What an exciting time in France, so charged with energy and uncertainty! By now, you've heard about our recent political (and generational) transformation: the old, wily, avuncular president, with a penchant for good wine and food and big entertainment has been replaced by this country's first chief executive to be born after World War II and not to be active in politics under de Gaulle. Even ex-pats living here were caught up in the excitement. And, of course, this was reflected in the arts scene. Posters were strategically positioned to replace those of opposing candidates, or splattered with slogans and insulting rhetoric. Election fever swept the city of Paris, families traveling together to vote in the first round, galvanized over the chance to elect a new pesident—one who would guide the country into a new direction. I, of course, was excluded, as I'm not a French national, but that did nothing to slacken my interest in the proceedings.

I spent a recent Sunday evening in an unusual setting. It's a place that I've been to once before, to see a British outfit called Audio Bullies. Not a place for big bands, it's more for bands or Djs attempting to make a name for themselves. The place is called Nouveau Casino and, by some, it's considered the epitome of the hyperhip counterculture.

Nouveau Casino, situated on the highly lively street called Rue Oberkampf—in which many bars may be found serving up a variety of musical styles—was, formerly, a movie theatre. Its décor is certainly special; two chandeliers hang above the dance floor, the bar has been made to look like a colorful iceberg and the ceiling like the possible interior of some spacecraft. Behind the stage, there's a decently sized screen used for video projection. The venue has been frequented by the likes of Monaco's Prince Albert and such French film stars as Vincent Cassel and Mathieu Kassovitz.

The event I attended at Nouveau Casino was free. (That's one of the great advantages of Paris. Look carefully in entertainment guides, trawl through free papers, get on a few Web site mailing lists, and you'll find yourself privy to information about gratis but highly enjoyable events.) I didn't know much about what was on offer that night, other than a performance by the club Dj known as Black Sifichi, who's far above average; he's also a writer, performer, spoken word maestro, and undercover (maybe not so much, now) radio activist. And, according to his bio, he's presently working on several projects with painter and multimedia artist Roma Napoli, who designed his entertaining Web site. Our paths have crossed at various times; Black Sifichi and I have a mutual friend, and I've visited his home—a large space in Montreuil, filled with artistic activity.

I arrived at NC as a speech was reaching its conclusion. There was more planned for the evening than I'd anticipated; it wasn't just about electro-musicians and Djs, but also about an association of artists called Le M.U.R., that's been highjacking billboards and rearranging them to promote their own artistic agenda. Black Sifichi explained that these artists' creations, painted over bona fide adverts, might last a short duration before being postered over, themselves. Appropriately, a large billboard close to the Casino Nouveau had been doctored and all the presidential candidates had been pasted together—united, for once, in an improbable mélange.

Tampering with billboards, in my opinion, requires certain degrees of guile and wit. The association filmed their efforts, and this event at the Nouveau Casino, was meant to display those endeavors. Two Vjs, Ben Vj and Videocrime, projected images of the billboard pranksters, interspersed with other images, onto the aforementioned large screen.

Musically, the night dipped at times and soared at others. The first musician, Stalk, played pieces that reminded me of a CD of mine—remixes of the avant-garde minimalist Steve Reich. Occasionally, he would intertwine some guitar. Black Sifichi was second on the bill. He was eclectic to the extreme, with the audaciousness and affront to play The Beatles' "Nowhere Man" at super high speed. Sifichi also doubled up as an atypical MC, reciting poetry rather than the usual clichés. He chatted over some hard core drum and bass tracks, as the evening finished with a flourish.

•••

By a canal in a Parisian suburb with a dubious reputation lives an unusual and supremely talented painter and illustrator named Anne Van der Linden.

I've been lucky enough to chance upon her and her work, and took the opportunity to visit her atelier, which was full of canvasses—some stretched, some unscratched. The pleasing scent of oil paint disclosed her studio as active. Anne's depictions are rich and rife with humor. But she also creates her share of wicked imagery, of people committing unspeakable acts of depravity. Anne Van der Linden makes X rated-art—nothing for the prudish or faint-hearted. She recognizes that we live in a world of profuse horrors and atrocities and paints honestly enough to portray such a world. Even her interpretations of animals shows them to be lascivious and of evil intent.

