These are scary times and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself into making a light post about the beauties of the old world…

eiffel tower paris michele roohani

I watched the debates in awe, witnessed the bickering over the financial bailout with disbelief and then Paul Newman died and I had the Paris Blues… Watch this magnificent trailer of Newman and Sidney Poitier in Paris of the 60’s.

paul newman dies michele roohani

Did anybody looked cooler than this guy? Beautiful man with a more beautiful heart. Smoking killed him.

Paris remains splendid in spite of all the bad news I have been getting from home—a walk through Place des Vosges at night washed away some of that.

place des vosges at night stop sign michele roohani

The infernal crowds finally went home and left Isle Saint Louis in peace:

brasserie isle saint louis michele roohani

The best remedy— albeit temporary —for the blues is a visit to the Patisserie. Just looking at them can send you to the hospital…

dalloyau strawberry cakes michele roohani

I am not a chocolate or a strawberry person but I would kill for a Religieuse Café!

dalloyau religieuse cafe chocolate michele roohani

Window watching is a pleasure in this “walking city”,

red chandelier michele roohani

Nobody has the money to buy any of these overpriced un-necessities anymore.

prada avenue montaigne prada bag michele roohani

United States is trying to absolve itself from its sins and Europe will follow…

prada shoes michele roohani

This one reminds me of the “poustines” we were wearing as kids back home:

window fur coat with dogs michele roohani

Beautiful Mansard roofs are breathtaking:

mansard rooftops paris michele roohani

but not enough to make me forget this:

drilling sarah palin

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe. Einstein

With these shameless gas prices, it’s less painful to look at cars than driving them. I went to an auto show today and two hours and 100 pictures later, I was about to over-dose on beautiful antique cars, gorgeous vintage sports cars and even the vulgar Ferraris and Maseratis…

race cars michele roohani

I’ve never seen so many shades of red outside the cosmetic counter’s lipstick section! A good name for a shade of lipstick would be a “Ferrari red” - a “Corvette carmine” for a nail polish:

corvette carmine michele roohani

Amazing tires:

car tires michele roohani

Lovely 1956 Chevrolet Bel Airs:

blue chevrolet belair michele roohani

Great interiors and fins:

red chevrolet belair michele roohani

It was Rolls Royce galore in Rodeo Drive today but that will be for another post.

This 1938 Dubonnet Hispano Suiza is out of this world:

hispano suiza michele roohani

or this Delahaye:

Delahaye michele roohani

To see more about fast cars, go here. Happy Father’s Day!

haute wheels hat michele roohani

Beautiful naked bodies

May 12th, 2008

I saw these naked bodies last week in the science museum. I’ve been trying to see this exhibition for a long time. Gunther von Hagens‘ lifetime work is awe inspiring to say the least.

Gunther von Hagens lovers closeup michele roohani

It’s all about real human bodies preserved through Plastination. It takes more than 1500 hours of work to transform a corps into a plastinate - the near perfect representation of a once living human body. It’s interesting to see  how each body has it own unique features, even on the inside.

Gunther von Hagens lovers michele roohani

We usually forget that beneath even the most beautiful bodys’ skin lies a skeleton, muscles, several feet of intestines and lots of other goodies!

joey house michele roohani celestial bodies

This whole experience reminded me of a great rainy day last year when I visited the small Dupuytren museum in the school of medicine in Paris. Just look at the skull of this man hit by a rifle stick in 1807 - he died after two days.

Dupuytren skull michele roohani

And if you are (unlike me) into mythology, you may enjoy seeing a real Kyklōps (cyclops). After being exposed to all of the above, I listened today to my favorite podcast about the history of Brain.

Dupuytren cyclops michele roohani

I am not all flowers and poetry after all, am I?

Farah Pahlavi, the queen of Iran, is still alive and well, but people are not talking about her much. Things changed when it was reported last month that “the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art has put on display an exhibition that art experts call the most important collection of modern Western art outside Europe and the United States.” In the 1970’s she collected great works of art - about 150 paintings - by Picasso, Monet, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, etc…

farah pahlavi coat mirror micheleroohani

I bought some old Paris Match magazines some years ago in Paris spanning from 1958 through 1969. It was interesting to see her on the cover from practically the minute she met the Shah in Paris. I put some of the photos from Paris Match together to share them with you.

farah diba pahlavi micheleroohani hotel crillon

She lived a Cinderella story that turned sour at the age of 41 after the Iranian revolution of 1979.

farah diba pahlavi micheleroohani crown bride tiara

In spite of my belief that monarchy is stupid in the 21st century, it seems like I can’t shake my affinity for this woman; the fact that we both went to the same school (Jeanne d’Arc of Tehran) and had to endure the same French nuns may not have much to do with it.

farah diba pahlavi micheleroohani 3 faces

The deposed queen has somehow survived the animosity that follows the Pahlavis wherever they go. At the minimum she should be applauded for amassing a collection of priceless art, as opposed to worthless shoes or stolen jewelry (see Queen Elizabeth and Imelda Marcos).

Her good reputation lasted way longer than her jewelry.

