A basic layout of David Lynch's 'The Air is on Fire' at Fondation Cartier, Paris

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The security at the David Lynch retrospective was intense. Each room in the exhibition had multiple guards walking in a strict, prearranged pattern such that there was never a moment when visitors weren't being scrutinized by at least two pairs of eyes. I saw one guy discreetly pull out his cellphone and try to snap a picture, only to be immediately swarmed by security and ordered to stop. So the only images I was able to get for you (see: below) were shot from outside the building looking through the windows of one of the rooms in the show. But here's a quick rundown of the exhibition and what's in it.

General: Everywhere you go in the show, you hear a David Lynch composed soundscape that, of course, gives what is essentially just a slightly quirkily installed art show that Lynchian aura of eerieness and impending menace. Except for the room pictured below, the rooms in the show are windowless and dark with little pinspots on the works, and some works left unlit and barely visible, which I assume is Lynch's doing, although it's possible the bulbs aimed at those pieces had merely burnt out.

Main floor, north room (see photos): David Lynch's early paintings. I love Lynch as much as anyone, but these paintings are not much more than charming. Big and muddy looking with frequent 3D elements like glued on tree limbs and articles of clothing, they look kind of like a childish hybrid of Francis Bacon and Anselm Kiefer.

Main floor, south room: More recent paintings, which are much better, largely abstract, mostly done in blacks and greys, with a lot of cryptic text painted across them or glued onto their surfaces. The walls were covered with display cases containing a huge number of sketches and doodles by Lynch -- everything from absent minded looking squibs on post-its to notes he's written to people to wake him up at a certain time to actual detailed, carefully made drawings. Highlights: his sketch for the eventual poster for 'Wild at Heart,' some doodles he did on the pages of the scripts from 'Blue Velvet' and Twin Peaks episodes, etc.

Basement, south room: A big stage set Lynch made for an unknown reason that you can walk around on and through. Fun. On the walls, some terrific photo pieces where Lynch fucked with old daguerotype portraits to make the sitters into spooky mutants. Also, some smaller, more formal drawings. There were two tall, skinny ceramic sculptures of surrealistic plants with shoes and things growing out of them. They'd make for okay garden decor, basically.

Basement, north room: This is the money room of the show. The walls show a large but pretty selective history of Lynch's photographs, b&w and color, which are mostly very good, ranging from portraits of snowmen to distorted, erotic female nudes. In the center of the room, Lynch has built a small movie theater where you can watch a retrospective of his short films and animations. I'd seen most of them before on his website, but they look great projected, and a large proportion of them are fantastic.

Second floor: The museum shop. They sell a variety of Lynch books, DVDs, and limited edtion art works. A video monitor shows a loop of Lynch's more simple, hand drawn short animations. The shop also sells David Lynch's new coffee brand, so I picked up two cans, one to drink and one to save. I drank a cup yesterday, and it's very American tasting coffee, no surprise, presumably what Dale Cooper would have been drinking in Twin Peaks. It's not the best coffee I've ever imbibed, but it's not too bad, and it's David Lynch coffee, so who cares if it's cuisine.


The line to get into the show
















My esteemed, strangely Gerhard Richteresque company CyCyLoLo in the Fondation Carter's garden


David Lynch coffee, program, and bookmark
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