Anne was born in Bromley, in England. Her parents used to live in Berlin, but, being of Jewish origin, were forced to flee. She paints using, first, acrylics and then oils. Her technique is quite refined and, close up to her paintings, one can observe a richness of brush strokes and intricate textures.

Anne's work evokes the decadent spirit of German Expressionism—Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. There is also, to some extent, the whiff of Edvard Munch about her paintings. I also found myself thinking of Paula Rego, the Portuguese artist whose offerings, too, deal in magical realism—quirky contemporary mythologies pointing to an underlying psychology and sexuality. And, like Rego's work, Anne's contains a sense of the fairy tale with a nasty edge: One of her pieces is called "Cinderella". The subject of the painting is depicted weeping pitifully, while two more attractive women sit atop her.

Anne told me that her parents were liberal and didn't enforce any type of religious notion onto her, but this hasn't affected her use of strong religious imagery and allegory in her art; one image put me in mind of John the Baptist and Salome, but with a twist. There are elements of Hieronymous Bosch, as well, whose oeuvre fixated on 'sin' and human failings; Anne also portrays demons. The spirit of Medieval artistry holds major sway in what she does—a sense of purging the world of transgression, though with an infusion of cheekiness and lyricism. If, I wondered, reincarnation is the true path we follow in our lives, did Anne once lead tortured existences—most obviously during the Middle Ages but also, perhaps, when oppression and slavery were rampant? (The fact is slavery still exists today, despite being outlawed, so...) A few of her images illustrate what could be interpreted as the gross maltreatment of slaves.

Anne isn't only a painter, by the way; along with other artists, she produces books—some done by way of silkscreen, employing bright, fluorescent colors.

•••

On a Friday evening, to celebrate the close of yet another work week, I took a short métro ride to a gallery I've visited on a number of occasions. At the Palais de Tokyo, the preferred brand of art is conceptual.

The imposing art deco building, that dates back to 1937, is located in the well-off 16th District, overlooking the Seine. The gallery has a rough construction site feel to it and was reopened in 2001, having been rejigged by the architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Phillipe Vassal. Le Palais de Tokyo doesn't hold a permanent collection; it's more of a habitat for experimental artists to showcase their most challenging work. The chic-ness of it all doesn't appeal to everyone; some find it cold and unwelcoming. The place was derelict for a decade but reinvented itself into this stripped-down, capacious cathedral home to things unorthodox and modern. One of the Palais' advantages, however, is that its programs are often flexible and adventurous, generally staying open until midnight.

During our drop-by, my fellow art enthusiast Tom and I were confronted by a set of oversized sugar cubes, tactically placed by Dutch artists Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan, who have spent a bit of time and money researching the cost of sugar 'round the world.

Elsewhere, noise seeped from a curtained area, where a video of human beat boxes was being relayed.

As I've touched on before, the Palais de Tokyo prides itself in keeping things up-to-the-minute and, as France has been in the thralls of a presidential election, it was apt that there would be some reflection of the country's defining moment. Colombian artist Adriana Garcia Galan's latest work, "Programme de Gouvernement" ("Government Program") consists of a perfect blue sky background and two beatboxers delivering the official 2007 presidential election agendas of seat opponents Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy. Garcia Galan is clearly interested in language and in rendering an unusual and waggish fusion of rap/hip-hop culture and political message.

Tom and I later mused over the works of two sculptors—Daniel Dewar and Grégory Gicquel, both products of the art college of Rennes. Their work, constructed from contrasting materials (i.e., a camper van carved out of stone), told strange, discordant, pictorial stories and was impressive in scope, with objects blown up well beyond their common proportions.

Their sculptures struck me as a little too flippant, so I was happy to get to the next leg of our excursion. There, we discovered David Noonan, an Australian artist who resides in London. His work proferred definite dark overtones by way of diverse sinister images, ritualistic gatherings, theatrical role-playing, and masked figures silkscreened onto linen. David Lynch leapt to mind as I pondered Noonan's well-executed and dramatic photographic juxtapositions. Tom was less impressed.

