International Artists Promotion Group

Art en Capital was born in 2006 out of a desire by the “historic Salons of the Grand Palais” and by artists of differing approaches to focus on their differences, to join forces in order to create this unifying and innovative event. So for the last eight years, the Salon Comparaisons, Société des Artistes Français (Society of French Artists), Société des Artistes Indépendants (Society of Independent Artists) and the Salon du Dessin et de la peinture à l’eau (Drawing and Watercolour Salon) have come together under the glass roof of the Grand Palais. With over 40,000 visitors every year and up to 2,500 established or emerging artists exhibiting at the Grand Palais, Art en Capital has become part of the French and international art scene.

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The state of contemporary fine art is one of the most intriguing mysteries of the cultural landscape surrounding us. What happens within it? Is there logic and meaning in the chaotic variety of the quests of modern artists? Is it even possible to use the word quest in defining the desire to find ground beneath ones feet? All these questions, having arisen in the last decades, quite naturally come to mind in the huge hall of Grand Palais, at the exhibition of the Salon ’13.
•  The witty photo collage by Francois Chery on the theme of the painting “Rainy Day” by Gustave Caillebotte may well serve as a visual epigraph for the presented exposition. The meaning of this collage is obvious – Paris is Paris and the Parisians are Parisians, despite the change of surroundings. This is true, however our way of life changes, our thoughts and emotions change, and with them the painting language changes as well. The search for a new visual language that adequately reflects our time is a constant and unchanging task for an artist of any era, and such creativity is collective. In the case that this quest is successfully allowed, there may arise an artistic phenomenon, distinguishable as a style. This sequence – from language to style – cannot be disrupted. Style does not arise from individual creativity, even for a brilliant artist. First, a new language must arise. However, there is one caveat – “new language” does not mean “new alphabet.” Letters remain the same – A, B, and so on, until the last character – everything that can be called basic education.
•  In the exhibition at the Grand Palais, such technique is certainly present. Salon 2013 as a whole looks stronger and more interesting than last year’s exhibition. The many years of work by the jury, focused on screening weaker artworks, is beginning to bear quite tangible results – the exhibition has acquired features of a professionally oriented exposure with clear genre-based blocks of artworks. All this positively distinguished Salon 2013 from the tendentious chaos of the last FIAC. The negative sides are the common ones of contemporary fine art: insufficient high culture of working with color; weak compositional structure; misunderstanding of the difference between meaning and content.
•  The spectators – a passive, but an influential part of the art world, deserve special mention. There were many of them and there was no sense that this is an arbitrary audience. The concentration of viewers around the most interesting art pieces is a good indicator of artistic culture. Against this background, what seemed rather amusing was the lack of attention from the French press. Critics have for too long served as advertising agents and have apparently become accustomed to this function. And in fact, is it worth expressing ones opinion, if no one has made an advance payment for it? Nevertheless the art of painting, though it is not too fast, still returns under the arches of the Grand Palais. ©

by Russian Art & Paris

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1.  Grand Palais.

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2.  Exhibition hall.

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3.  The vernissage.

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4.  Exhibition hall. View from above.

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5. Inside the exhibition halls.

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6. The artistic town.

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7.  This is 224th salon. The historic section.

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8.  The historic section.

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9.  “Hommage a Gustave Caillebotte” by Francois Chery, (France)

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