Sacred Musings: May 2025
Art is in the Street; "Gnarly"
Sacred Musings is a free monthly offshoot of Sacred Monster, usually comprising whatever various thoughts, exhibitions, and recommendations I might have from the previous month.
Bonjour à tous et à toutes,
Yet another summer is nearly here! I am packing up to head back to Los Angeles, and fortunately, Paris has seen an incredible season of spring this year (it rained nearly every day last May.)
Museums and cultural institutions are opening their summer exhibitions and in Paris, they are starting off strong.
At the Petit Palais — always a pleasant experience — there is “Worth: Inventer la Haute Couture,” about the groundbreaking fashion designer Charles Frederick Worth. Alongside countless stunning garments from the mid-to late-19th century and early 20th are paintings which orient their wearers into space and time. Of particular note was a gallery taking the viewer through the average day in the life of a Worth woman (ie: one who was very, very rich,) which included up to six (!) outfit changes, all spectacular.
I’ll admit that I was surprised to discover the Musée d’Orsay’s “L’art est dans la rue” exhibit spectacular. The Musée d’Orsay is rarely high on my list of institutions to visit, mostly owing to the fact that while, yes, they are in possession of many master works (Manet’s Olympia, Courbet’s L’origine du monde, Bouguereau’s Dante and Virgil come immediately to mind) — in my opinion, the home of the greatest examples of Impressionism is the Art Institute in Chicago, IL. (While the nouveau-riche American industrialists were snapping up Monets and Seurats at a quick clip, the Parisians who didn’t think Impressionism was worth their time were, unfortunately, victims of their own hubris in this case.)
That said, “L’art est dans la rue” — a blockbuster showcase of Belle Epoque-era street posters, advertisements, and political cartoons — is well worth your time. Imagining a Paris devoid of color, except for the wheat-pasted prints that were on display, really sent my imagination into overdrive. And while we are inundated with “art” in the street every day, seeing the vast decline in artistic and aesthetic beauty when it comes to advertisements and political cartoons is simply depressing. Bring back the Toulouse-Lautrec vibe!
Finally, if you have been a longer-term paid subscriber, you may remember last summer’s deep dive into soft power via Blackpink and the K-pop machine.
It came out not too long before Netflix dropped their fascinating documentary series Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE, which delved into the training and development process for a “global girl group” that debuted under the collaborative efforts of megalabels HYBE and Geffen. It’s a brutal watch that I ended up binging in one sitting; I still think about a scene where executives gather to discuss the great sponsorship interest they’ve received before selecting which teenaged girls they were going to put in the final group lineup.
That said, I have to shout out two creatives working behind-the-scenes with KATSEYE, now nearly a year into their career: stylist Kelly Page and songwriter/producer Alice Longyu Gao. Both women are dear friends who have hit it out of the park with their work on the newest single “Gnarly” — an abrasive, tongue-in-cheek satire of consumer culture. The moment I saw the outfits and heard the song, I knew they were behind it.
I have so much I’ve been working on that I am coming very close to announcing. I am beyond excited to share; watch this space!
à très bientôt,
Chloë