From ski slopes to museums

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Maurice Cullen, The Ice Harvest, ca 1913, Musée des Beaux Arts du Canada at Fondation de l’Hermitage

If like half of France, you are skiing in the Alps this week, and you encounter a foggy day, make sure to go and visit one of these four art exhibitions in Lausanne at Fondation de l’Hermitage and Musée de l’Elysée, at Fondation Gianadda in Martigny and at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel. Trains are fast and reliable and you can reach each town in less than an hour whether you are in Gstaad, Verbier or Zermatt! Swiss museums are exceptional and on the way you can stop in Lyon to catch the “Drapé” exhibition at Musée des Beaux Arts.Read More

Prix de Lausanne, a magical ballet moment

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The winners with Marco Masciari in the center, photo Rodrigo Buas

For its 48 th edition, Prix de Lausanne was being held at the Stravinski Theatre in Montreux, which overlooks the Lac Léman, a few hundred meters from where Lord Byron sojourned. The three days I spent there seeing the 77 competitors dance for their life, were  emotional and beautiful. The Prize funded in 1973, by Philippe and Elvire Braunschweig, to help young USSR dancers come and study in Europe, has become the springboard to an International career for Brazilians, Chinese, Japanese, New Zealanders, Portuguese, and more… Students from 25 nationalities this year, who are aged between 15 and 19. They are coached all week by the greatest ballet masters in the world and receive scholarships to study in the school of their choice. What an uplifting competition!Read More

A Valentine present just in case?

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Silky underwear for Valentine at Monoprix

No need to go very far nor to spend millions, you can find everything you like at Monoprix for Valentine… Underwear, cups, trays, paper napkins are all irresistible…

Mugs at Faïence de Gien

And at Faïence de Gien you can find  some plates and cups with little hearts.

 

From Monoprix

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Frédéric Mitterrand enters the Académie des Beaux Arts in great pomp

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Frédéric Mitterrand facing his new destiny in his brand new uniform with Farah Pahlavi and Roman Polanski

It was a jolly afternoon that we all spent at the Institut de France, to celebrate Frédéric Mitterrand‘s “installation” in Jeanne Moreau’s armchair at the Académie des Beaux Arts. His career was very diverse with a start as a history teacher at Ecole Bilingue Jeannine Manuel, followed by the management of two cinemas, l’Olympic, salle Marilyn and salle Pigozzi in 1971, then two more, l’Artistic and l’Entrepôt. Adrien Goetz, one of his young colleagues, started forcefully by reminding the audience that Frédéric had celebrated the tenth anniversary of l’Olympic at Le Palace in 1981, dressed as Lana Turner, and  swinging across the theatre. The Academicians and the audience were immediately thrown into the pace of his extraordinary life so far, which included many books and even more films. Read More

Alaïa and Balenciaga, a brilliant association

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Azzedine Alaïa photographed in 1988, © Jean-Baptiste Mondino

I was invited to a rare birthday party recently and the hostess, a very elegant International personality, was wearing a beautiful claret velvet dress. I thought it might be a vintage Givenchy but it looked more modern… and it was by Azzedine Alaïa, from one of his last collections, as she confirmed. It could also have been by Balenciaga. This is what the new show at Association Azzedine Alaïa, on rue de le Verrerie, is all about: the classical couture cut and shape of the contemporary designer. And the way the exhibition is set, with very light translucid partitions in veil is magical. One walks into a strange foggy atmosphere to discover the sharp sculptural dresses and coats patiently collected by the late designer. Read More

Sophie Scheidecker exposes Alain Gruger

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Untitled 1986

The minute I walked into the Sophie Sheidecker gallery, I felt the wind of Cuban art going through the two large rooms and yet the artist is French. I had never heard of Alain Gruger before, nor ever seen any of his paintings, but the poetry of his work immediately caught my eye.  Married to Jorge Camacho‘s widow, after having been a close friend of the wonderful Cuban surrealist artist and poet, Gruger spent his life teaching chemistry and physics at University Pierre et Marie Curie, in Paris. He was born in Bordeaux and this is where he now resides with Margarita. Read More

“The tie”, a political film

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Bastien is filmed reading the script of his own life

“La Cravate“, the latest film by artists Etienne Chaillou and Mathias Théry, is the story of the 2017 Presidential campaign of extreme right candidate, Marine Le Pen, as lived by an obscure 20 year old chubby boy from Amiens. Bastien grew up in the north of France in a perfectly normal middle class family. But he did not fit into his school and became violent. He is filmed for 97 mins trying to invent a new way of life within the Front National movement. He is eager to befriend people from different milieux (his girlfriend was extreme left) and he is both very touching and terrifying… La cravate, the tie, is what he wears when he goes to Paris to meet with the higher party members.Read More

Niels Hansen Johansen’s dark tales at Musée Bourdelle

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Niels Hansen Johansen, “A troll scenting Christian flesh”, 1896,  was inspired by Gauguin zoomorphic pots, Valby, Jesuskirken, Copenhagen,

From Denmark, we know best Hans Christian Andersen‘s fairy tales such as “The Little Mermaid” and other phantasmagoric stories. Symbolist sculptor Niels Hansen Jacobsen had never been exhibited in France, even though he lived in Montparnasse between 1892 and 1902,  and befriended French ceramist Jean Carriès. Tessa Nielsen who runs the Vejen Kunstmuseum in Jutland and Amélie Simier, director of Musée Bourdelle,  have joined Jérôme Godeau for this spectacular exhibition of sculptures and ceramics at Musée Bourdelle. It is a true discovery and the different masks and glazed stoneware are very intriguing.Read More