I’ve often wondered: If an alien looked down on us, what would he see? At this moment on the streets of Paris, an awful lot of people talking into little boxes or who simply seem to be talking to themselves, ignoring their prochaine to pummel their box with their fingers. Until the aliens arrive, we can count on artists to give us a clairvoyant perspective on this society increasingly depourvu de la contacte humaine. So if you can get away from your little box and lift your eyes long enough to negotiate the narrow labyrinthine rues of the Marais, the above oeuvre by Catherine Balet, “Moods in a Room #34 (2019),” as well as other works by the hybrid artist pastiching painting and photography to investigate contemporary mores, is on view through March 30 at the Galerie Thierry Bigaignon at 9 rue Charlot. (Chaplin — or Charlot as the French call him — no doubt someone else who might have had something to say about the zombies walking the streets with their heads in the cyber-sand.) Courtesy Galerie Thierry Bigaignon. — Paul Ben-Itzak
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Contact Paul Ben-Itzak at artsvoyager@gmail.com. Paul Ben-Itzak was educated at San Francisco's Mission High School, the San Francisco Center for Theater Training, and Princeton University, where he studied with Robert Fagles, Joyce Carol Oates, Ellen Chances, and Lucinda Franks. Also at Princeton, he was founding managing editor of the Nassau Weekly and began contributing to the New York Times, Reuters, the Associated Press, Atlantic City Press, and many others, later writing for the Arts & Liesure section of the Times. As a San Francisco-based correspondent for Reuters, he was one of the first reporters to cover the AIDS crisis, also covering the arts, the tech sector, and the financial markets. In 1998, he co-founded the leading international arts journal The Dance Insider & Arts Voyager (http://www.danceinsider.com ) and, later, Art Investment News (http://www.artinvestmentnews.com). Paul has also worked as a DJ, children's theater teacher and playwright, and made his debut as an actor on the New York stage in 2011, playing Weston in Sam Shepard's "Curse of the Starving Class."
To date, Paul has translated the sketches of Boris Vian, reviews of theater performances , French tourism sites, and research proposals and articles from CNRS and other researchers. His editing work includes dissertation level papers.
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