Find Out What's Playing

Last time the parents came to visit me in Paris, it didn't take long before we ended up at the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa. It didn't kill me to go, but quiet as kept, I don't go in for the trappings of tourism like that. I found myself explaining to them how I relate to museums.

I love museums, this is no "anti" rant. I just don't understand how people get the urge to go to the museum, and then show up with no idea what's exhibiting and walk around for their once-in-a-blue-moon slice of culture. To me, museums are like movie theaters: if they're not playing what I want to see, I'm not going to the movies just for the sake of going to the movies. It's not the theater, it's what's playing at the theater.

I bring this up because yesterday La Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine reopened here in Paris, in a ceremony presided over by President Sarkozy. Maybe I'll go and maybe I won't. But I made sure to show up for the Kara Walker exhibit last month, which just closed its run at the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris. Kara Walker (see video) is a fierce 37-year-old Sagittarian who works primarily with silhouette images depicting scenes from the antebellum South. Maybe I first learned about her while editing the art section of Russell Simmons's Oneworld magazine in the early '00s, maybe curator Thelma Golden turned me onto her even earlier at the Whitney sometime. But the exhibit was harrowing in ways you wouldn't believe if I told you, yet by turns funny at the same time. Do check out sister Kara Walker if you get the chance.