VASTA

Thursday, July 2, 2015

PARIS: Lumiere Exhibition @ The Grand Palais

Back to Paris for a rendezvous with my wife Susan at the marvelous Lumiere exhibition at the Grand Palais. The Lumiere brothers are larger than life contributors to the worlds of the cinema and photography, inventing, amongst other things the cinematographe and the first color photography process, the autochrome plate. The installation, in one of the enormous Grand Palais spaces, is bathed in blue light and very beautifully done. Sadly closed as of mid-June.

click any image to enlarge

Views of the exhibition space ...

Exhibition vitrines showing camera's and primitive photo

projectors, "magic lanterns"

A circa 1890s hand-painted magic lantern slide

vasta@earthlink.net

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

VERONA May'15 Collectibles Fair Postcards Stamps

The next stop after a week in Paris was Veronafils, the collectibles fair in the city of Verona in northern Italy, about half way between Venice and Milano. I love this fair for two reasons: the abundance of dealers and the many opportunities to find great material and its Italy and the food is always great! Above, the Arena at the southern end of the city proper, a "coliseum" on a much smaller scale then the Roman version and still in use for concerts, shows and the opera.

click any image to enlarge

Back at my hotel taking a look at some of the day's discoveries

A glimpse of the huge space housing the 400 stamp, coin, postcard and
collectibles dealers from Italy and the rest of Europe

The fair itself it not picturesque, but Verona (without the tourists!)

is very beautiful and charming. A few photos ...

Latte machiato + breakfast pastry ...

vasta@earthlink.net

PARIS May ~ June 2015

I'm back in NYC, corporeally and, finally cerebrally, after an extensive European trip and a couple of weeks of catching up on sleep and everything else that goes unattended while traveling. It was a great trip starting in Paris, then to Verona and Berlin and back to Paris. See the next few posts for more of my trip and the shows I attended.

Here are pix which randomly sum up being in Paris off and on during five weeks. Above is the signature photo used for the Germaine Krull exhibition at the Jeu de Paume. She was one of the important photographers of the 1920s and '30s known for her nudes, modernist imagery and photo-journalism. Go see the show it's very well curated and a pleasure to see the full extent of her life and career.

click any image to enlarge

The start or end to many of my days, at the terrace cafe of La Rotonde

A metro station (Arts et Metiers) I had not previously seen with its reflective,

faux copper covered surfaces and machine age, nautical, engine room theme...incredible!!

Details from advertisements, which are everywhere in the metro system. These two campaigns were about 100 feet from each other: the pink pussy for a jewelry company and Jesus used to promote a show at the Louvre.