another day in Paris

We have been coming to Paris pretty consistently every year if not a few times a year since we lived here with the family for an entire month in July 2008.  It was an incredible summer and was in many ways transformative in regards to the entire families love for Paris but also it took our love of travel to a different level.  What we have noticed as we are walking around Paris is the change of some of the neighborhoods.   The Marais has spread just like Soho did in the late 80’s.  The 6th has more art museums than it ever did before.  It is interesting to see cities grow and change which is something I enjoy doing in NY.

We spent one day in the Marais just going to galleries.  I actually saw in one of them a piece of paper with a map of all of the ones part of an association in the area.  I had never seen that before.  Most of them are open Tues-Sat from 10/11-6/7.   Here are just a few highlights.

Galerie Templon has been a fixture of the Paris art scene for I believe 40 years.  We bought a piece from the gallery at the Pier show this past year so I wanted to stop by and essentially say hello.  They carry more mature artists almost like the Pace does in NYC.  Both of these galleries have galleries across the globe.  The current exhibit in Paris is Anthony Caro, an British sculpture artist who is nearing 80.

We also went in the back and saw this piece that will be in the Jim Dine exhibit coming up next.  It is an incredible piece.  This photo does not do it justice.

This is Yves Bélorgey from gallery Xippas.  We love this drawing!  This was a purchase we had to make.

Farid Rasulov, Dogs in the Living Room.  A serious installation with fabric everywhere and ceramic white dogs sitting around.

We shook things up this time and went to Broken Arm for lunch instead of our usual Japanese spot at Marche Enfant Rouges.  This salad was fantastic.  Dorade ceviche with ginger and lemon dressing underneath slices of avocado and small cubes of butternut squash tossed with cilantro.  So good!

Some of the gallery spaces are expansive.  Most of them are tucked inside courtyards.  This is at Thaddaeus Ropac.

This is at the Topographie de L’art.  This particular exhibit was all about architecture.  We really liked this arch set in the middle of the room.

Galerie Perrotin, Wim Delvoye.  Really conceptual artist.  There were several rooms and this was one of them.

Galerie Cinema had a Paris/New York exhibit from Cédric Klapisch.  We loved the two of these photos next to each other and picked them up for our collection.  Chambers St subway on the top and Palais Royale on the bottom.

We picked this up too from Galerie Photo 12 from the artist Eric de Ville.  We had gone to a few other galleries but these were the highlights.

We continued to walk back to our hotel.  I had to take a picture of the line of people waiting to get into Notre Dame.  The summer we came for a month we went to see Notre Dame too.  The 5 of us just walked in the front door without even noticing the line.  It wasn’t until that we walked out that we noticed a line all the way around the building.  We got a good laugh out of that.  I am surprised nobody said anything as we all waltzed right in.  Those NYers!

For dinner we went to Semilla.  Very open airy restaurant with a big open kitchen which is always fun to watch the chefs prepare.  We started with a shrimp ceviche.

And a carpaccio of figs (tis the season) and dried meat on top.  Really creative.

For dinner we had the fish a la plancha with fresh vegetables, tomatoes and white beans.

And the lamb wrapped in fat and stuffed with a lamb sausage and eggplant caponata with chickpeas on the side.  The food was beautifully prepared.  We strolled home and called it a night.  Exhaustion had set in.