Sleep--Homage to Cartier-Bresson

With our friends Didier and Nine, we visited the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition at the Pompidou Center (on the page click "read more" for more text). It was simply superb, with over 500 photographs and other items. It's on through June: If you can possibly make it, do so--but be prepared for a long line (as nearly always at the Pompidou).

Edit [next day]: The show convinces me that Cartier-Bresson is the foremost photographer of our time. His quickness in capturing situations is usually expressed in the idea of the "decisive moment". But a key aim of the exhibition is to show that in fact he pursued a wide variety of styles, that "there was not just one but several Cartier-Bressons," and it demonstrates that very convincingly.

[Back to yesterday] The show presented quite a number of aspects of Cartier-Bresson's work which I had not been familiar with. Among these was his close connection for a while to the Surrealists, including their interest in persons asleep or with their eyes closed--which was thought to bring them closer to the unconscious.

So when we headed for lunch after the show, this fellow sleeping in the corner jumped out at me, so to speak. We ended up eating in the same café, in the area beyond. He woke up later and read a book for a while before leaving. Edit: my most perspicacious blip fan (by email) noticed a very small "Make Art Not War" poster in the far upper left of the image (best seen large).

We went to dinner at Didier's brother's place and just returned--I'll head for bed. I did finally added a few more comments about the show above, the next day.