Two unusual art exhibitions in the city are dealing with strangely eerie, but fascinating, subjects. While one chronicles an artist's encounter with the ghost of the mistress of Henry the IV, the other dwells on how like Lady Macbeth, we all are trying to wash the blood off our hands

Paris Autumn by Pushpamala N

"I really wanted to work on a ghost story. Little did I know that when I visited Paris to start on an art project, I would actually stumble upon one in my own room," says Pushpamala N, whose exhibit, Paris Autumn, opens in the city today.u00a0 The exhibit, which takes form in photographs, and a 35-minute video, features Pushpamala in her home in Marais and on the streets of Paris, looking for the history behind Gabrielle d'Estru00e9es, King Henri IV's favourite mistress, who died poisoned, many said, at the age of 26 just as she was about to marry the king.



"When I discovered that I was living in the same building that she once lived in, I knew there was a story to tell. Her ghost, who is played by a friend, ironically also called Gabrielle, points out various points of French history to me through the film."

The artist sheds light on the Thirty Years' War between the Protestants and the Catholics in France, and also the more-recent riots in the ghettos outside Paris, that were triggered when two North African youths, were accidentally electrocuted at an electricity sub-station in Clichy-sous-Bois.

Her quest began at the Louvre, opposite The Fortune Teller by Caravaggio, and continues in the kitschy atmosphere of the Chapelle des Petits-Augustine. The action takes place at various points throughout Paris that Pushpamala, stroller and detective, dwells on in her search for the truth. "It's a thrilling exhibit since it deals with a salacious ghost story, while educating one, with the history that it's set against. Henry was actually a Protestant, but turned Catholic as his wife was one. But he divorced her and was ready to marry Gabrielle, which was unthought of at that time. But while his queen couldn't give him children, Gabrielle bore him four. I could also relate to the history of the Thirty Years' War and the riots, as even in India we see so many factions of society fighting amongst each other every day," says the artist.

Paris Autumn opens today at Chemould Prescott Road, Queen's Mansion, third floor, Ghanashyam Talwatkar Marg. Fort. Call: 22020212. Open from 11 am to 7 pm

You Are Getting Under My Skin by Koumudi Patil



In the last part of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth hallucinates about the blood on her hands, as a sign of her guilt, and savagely tries to wash it off. Wordsmith William Shakespeare put the human skin to good use and that's what artist Koumudi Patil aims to do too, through her exhibition of self-portraits that try and explore the skin as something that can be invaded by just a look or a touch. "I am trying to show how people are perceived by their skin. What happens when someone makes a mark or an impression on your body? Do you accept it or reject it?" says the artist, whose works are deeply personal and talk about the human tendency to guard, reveal, hide and nurture. "The skin sets boundaries around the body, and is a space for visual and physical encounters. It is the proof of all our encounters, and that's what makes it interesting."