The Paris MAM Offers a Retrospective of an Abstract Visionary

Visitors to the City of Light may be pleased to find out that, in addition to the famous Centre Pompidou, Paris has another modern art museum, and this one is run exclusively by the City of Paris. The museum, named the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (The Modern Art Museum of the City of Paris) is also known as the MAM, and it is located in on the Avenue du Président Wilson. That means guests staying at one of the Sister Hotels Champs-Elysées have easy access to the museum and can take advantage of its numerous exhibitions.

From April 25 until August 24, 2014 one of these exhibits will be dedicated to the modern artist Lucio Fontana. Fontana is thought to be one of the most influential visionaries of the last century, yet he has not had a retrospective in France since 1987. The MAM seeks to change that with its display on 200 of Fontana's works, including paintings, scupltures and installations.

Fontana was the son of an Italian scupltor and lived primarily in Milan, despite having been born in Argentina. His artistic roots led him do experiment with a variety of sculpting materials, from ceramic to mosaic to terra cotta. Although he worked with architects, his pieces were far from purely practical and he became one of the first Italian artists to dabble in abstraction. He played with themes of space, light and color which gave his works a dynamic energy that still vibrates to this day. For example, his 'Tagli' series was a major influence for artists in the 1960s, and this influence is still felt today.

Although Fontana died in 1968, his work with space, abstraction and color embodies the metaphysical questions that artists still attempt to answer in present-day contemporary art. As a result, the MAM's retrospective of Lucio Fontana is a must-see for anyone who appreciates modern or contemporary art.