Friday 15 May 2009

Louder than Words

In the Mouffetard area of Paris on the left bank I recently came across two compositions that seemed rather appropriate at the moment, although neither featured any words. My temptation therefore is to add no words of my own and just let the images speak for themselves, but I will quickly say why they appealed to me.

The first (above) was a large (perhaps 1 metre high) red question mark on a grey, stone wall. Graphically the juxtaposition of the colours was striking, but it is also the perfect representation of the general confusion we all feel at the moment. Credit crunches, swine flu, negative inflation, European elections...they all just deserve this big point d'interrogation!

Secondly, with all this confusion propagated by the media, perhaps the best thing to do is to just throw out the television. The anarchists who sprayed the wall behind would agree, but I doubt that they were the ones who positioned this machine so neatly next to these unfriendly looking railings.

5 comments:

ArtSparker said...

That is really quite an attractive question mark- the way the top fades into mist, as if to emphasize confusion.

Starman said...

I was intrigued by the bottom picture. Am I correct in believing that the spiked railing is to keep men from using that corner to urinate? If so, then I must wonder about the configuration since they left ample space to climb over without being impaled.

Adam said...

Starman - I'm not sure what the spiked railing is supposed to prevent. It is situated around the back of the Saint-Etienne du Mont church next to the Pantheon, but the spikes do seem to be quite bizarrely and randomly positioned.

Pamela Poole said...

Bonjour Invisible Paris.

You would probably like my friend's photo blog; she captures a lot of Paris beauty where you'd least expect it. http://bonheuroccidental.blogspot.com/

I stopped by because I thought you might like to know about www.francophilia.com, the social network for francophiles.

Hope you and your readers will stop by and join us! And be sure to follow us on Twitter for daily French culture bites and francophile treats! @francophilia

Merci et Ơ bientƓt.

Pamela Poole (LaGoulue)
Founder

Anonymous said...

so often tempted to do that to my TV!

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