It’s art, I get that and I am major fan. Yet, I was still kind of surprised this morning when I went to Le Figaro’s front page and saw a rather large, extremely clear photo of The Origins of the World painting by Courbet. Yes, I started my morning looking into the vagina of a stranger (shown below).

Now, I am not a prude. I’ve seen The Vagina Monologues, have a frequent buyer card at Good Vibrations in San Francisco and I am regularly called upon by friends looking for fresh new ideas for tips and tricks in the bedroom. But the painting is graphic and it was what I’d call a rude awakening.

Through my morning fog, I first thought I was staring at a photo set up to look like the painting. The work is definitely a sample of the realism school of art. Fortunately, I didn’t spit out my Prince Vladimir, Kusmi tea in surprise, but rather clicked through to learn more.

It turns out that this internationally acclaimed painting is only half a painting and that the artist originally included a head. Earlier this month, French art expert Jean Jacques Fernier declared the head of the young lady had been found. Or rather, the painting of the head had been found. Not the actual head, which I am not sure is even missing. Unlike Richard III’s, which did pop up rather recently.

According to Le Figaro’s expert, Hubert Duchemin, the entire story is pure nonsense and “even a two year old” could see that the portrait of Jo, the beautiful Irish girl that was Courbet’s muse and Whistler’s lover, did not come off the same brush as the rest of the painting regions. It makes for a great story; 19th century love, sex and porn tied to a potential multi-million€ windfall as two experts fight it out for international prominence.

The question remains, how did Le Figaro decide society was ready to see this photo splashed across the front page? I am not the only one who finds it pornographic. When someone used the painting as his FaceBook profile photo in 2011, the company suspended his account. A book with this image as cover art was not allowed to be displayed in the windows of bookstores in France in 1994, nor in Portugal in 2009. The painting was shown at an exhibit in Paris in 2005, and although the entire room was a collection of sexually graphic sketches and illustrations, this particular painting was in an isolated area you had to go out of your way to enter.

The cover of Paris Match features the same painting, but type covers the most intimate details, making it infinitely less surprising. On one hand, I am all for the open exhibition of anatomy, on the other hand, I know that the allusion can be sexier than the reality and I wonder if seeing penis and vaginas on public display, spread across newsstands may not detract a bit from the magic and the mystery of sex.

I can’t wait to hear what you think….

If Hopper was a great artist, Dali was pure genius. It is not really fair to compare, but we enjoyed a double header last week, seeing Hopper late Saturday evening and Dali first thing Sunday morning, so I can’t help myself.

Sunday was our third attempt at seeing the show, every time we’d tried to see it previously the lines, even for ticket holders and members, had been outrageously long. A sign outside suggests visitors arrive after 6pm, or face the three hour long waits that are common earlier.

I’d read that on Sundays the museum opens at 11am, but the Dali show was open to members and ticket holders starting at 9am. We arrived at 9h20 and despite the pouring rain, the line already crossed the entire square. It moved quickly, giving us just enough time to enjoy the hot coffees Mr French scored us from a nearby café.

The show begins in an igloo shaped structure that reminded me of Dali’s home in Cadaques. The walls looked like white stucco and a docent was explaining to her group that usually there was an image of the artist in an egg projected on the walls. Unfortunately the A/V expert had over-slept and there were no videos that morning.

This show, like the Hopper show, presents the artist’s work chronologically and what is so striking with this show is the realization that Dali never had to find his voice. He was painting lobsters from the very beginning and even if some of his earliest work was realist, his palette, his line and his landscapes were all there, just as we know them from his iconic works of melting clocks and distorted elephants.

The result is that you step immediately into the world of Dali and start to develop the vaguest sense of his mind. If you read the signs, you’ll learn that as a young child he became obsessed with the idea that the two farmers stopped for prayer in Millet’s Angelus were actually praying over the body of the child, their child, they had just killed. The obsession stuck with him his entire life, clearly visible throughout his art and at one point he even convinced the Louvre to take his idea seriously and investigate the painting itself. Which shows that not only did Salvador have a very active imagination, but he took that imagination, and himself very seriously.

This is another very popular show and it is over crowd, with people waiting in line patiently to see each painting. After two or three rooms, this got rather tiresome, but at about the same time, the show goes multi-media. There is a fantastic theater with white plastic versions Dali’s famous lip couch, brightly lit, welcoming spectators to watch…

watch what? I had no idea because the screen was white. The guard just outside the door explained that the A/V person had never shown up and there would be no videos for the morning. 5 minutes later a voice came on over the loud speakers announcing that “Due to technically difficulties, the A/V system would up and running within the hour.” Technical difficulty must be the new term for hang over.

Regardless, the A/V system was running within 10 minutes, which game me just enough time to discover Dali’s 3D paintings, which are displayed with mirrors to get the full 3D effect. And then the real fun began. There is his Mae West room, which is decorated just as Dali specified, then projected against the wall, so you can photograph yourself, a bit of art within the art and a great souvenir!

There were also video clips of Dali being Dali. Some of it was in French, some I couldn’t hear and most of it, well it really didn’t matter, because the visuals were enough. Dali, signing a rock at Cadaques, Dali sponsoring a trendy party in the 70’s, giving everyone cotton candy, Dali explaining Alka Seltzer.

The videos were so good I went back to see if the film was running. It was and it was pretty funny. He talks about his famous Venus de Milo dresser with all those drawers, explaining that they are the drawers in which we compartmentalize ourselves according to Freud. And he poses his wife Gala, as he explains the American obsession for blood (its in all their movies), his melting watches (they’re so rushed, they love the idea of time melting away), and massacring children (every American’s secret fantasy, don’t you know?).

The exhibition is an inspiring orchestration of life imitating art, creating an experience that was truly surreal.