Abbott and Weiwei at the Jeu De Paume: Exhaustive & Exhausting; Shameful and Sameful.

By Johntalbott

As many times as I've been in and around the Place de la Concorde, and I remember most memorably entering it in 1955 on a two-wheeled rocket, after a long slog from Istanbul, I got out of the subway today, gasped looking at the Jeu de Paume and thought - "this really is spectacular."


Now maybe I'm jaded and past my shelf life, as some readers have suggested, but despite the museum's statement that many of Abbott's photos were displayed here for the first time, it seemed to me that I had unfortunately "been there, seen that."  As for Al Weiwei, what the Chinese government is doing to him is a scandal but pictures of middle fingers in front of buildings and dropping pots are hardly a reason to put someone in jail without a trial.

I rated them both sans Wows.