Decor for “Il Vostro Maggio”, Chorus of the Mermaids, from Rinaldo by G.F. Handel
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is accustomed to surprising us with very imaginative exhibitions and I was very excited by my visit of « Opera, Passion and Power » conceived with the Royal Opera house. This new show is visited with head phones and could seem very didactic if it was not so cleverly designed.Read More
Mountains in Collioure, July 1905, National Gallery of Art, Washington
André Derain (1880-1954) started painting intensely in 1900 and spent ten years travelling between the Paris area, Collioure on the Spanish border, London and the Lot. In 1914, he joined the army as a gunner and stopped painting until the end of the war. The magnificent exhibition at Centre Pompidou comprises 70 paintings and drawings done during this decade.Read More
Couteaux seashells to start with, a true winner
The corner of Bd Raspail, rue du Bac and Bd St German is a pretty fancy part of the city and it is therefore a miracle to find there a good earthy French restaurant where you will always be surprised by the quality of products. Three friends including a Basque chef, Maxime Pettré, run this real bistrot called Aux Vieux Garçons, which means in French unmarried men.Read More
Laurence Dumaine-Calle, Jean Marc Bustamante with the two laureates, Stefan Sulzer and Francesc Ruiz
Two years after he disappeared on April 6, 2015, Bob Calle, a brilliant oncologist who directed Institut Curie in Paris, was celebrated at Ecole des Beaux Arts by a group of friends assembled by his widow Laurence Dumaine-Calle. The occasion was the prize giving ceremony in his name to European artists’ books. For he was a great art lover and had founded the Carré d’Art in Nïmes with Jean Cacharel. Read More
Scenocosme, by Anaïs met den Ancxt (and Grégory Lasserre), Akousmaflore, 2007-2017. When you touch the plant it creates music
The new exhibition at Fondation EDF‘s space on rue Récamier, is devoted to how the internet revolution influenced artists. Half of it is to me too technical to be interesting but the other half is fascinating with music and movement entering the world of art.Read More
President Macron ad-libed for half an hour on the theme of peace in the Middle East and communication between people. Omar Abi Azar, Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, Claude Chirac, Alain Juppé, Christine Albanel, Rakel Dink with the interpreter and Michel Camdessus
As usual, Emmanuel Macron was fifteen minutes late, but then he is the President of the Republic and everyone got up to applaud him when he entered the théâtre Levi- Strauss at Musée du Quai Branly. The occasion was the Prize giving ceremony for President Chirac’s foundation to two Middle Eastern associations who work for peace, one in Turkey and one in Lebanon.Read More
Notre Dame under sunshine, for all of you who cannot spend Thanksgiving in Paris
It is not so easy to prepare Thanksgiving in Paris because French turkeys are only ready for Christmas! But thanks to a few American shops, we will manage… I wish you all a lovely holiday and hope your turkey will be as good as ours.Read More
Benito Badolato and Pasquale Godano, Boat with the holy family saving a migrant, Tropea, 2013, Parish of San Gerlando, Lampedusa
As often, it is a highly political exhibition that takes place at Musée de l’histoire de l’Immigration, in Porte Dorée, where « Il était trois fois, Lieux Saints partagés » treats of Judaism, Christianism and Islam in their shared geography of the Mediterranean. This original exhibition has matured over five years (it was first shown in a shorter version in Marseille two years ago) and is curated by Dionigi Albera and Manoël Penicaud, both anthroplogists at CNRS (centre national de recherche scientifique). As a conclusion, it shows a model of the « House of One », a monument being built in Berlin, on the site of a XII th century church, which will unite a synagogue a church and a mosque under the same roof.