Ok people, brace yourselves - this is going to be an image heavy post! I will take you through a couple of days in Paris - the way I like it: hitting the streets early in the morning to catch the blue hour of this great city; Montparnasse is a very busy neighborhood at 8:30 am.

montparnasse early morning 1

This was my first time witnessing the changing of the ads:

montparnasse advertising

I walked to a favorite café that reminds me of my twenties, La Rotonde.

la rotonde

I don’t like them anymore (remember the whipped cream out of a can?) but nostalgia and Balzac take me to them every year.

balzac rodin rotonde

the cafés are changing in Paris - here is the old generation Select and the trendy Lotus.

select montparnasse

cafe lotus montparnasse

Of course anything that remotely reminds me of Los Angeles while I am in Europe is not welcome so this kind of restaurant/café just makes me wince but the worst offender is Starbucks and its paper cups.

starbucks in paris

I bought a pariscope from this news stand,

news stand montparnasse

and had a coffee while looking for the hottest exhibition in Paris.

pariscope montparnasse

I decided to see Giacometti in Centre Pompidou .It was never my intention to paint only with gray. But in the course of my work I have eliminated one color after another, and what has remained is gray, gray, gray!

giacometti man

What a great show it was - complete with the artist being filmed while painting and sculpting.

giacometti hands

His drawings (included some fabulous small notebooks), paintings and sculptures made a large window into the soul of this great creature…

giacometti square man

giacometti woman

Even though I am not a big fan of the Centre Pompidou, I have to admit that the view is breathtaking…

paris roof eiffel

I visited the Maillol museum a couple of days before this and liked its architecture as much as the collections:

maillol stairs

Maillol is very different in his style from Rodin - they were good friends.

maillol bronze

The picture bellow shows the plaster versions of the bronze sculptures above.

maillol plaster

On a more colorful note, living in Los Angeles, I am deprived of pretty store windows - abundant in New York, Paris and London.

fornasertti paris

I am ending this post with two images of my loyal laptop that’s getting very old but gets the job done.

mac cafe paris

tulips mac shokoufeh

Café crème or Petite Arvine, a good post I hope.

I am sitting in this cute café which happens to have wifi! The world is changing and Paris with it.

cafe du metro michele roohani paris

I’ve been very busy since I am here; three interesting exhibitions in 2 days: Arcimboldo has never been so complete as in this exhibition in the Luxembourg museum.

michele roohani arcimboldo luxembourg

A way more somber show was Germany, the black years at the Maillol museum. Otto Dix, Beckmann and Grosz were the most impressing but i have to admit that the German propaganda posters with Hitler’s name on them were the most striking/chilling to me.

michele roohani german war poster 11

This one can give you nightmares:

michele roohani war poster german

this next one takes me back to all of my dear Professor Ungvari’s battlefields (Somme, etc…)

michele roohani somme

of course Paris can erase these nightmares with a winter sunshine after the rain.

michele roohani pont des arts

Vasa Mihich

October 6th, 2007

I went to Vasa’s studio a couple of years ago and fell in love with his exquisite sculptures. His work is awe-inspiring in its simplicity, vivid colors and elegant lines.

vasa-mihich-artist-glass-cube-colors-plastic.jpg

Bilbao, revisited

September 28th, 2007

Looking back at some of my pictures from Spain, I found this one taken at the Bilbao Guggenheim museum at dusk.

bilbao, gugenheim, museum, travel, spain, europe, colors

“An art book is a museum without walls.” Andre Malraux

Glass has always fascinated me - they call Antoine Leperlier, an unclassifiable artist, a glass sculptor.I  was transfixed by the unusual works of art by Leperlier in Musée nationale de ceramique.

leperlier_2.jpg

He’s using old text and adages like “et in Arcadia ego” to emphasize his take on time and human history. interrupted movements in glass like pictures taken on high speed film. frozen poetry.

lerperlier-1.jpg

“chaos” has a special place in Leperlier’s work; “continual struggle between permanence and flux, cosmos and chaos, being and nothingness”…

leperlier_5.jpg

leperlier_3.jpg

the only other artist that i know in this caliber would be the great Dale Chihuly.

Bilbao

June 7th, 2007

Living in Los Angeles, i was kind of blas about seeing Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum last week but i was surprised by this stunning building that looks somehow “liquid”. it floats majestically on the river Nervion.

Outside Guggenheim Bilbao

Outside Guggenheim Bilbaothe building’s exterior with its titanium sheathing is smoothly fluid, the curves unending. i understand now why they call Gehry not a mere architect but a “starchitect”!

Outside Guggenheim Bilbao

Guggenheim Bilbao sculpturei have to admit that i didn’t care about the much hyped Anselm Kiefer’s exhibition.

Inside Guggenheim Bilbao museum

the museum’s interior is amazing with a central atrium that reaches 50 meters high - an orgy of glass, steel, limestone and light; CONTINUITY reigns supreme…

Bilbao Guggenheim central atrium

Richard Serra’s sculptures in bilbao were a revelation to me and i was glad to catch him on Charlie Rose last night; the breathtaking installations, the sheer space-cutting size of the steel sheets, the spirals and mazes they made were just spellbinding. he will be at the Grand Palais and the MoMA with excess baggage.

Guggenheim Bilbao Richard Serra sculpture

aside from this, Bilbao is a boring city.