Frédéric Mitterrand enters the Académie des Beaux Arts in great pomp

parisdiaHappy moments, Movies7 Comments

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

Hervé van der Straeten can still surprise us!

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Console Meditation, polished gold inox mirror © Cecil Mathieu

With his tenth exhibition “Fun Ride”, a clever mix of pink dining room table and Chinese cabinets, Hervé Van der Straeten shows his brilliant workmanship in his large gallery of the Marais, with thirty five pieces in precious wood, marble and bronze produced just outside Paris in his studio of Bagnolet. The chef d’oeuvre is an armoire in ebony and bronze, made of 1 700 pieces assembled like Boulle used to. My choice went for the extravagant “console cristalloïde rainbow” made of anodized inox and “Pink table”, a large piece in lacquer wood with four triangular feet. The showroom itself is a beauty and with the abstract works by Arotin & Serghei which hang on the walls, it is a particularly joyful scene.Read More

Louise Pressager puts Malakoff on the artistic map

parisdiaArt, Happy moments, Movies1 Comment

Louise Pressager on opening night at Maison des Arts, Centre d’art contemporain de Malakoff

I could not have been been happier than to celebrate this week, the fifth anniversary of Parisdiarybylaure with the same artist, Louise Pressager, who inaugurated the blog on January 21 2015. It is a beautiful coïncidence that her new show at Maison des Arts de Malakoff, opened last Tuesday (until April 5). And this time the size is at the height of her talent: “Vous êtes l’heure je suis le lieu” (you are the time I am the place), includes seven videos, many drawings and frescos, and songs that she wrote and performs with music by Ferdinand Bayard.Read More

Cité de l’architecture explodes with drawings

parisdiaArchitecture, Art1 Comment

Francesco Pannini, Casino and garden of Villa Doria Pamphili in Rome ca 1775, watercolor, ©The Albertina museum

I was attracted to Palais de Chaillot by the Otto Wagner exhibition about the famous Vienese architect and as a bonus I found the exquisite show of architectural drawings from the Albertina museum in Vienna. So there is definitely a double attraction at Cité de l’architecture at the moment and you can end your visit with the small space devoted to the reconstruction of Notre Dame on the ground floor or even indulge at La Girafe the luxurious restaurant on the ground floor.Read More