The Proustmania is ending, Thank God

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Jacques Emile Blanche, Portrait of Marcel Proust in Trouville, October 1, 1891, BnF, département des Estampes et de la Photographie

Before the ultimate Proust celebration of the year at the Travellers’ club, a fancy dinner party which will take place on November  28, for “Les Amis de Marcel Proust”, the exhibition at BnF , the French National library, “Marcel Proust, La Fabrique de l’Oeuvre” (The making of the work), is really dedicated to bibliophiles and Proust maniacs. Organized by Antoine Compagnon and Nathalie Mauriac, who works for the BnF and Editions Gallimard, it has excluded all other Proustians. No mention is ever made of Bernard de Fallois who discovered the manuscripts of “Jean Santeuil” and “Contre Sainte Beuve” and got them published in 1952 and 1954. All his writings on Marcel Proust are being published right now in Italy by the publisher  Elisabetta Sgarbi at la Nave di Teseo under the title:” Saggi su Proust“. One is always  better loved abroad…Read More

The new Sciences Pô gardens, Anri Sala at Bourse du Commerce and Tamara Rojo at TCE

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Professor Pierre Manent celebrates the writer Maxence Brischoux for his study “Le Commerce et la Force”, 11 th Prix Emile Perreau Saussine, at Sciences Pô

For those of you who are not familiar with Sciences Pô, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques which has formed most politicians, high level civil servants and diplomats in France, it used to be based on rue Saint Guillaume in Saint Germain des Près. In the last twenty years it has become very international and spread out in the whole area of rue des Saint Pères and rue de l’Université and its headquarters were moved last summer, to place Saint Thomas d’Aquin (St Thomas Aquinus), next to the beautiful church. Thanks to the wonderful Prix Emile Perreau Saussine, awarded to a book written by a scholar under 40, I was invited to visit the new gardens and courtyards with sensational modern facilities.  At Bourse du Commerce, the Albanian artist Anri Sala has taken over the space with a visual and sound installation in three different areas. It is both very dramatic and very uplifting.Read More

Les Grandes Ecuries, a new festival and a new association in Chantilly!

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Sayaka Shoji and Iddo Bar-Shai gave a fabulous performance of Schumann’s violin and piano 3 romances

In Chantilly, the Martha Argerich “Coups de Coeur” last week end turned out to be a moment of discoveries around the famous pianist who had celebrated her 80 th birthday there last year, surrounded by friends and family in Les Grandes Ecuries. The music festival created by Serge Sobczynski and Iddo Bar Shai, took place under the patronage of Prince Amyn Aga Khan, and there were concerts in the gallery of paintings at 11 am every morning, with larger performances in the evening. The program included cellist Russian born Mischa Maisky and pianist Akiko Ebi, Tedi Papavrami, Momo Kodama and Stephen Kovacevich who gave Piano master classes on Sunday.Read More

Leon Bonvin is not to be missed at Fondation Custodia

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Bunch of Violets, 1863, Zürich, collection Walter Feichenfeld

I had never heard of Léon Bonvin (1834-1866) before and it is the very special talent of Ger Luijten, director of  Fondation Custodia, to make us discover fantastic artists who have been forgotten in the recent years. This exhibition of his drawings and watercolors subtitled “A poetry of the real”, is the first one since forty two years years ago on November 12 1980, art historian Gabriel Weisberg organized a show in Cleveland. This is how he describes the unknown artist: “Léon Bonvin’s watercolors capture a sense of the ineffable with a delicacy that belies the destitute circumstances of his daily life. Seeing just a few of his watercolors is spellbinding and haunting.” Custodia is publishing his catalogue raisonné on the occasion of the show.

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Animals sing at Musée de la Musique

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Daniel Spoerri, la chemise du Piégeur, 1974, Private collection

As you now know, I am a great fan of Jean Hubert Martin, the very original museum curator who stages exhibitions in every country. So when I heard that he had opened a show on musical animals at Musée de la Musique (which is run by his homonymous colleague Marie-Paule Martin), I immediately rushed to porte de Pantin. “Musicanimale” is a great  audible bestiary with sounds and images from the rutting of the deer to the songs of extinct birds. Because he is a contemporary art expert, he has included many pieces by Daniel Spoerri, Nelly Saunier, Gloria Friedmann, Julien Salaud, Alain Séchas, but also Swiss coucou clocks, a partition by Olivier Messiaen and videos of an owl by Bertrand Gadenne.

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The pleasures of the week…

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The 450 kg sculpture “The Ultimate metamorphosis of Thetis”  by Grégoire Scalabre is made of 70 000 miniature porcelain amphoras

Every year the awards ceremony of “Prix Liliane Bettencourt for the Intelligence of the hand” is a pure pleasure. This is where one discovers extraordinary young talents who will one day become stars of design or genius artisans… Last week, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers was seconded by the minister of Culture who talked about the importance of artisanat for the French government. With a jury presided by Jean de Loisy, a large sculpture made of 70 000 amphoras in ceramics by Grégoire Scalabre won in the “Exceptional talent” category. Anaïs Jarnoux, an upholsterer and designer Samuel Tomatis, won for their bag MS.86. Ulva, made in a seaweed fabric which is entirely biodegradable.  The seaweeds are collected on beaches in Brittany…Read More

Happy moments, here and there

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The young couple Alix and Matthew Inman with some of their cousins and siblings

The event of the week end for me was of course the wedding of my niece Alix de Gramont, an organizational change strategist, who lives in Brooklyn but chose with her husband Matthew Inman, a music critic and writer, to come to France to tie the knot or seal the vows…as you wish.  The French American ceremony was intimate in the garden of the family house with lots of cousins and children running around and a perfect evening organized by the good fairy, Fabienne de Sèze.Read More

A flower magician and an Italian artist make wonders together

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A huge flower vase with Jérome Bonaparte’s portrait at the Ministry of Culture

The annual Gala dinner of the Friends of Chantilly celebrated the Duc d’Aumale’s two hundredth anniversary at the Palais Royal, in Paris, where he was born on January 16, 1822. Built by Richelieu in 1628, it was Anne d’Autriche’s and the young Louis XIV th residence in the 17 th century. It then became the palace of the Orléans family. Today the gilt salons are part of the ministry of Culture and the occasion was especially chic, with Prince Amyn Aga Khan giving a charming speech on Musée Condé’s new acquisitions. The day before, the Friends had been shown the very exceptional “Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry” (probably the most famous manuscript in the world) by the curator of Chantilly’s library Marie-Pierre Dion.  Read More