“Mustang”, a violent film directed by a charming young woman

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Matthias Schoenaerts plays Roman, the prisoner who lives again thanks to his horse Marquis

It’s called “Mustang” in the US and “Nevada” in France, but this is the same film, on the relationship between Mustang horses in Nevada and prisoners. Laure de Clermont Tonnerre is the young director (35) who won Robert Redford’s support at the Sundance festival and was able to produce this amazing fresco of horse therapy for violent prisoners . I heard about it on France Culture radio at 8 am, went to see it at 3.30 pm and was happy to see that the theatre was almost full in the middle of the afternoon. This could well be the surprise success of the month!Read More

Edith Dufaux, invites mystery at Alain Margaron’s gallery

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Ladders, 2019, Monotype and mixed techniques

Galerie Alain Margaron has accustomed us to seeing post war painters like Fred Deux, René Laubiès, Anselme Boix-Vives and Dado, so it was an interesting discovery to see Edith Dufaux’s monotypes of space, geography, cartography. Through forty works on paper and a few paintings, we discover an artist who had exhibited at Fondation Cartier in 1990 and not much since. Very exciting.Read More

Citéco, a dream Neo Renaissance house turned into a tech nightmare

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The façade neo renaissance of la Cité de l’Economie boulevard Malesherbes, photo Charlotte Donker

This is a building you’ve passed a hundred times while driving to CDG airport on boulevard Malesherbes.  It used to be the prestige offices of Banque de France with a huge safe room surrounded by a moat! And before that, it was built in 1878, by architect Jules Février for Emile Gaillard, a member of the 19 th century banking circles, which included the Rothschild, the Pereire, the Greffulhe and the Hottinguer. This “castle” in the middle of Paris was modeled after château de Blois and has produced a disciple in Asheville, North Carolina, where Richard Morris Hunt, trained at Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, built the Biltmore Estate.Read More

Papillon, a trendy lunch place

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Christophe Saintagne, the chef at Papillon, photo Pierre Monetta

The chef Christophe Saintagne did everything right. He was born in Normandy and raised in Pont Audemer, the village of Gaston Lenôtre and Taillevent (Guillaume Tirel), the 14th century cook, served for his military service at the Elysée Palace in Jacques Chirac’s time, met Alain Ducasse and ran the restaurant Les Lyonnais at 24, worked with Jean François Piège at the Crillon, turned the Plaza Athénée restaurant into a three star Michelin, and finished at the Meurice before he decided to open his own little paradise “Papillon“, on rue Meissonier in the 17 th.Read More

Frans Hals’ families at Fondation Custodia

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Frans Hals, “Family Van Campen in a landscape” (fragment), 1623-1625, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio (the baby on the left was added later)

It is once again an extraordinary exhibit which takes place at Fondation Custodia, rue de Lille. The house has a soul thanks to its director Ger Luijten, who welcomes you as if you were his private guest. And the themes of exhibitions are always completely original. This time, he welcomes a show of “Frans Hals family portraits“, which was initiated at the Toledo Museum of Art Ohio, and also shown in Brussels at Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts. For the first time, the three pieces of the puzzle of “The Family Van Campen in a landscape” a 3,80 m long family portrait, are reunited with the hanging of the paintings side by side. It is an art history “coup” but also a fascinating story about the greatest Dutch portrait painter with Rembrandt. And the intimacy of the premises makes it particularly unique.Read More

Rosemarie’s necklaces, a perfect summer temptation

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A necklace made in ebony and silver thread from Mauritania

Rosemarie Carvalho Dufour was raised partly in Senegal, in Portugal and in Italy and met her husband, African art dealer Alain Dufour, when he worked in Dakar. They spend their professional lives between Saint Maur des Fossés near Paris and Ramatuelle, near St Tropez, in the summer. Their common love for Africa has produced amazing jewelry which mixes bronze from North Cameroun, Ethiopian pieces, Zebu bones from Kenya and pearls from Nigeria or Benin. All necklaces and rings are made without a previous drawing, instinctively by hand and in only one version and can be seen at Galerie Afrique. Read More

Photographer Dora Maar invades Centre Pompidou

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Marianne Clouzot, Portrait of Dora Maar, ca 1927, Musée Bernard d’Agesci, Niort

Centre Pompidou owns the largest collection (1 900 negatives) of photographs by French artist Dora Maar (1907-1997) and this very comprehensive retrospective of 400 works is interesting historically, but I have to admit that the best part of the show for me, was the series of portraits that Picasso and she devoted to each other. From fashion photographer in the 1930’s, to political activist and surrealist artist, Henriette Théodora Markovitch, had an extraordinary life portrayed here through her art. Read More

Kehinde Wiley travels to Tahiti

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Portrait of Tuatini Manate III, 2019, photo Diane Arques

I discovered American painter Kehinde Wiley at the Petit Palais three years ago. He already had many works in American museums and would be, in 2018,  the first African American painter to be asked to do a portrait for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, that of President Barack Obama. Galerie Templon is devoting its splendid spaces of rue du Grenier Saint Lazare to his new series of paintings of Tahiti and its Māhū community. A transgender study.Read More