Sunday in Paris

For this morning it was scheduled to go to the Institut Néerlandais in Paris. This is the cultural centre of the Netherlands promoting Dutch culture. At 11.00 o'clock was a conference about how to be successfull as a photographer in Paris. The two persons responsible for this conference, Pim Milo and Edie Peters, had invited three Dutch photographers to come and tell about their experiences. Also a curator of the Institut Néerlandais, Marieke Wiegel, specialised in photography, would speak. Last week Pim Milo explained that they had been contemplating to invite Michel Szulc Krzyzanowski to speak a this conference as well. In the end, Michel Szulc Krzyzanowski promotes his work successfully in Paris as of 1971. Knowing the ins and outs inside out. But in the end the organisers of the conference decided to invite only photographers who permanently live in Paris and Michel Szulc Krzyzanowski doesn't live permanently anywhere. However, later it turned out that of the 4 photographers invited to speak at the conference, 3 were not permanently living in Paris at all. And only one, a fashion photographer, living permanently in Paris, had been making it on his own. The other photographers, all women, had been more or less operating in Paris financed by subsidies of the Dutch Government. This whole situation made Michel Szulc Krzyzanowski not feel comfortable to go to this conference. Besides getting irritated by what would probably be a demonstration of moderate abilities and vision, the fact not to have been invited made a desire to go vanish.
He also wondered why he would go there to have to possibly explain to Dutch people disturbing the market with subsidy-backed privileged women how to be successfull in Paris.
In any case, early Sunday morning a phone-call came with a request to help out a friend having a problem with a German gallery. After only one cup of Assam-tea Michel Szulc Krzyzanowski subwayed to Paris Photo and for three hours was involved in a complicated situation difficult to find a solution.
The last evening in Paris, tomorrow is departure to Amsterdam, Holland, was dinner with the American photographer Mark Lyon, the French photographer Laura Brunnellière and the by many blogreaders beloved psycho-analyst Brigitte Bataille. In the famous Brasserie Wepler at Place Clichy: a traditional, typical Parisien restaurant where one pays for a meal the amount representing buying food in a supermarket during one week. However, eating there with good friends, in that kind of special ambiance, having allure and being high class, was as wonderful as the dozens of oysters they started with and to end the dessert: a generous helping of chocolate mousse with nuts.