Have you ever seen cracking wallpaper or happened upon a disturbing mold patch hiding in some dank corner? Have you ever witnessed a growth of fungus on neglected Chinese food in the back of your refrigerator? Because if you're familiar with such undesirable conditions, the next exhibition we saw might have struck a chord with you. Artist Michel Blazy's space was one-of-a-kind, to say the least.

Blazy works with living matter to build micro universes. There's absolutely nothing static about his pieces, where art fuses with nature and nature, of course, is in a constant state of ephemera—flux and metamorphosis, degeneration and decay. Live birds scurried about, next to Blazy's artificial installations. A video screen showed rats scampering to and fro, feeding on bone-shaped dog biscuits shaped like skeletons. I imagine that if a health safety official had been monitoring that mad science lair, s/he would have been quick to close down the show. The exhibition conjured up so many images (the massive space was used to the optimum). There were giant animals stretched out on the floor, suggestive of the grotesque trophies hunters would once sell as adornment for the floors of rich Victorians.

What if you had your own country? How would your flag look?

Investigate and you'll find that there are people who have their own countries—"micro nations". One of the Palais exhibitions was organized by a man with the rather foreboding name of Peter Coffin. The title of the show was "Grow Your Own". Having just left Blazy's squalid, fetid-smelling area, it was a big switch to find ourselves amid such pomp, heraldry, and lines of brilliant flags. Some of the micro-nations have colorful names—"Empire of Aerica", "The Kingdom of Pinsk", "The Empire of Atlantium", "The Principality of Sealand". Some of these 'countries' were set up by rich eccentrics, others by anarchists (i.e., "Christiana", a self-governing neighborhood of about 850 residents, founded in 1971, that serves as a tourist attraction while being a thorn in the government's side. "Sealand" (an artificial island) was founded as a sovereign principality, in 1967, in international waters, six miles off the eastern shores of Britain. The driving force behind Mr. Coffin's exhibit was to cross the divide between art, politics, anarchy, and fiction. Even celebrities have fantasized about creating their own countries; "Grow Your Own" included photos and papers that document Yoko Ono and John Lennon's declaration of the birth of a conceptual country called Nutopia, as well as Groucho Marx's principality, Freedonia (Groucho played its prime minister in Duck Soup).

We had to return from the room of regalia and head back through the squalor, for one last peep, which left me queasy; the smell was simply too overriding. On our way out, we spotted a Campari® girl wearing a bright red T-shirt and giving away free glasses of the burgundy aperitif, for promotional reasons. It was a bit surreal for an art gallery, but who could decline such an offer?

•••

On another day—a sunny weekend day—a friend and I went for a long amble that took us to an artist squat, Le Théâtre de Vere, not too far from the home of our new, contoversial president, "Sarko". Our quest to find this particular squat coincided with a mounting police presence in the area, as well as media vying for images and stories.

Once upon a time, Le Théâtre de Vere was a glass factory. Now, it's a project supported by the Green party (Les Verts). We entered an art gallery, where there was a group of intricate line drawings. Then, after signing up to join the association, we had to pass down a dark corridor decorated with a mosaic of Che Guevara. In the main area of the squat, I was amazed by the size of the space, as well as the mass of paintings, sculptures, and assemblages of unknown meaning to us outsiders. In my mind, I easily drew parallels between the Théâtre and the Palais deTokyo—surely in terms of the use of space and the offbeat objects—objects such as "Flying Chairs"

Le Théâtre de Vere is a sort of artistic Aladdin's cave. It looks as though people pilfered a multitude of discarded articles, relocated them to the squat, and bestowed them with new identities and functions. There's even a wheelchair that's been incorporated into a bizarre construct...so much for the eye to take in.

The association appears to be well-organized. While we were there, soaking up the relaxed atmosphere, a civilized barbecue was in progress and visitors were enjoying a nicely arranged exhibit of photographs shot in Latin America and Africa. Everyone munched away at their food and drank wine or beer, while a raconteur performed with enthusiastic gestures. Later, a band played Latin music with great verve and efficacy as many practiced their dance moves.

Oh, well. If Mr. Sarkozy has his way, such events will be in short supply.

Vive la liberté.