Ming's sculpture!

His blocky tai chi figures graced the Bank of China in Hong Kong, and now there was one in Montreal!

Molsons Bank building

There was no information about it and I had to look it up online. The sculpture is called "Tai Chi Single Whip" that was cast in bronze and erected in 2006.

It became an endearing figure in 2015 when some Montreal Canadien fans made a giant Habs hockey jersey for the sculpture with the number 31 on it for the goalie Carey Price at the time.

Price had won his 43rd game that year, breaking the Montreal Canadiens' single season record previously jointly held by Ken Dryden and Jacques Plante.

Sadly the Habs weren't able to go on to the Stanley Cup finals this year, after they were eliminated by the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference final...

An Artful Visit at the AGO

Jungen's Couch Monster outside the AGO

This morning I went to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) just as it opened at 10.30am and there was a line-up just to get in! Lots of eager art lovers keen to check it out. Admission for the day is C$30, but an annual pass is $40...

The museum is 480,000 sq ft, making it one of the largest art museums in North America, and the second-largest after the Royal Ontario Museum.

Oil sketches by the Group of Seven artists

It seems the AGO has no problems filling the space, as donors like Ken Thomson, who was one of Canada's richest men, donated many pieces of art, and in one room we got a small sampler of his taste in art (eclectic, fun, unique).

The museum also has quite the extensive collection of Group of Seven paintings. Not only finished paintings were presented, but alongside were many oil sketches, probably done in situ. These small works give viewers an idea of how the artist made the composition slightly or drastically differently, and that their impressionist style was already in these oil sketches. The colours seem to be quite similar.

There are a few paintings by Emily Carr that are scattered throughout the AGO too, but obviously not as big a collection as the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Riopelle's colourful, textural work

It was annoying though that captions were not placed with each work -- there was a large brochure in each gallery for visitors to use as a reference. Perhaps individually captioning them was seen as too busy, but the VAG does place it on the side so people can easily find the captions.

There was also a fantastic large square canvas by Jean-Paul Riopelle called Chevreuse II, where oil paint was scraped around the canvas to create new shades as well as textures. It looked extremely complicated but also chaotic and dynamism. Quite amazing that forgers think it's not hard to copy his style.

For something very different, there was a small contemporary exhibition of South Asian artist Ranbir Sidhu's three sculptures in a show called No Limits. He uses polished stainless steel as his medium to create his vision, hence "no limits". One called Fortress of Memory are 21 intricate cutout sculptures of an image of the Dastar Bunga, a style of turban whose name translates as "towering fortress" in Persian and Punjabi. 

Sidhu's Fortress of Memory

Another one looks like a futuristic, spiky-looking asteroid with blinking LED lights inside of it called Asteroid 3033 XI. 

Something in the AGO's permanent exhibition is Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room -- Let's Survive Forever. We had to wait for an attendant to let us in (maximum of four people), and before we went into the room we had to leave our bags outside. We were told we only had one minute to look around.

Inside the mirrored room were many silver balls, and after taking a video of the small room, time was almost up. The attendant asked, "Did you look in the column in the middle?" She had told us to be careful of the column when we went inside.

No we hadn't! We took a quick look to see ourselves mirrored inside more silver balls inside the mirrored column! It did indeed go on, forever.

Immersed in Kusama's mirrors

As we waited to go in, there was a video interview of Kusama and she talked about how she fought with her parents about her desire to become an artist. Her older sister had married well, into a family that was successful in business and why couldn't Kusama do the same?

She rebelled and refused to do any such thing and became even more obsessed with painting...

Outside the AGO is a curious sculpture by Aboriginal artist Brian Jungen. I love his work because he takes everyday objects and turns them into frighteningly beautiful things, like dinosaur-like creatures out of white plastic lawn chairs, or Nike basketball shoes into Aboriginal-like masks.

The AGO bronze piece is called Couch Monster, where he was inspired by Jumbo, a captive circus elephant who was killed by a train in St. Thomas, Ontario in 1885. Jungen called the work "couch monster" because capturing and training an elephant for the circus involves breaking the animal's will and spirit. 

As a result it is no longer an elephant, but a monster created by humans for their own entertainment. So Jungen's prototype involved reconfiguring couches to create the animal, balancing on a ball.

It's an arresting image, but also so thought-provoking.

Hong Kong Designer Wows Met Gala

Roth posing with a mannequin

Watching the Met Gala this year I was very impressed to see Hong Kong-born designer Robert Wun crushing it with eight celebrities wearing his fantastic creations -- more than any other fashion label.

One social media influencer said that as soon as he heard the theme was "Costume art", he immediately knew Wun would be in demand.

He graduated from the London College of Fashion in 2012 and two years launched his eponymous fashion brand.

Osaka before her red reveal

Wun's pieces are so sculptural, three-dimensional, playful, colourful... they definitely elicit "wow" from the audience. How he was able to pull of eight completely different looks and all executed so beautifully is quite the feat.

However, Wun has said that he is very flexible when working with people, trying to make their ideas into reality with his own stylish flourish.

Tennis star Naomi Osaka in a long white coat with puffed sleeves with specks of red -- blood? -- and underneath reveal a deep red sparkling curvaceous dress with thousands of Swarovski crystals in four shades of red.

Wun has worked with her before on her Australian Open entrance with a jellyfish-inspired outfit. 

How about arts producer Jordan Roth with a faceless mannequin hovering behind him, while he wears a long grey velvet dress with gloves. He interacted with the mannequin creating a spooky look. 

Kpop star Lisa also had some extra pairs of hands holding her floor-length shimmering veil. Wun 3-D scanned her arms in different traditional Thai dance positions, and these arms are wearing Bvlgari jewellery too! 

Singer and rapper Audrey Nuna may have been inspired by Jackson Pollack's splatter paintings for this black and white dress suit together with a hat. The black bits are actually 15,000 Swarovski beads. It's quite the dramatic entrance.

Four hands are all over Suphap's black dress

It must have been interesting for Bangkok-born fashion consultant and influencer Nichapat Suphap to have mechanical arms moving over her breasts all night. Two pairs of silver hands are over her chest and thighs on this black mermaid dress with a corseted back. The hands are apparently inspired by Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam.

Indian businesswoman and singer Ananya Birla turned heads with her metallic helmet that looked like a fantasy skull, and underneath she wore a shirt, jacket and voluminous black pleated skirt. Oh and a giant diamond choker necklace.

Then there was Norwegian billionaire Gustav Magnar Witzoe wearing a body suit that looked like abstract musculature that definitely adhered to the theme "Body as canvas".

Beyonce was absent from the Met Gala for 10 years until Monday night. She arrived last with husband Jay Z and daughter Blue Ivy Carter, who made her debut. In front of the crowds she wore a sparkling dress with a skeleton form, but inside the party she changed into a Wun-designed figure-hugging dress in dazzling black and gold with a veil.