Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles
~ Split Personality ~
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Split Personality, a photo by Paris Set Me Free on Flickr.
I know if I'm doing a painting which requires me to paint over something I've worked hard on it's kind of painful, but that's what turns something from banal to extraordinary or at least original I guess.
I like the idea that we are made up of more than one personality or that we have different sides to us, which this piece sums up for me perfectly.
In my case it's the artistic side which vies with the more intellectual, occasionally complementing each other but not always, which goes to make up whatever I am.
For Paris it's this divergence between the beauty and grandour we all know and the seedier side which we get glimpses of from time to time which goes to make up the character of this great city of contrasts and contradictions.
Back to the sculpture, which I keep discovering new things in, I see that one of the personages seems to be of African descent, whilst the other appears to be resolutely European, at least in the Greek or Roman tradition. An interlacing of cultures which reflects Paris perfectly.
P.S. A meagre bit of investigation reveals that this piece is by a deceased sculptor called Arman who also created the splendid clocks and luggage pieces in front of the Gare Saint-Lazare. I also learned that his pieces are mash-ups of existing relics and so he probably wasn't chopping his own work in to bits after all. La Vénus des Arts is what it's called, incorporating a bit of a musical instrument to give the thing some curves and a bit of a picture frame - a fascinating mish-mash to be sure.
And why not...
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© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.
© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.
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