Morimura's Kahlo Series and Kulik's New Paradise: A Critical Review of Paris Gallery Openings

The article reviews several photography exhibitions in Paris galleries in September-October 2001. Yasumasa Morimura's series "An Inner Dialogue with Frida Kahlo" at Galerie Thaddeus Ropac is criticized for lacking the ironic distance of his earlier work, descending into kitsch. Morimura, known for appropriationist works referencing Western painting and androgynous cross-dressing, here embodies Kahlo in lush, baroque settings with exotic animals, flowers, and medical paraphernalia, but the excess becomes suffocating. Oleg Kulik's "New Paradise" at Galerie Rabouan-Moussion also disappoints. Kulik, famous for his "man-dog" performances, now allegorizes the loss of nature through photographic superimpositions of animals and couples having sex in artificial landscapes. The provocations feel heavy and boring. Seton Smith at Galerie cent8 shows large-format blue-tinted nostalgic photographs, deemed safe and obsolete neo-pictorialism. In contrast, Éric Aupol at Galerie Polaris presents a coherent, rigorous series of abandoned hangars with clean lines and Beuysian chromatism, paying homage to Tanizaki's "In Praise of Shadows." The article concludes that Aupol's work is the most convincing of the season.