Porte de Vincennes
It’s been a busy week, and we’ve not really fitted in many Portes . We did start at the beginning of it from Vincennes, which turned out a Boulevard walk, on wide alleys. Here the traffic streams from the périphérique, entering the city. We pass Nicky Bell and Ben Langland’s Metro facade for the Vincennes station in all its plain-ness, and head towards the columns of Place de la Nation on the imperial Cours de Vincennes. It is as wide a street as I have ever walked on. At Nation, Boulevard Voltaire throws a magnificent oblique all the way down to Republique. You can see it elegantly elevated just above a rise at the end.
I like to think that I’m tending my books even whilst walking. It may not always be the case, but a shelf of these colourful covers came into view along the Boulevard, as if to remind me of what I had not done.
What I had done instead was go to Blois to talk about an big aspirant exhibition to be called From Construction to Publication. There’s an assertion for you! We were at the amazing Foundation du Doute in the middle of the town, which houses the collections of Ben Vautier and Gino di Maggio. You might describe it as Fluxus overkill, but there is nothing like it anywhere, and it was very special to have a quiet wander through such a massive hoard. Doing the big show there would require a rather large emphasis on their affairs, which might slightly unhinge the quieter elements of the proposal. What I have come to conclude is that my days of doing those big jamborees may be over, and I did wonder why I had left my personal schemes and the big city out of my window. SC
notes from an urban hibernation 