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You are here: Home » Arts + Culture + Fashion » Archive » October 2007-2
October 2007-2
French Arts + Culture Archive: October 11-17,2007
Metropolitan Museum Re-opens French galleries
MetMuseum. Oct. 17, 2007
On October 30, 2007, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is unveiling its newly renovated and reinstalled Wrightsman Galleries for French Decorative Arts. Improvements include climate control, new lighting and fire suppression systems. The rooms house one of the best private collections of ancien régime French decorative art in America. >More
Pompidou project in Shanghai grinds to a halt
ArtNewspaper. Oct. 17, 2007
Plans to open a branch of Paris's Pompidou Center in Shanghai by 2010 are not going smoothly. The project is running up against local and national approval problems, and funding issues. The Pompidou's president, Alain Seban, is now investigating other sites and citiies like Singapore and Hong Kong, and is currently in discussions with the central government in Beijing. >More
De Montebello Blasts Louvre Abu Dhabi Loans
Le Monde. Oct. 17, 2007
Metropolitan Museum head honcho Philippe de Montebello in Le Monde of Oct. 13, 2007, deplored the Louvre Museum's art-for-megabucks deal with Abu Dhabi. Montebello, who was named an Oficer of the French Legion of Honor in March 2007 by the French Minister of Culture, criticized "exclusive operations" with foreign entities, warned against the dangers of transporting art to harsh climates, and stated that "Loans must remain free." Abu Dhabi paid the Louvre 150 million euros for the loan of its art. >More
Juliette Binoche Dismayed by American Reporters's Negativity
Los Angeles Times. Oct. 18, 2007
French actress Juliette Binoche was in Los Angeles to promote Peter Hedges’ new comedy "Dan in Real Life" in which Steve Carell plays a widower who inadvertently falls for his brother's girlfriend (Binoche). But she was dismayed by the negativity of journalist's questions such as "if I'm frightened of age; if I'm frightened of not getting parts; if I'm frightened ... the kind of questions that put you in a depression after a while, because it's, like, so narrow-minded," she says. >More
France’s Immigration Museum a “Dud”
New York Times. Oct. 17, 2007
The New York Times mocks Paris’s new National Center of the History of Immigration as dry, lifeless, and intellectually dishonest. Being a government project, it is dishonest about France’s tragic colonial history. The banal, cheerleading message of the dreary displays is that people emigrate from many places, for many reasons, with difficulty, often reluctantly, and they bring their cultures with them. Bref, the million euro project is “a well-meaning dud” for bored schoolchildren on compulsory field trips. >More
Brangelina Kid Leaves French School
NY Observer. Oct. 17, 2007
On Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007 after six weeks of class, 6 year old Maddox Pitt-Jolie had his last day at New York's Lycée Français. He was accompanied daily to and from the private $18,900-a-year school by parents Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, causing thrills, paparazzi scenes and security concerns. Earlier this month, Brangelina were seen house hunting by helicopter in the south of France. >More
The Dreyfus Affair on Display
New York Times. Oct. 17, 2007
A new exhibition, "Alfred Dreyfus: The Fight for Justice," at New York's Yeshiva University Museum, which originated at Paris's Museum of the Art and History of Judaism, is flawed by a lack of an explanatory narrative and by untranslated French documentation. But if you are familiar with the Dreyfus Affair's shameful tale of French chauvenism and antisemitism, the 200 objects on display hum shed light on the strangeness and shock of Dreyfus’s personal experience.
Lost French Opera on Helen of Troy is Found and Recorded
Media Newswire. Oct. 16, 2007
"
Hélène," an opera by French composer Camille Saint-Saens has been discovered in the Monte Carlo Opera library and has been recorded by Melbourne-based Melba Recordings for the first time. The one-hour, one-act opera for four soloists, orchestra and chorus. opera, based on an episode of the Hélène of Troy story, premiered in 1904 at the Monte Carlo Opera and then at Covent Garden, was later performed at La Scala and in Frankfurt in 1905. It has not been performed since. The CD will be released in February 2008 to coincide with a European revival of the opera in Prague followed by a launch in Paris that month. >More
Early release of rock star killer divides France
Telegraph. Oct. 15, 2007
Bertrand Cantat, France's biggest rock star, is expected to be freed from prison after serving just half of an eight-year jail sentence for murdering his film star girlfriend. Fans are jubilant, arguing that the leader of the group Noir Desir has served his debt to society. But for others, especially the family of the murdered woman, the expected parole board decison is an indictment of the French tolerance of the crime passionel. >More
Halle Berry learning French for her baby
IONews. Oct. 15, 2007
Pregnant actress Halle Berry is learning French so she can talk to her baby in its father's native tongue. French-Canadian model Gabriel Aubry has already started speaking the language to his unborn child, and Berry fears she'll be left out of vital conversations unless she learns the basics. >More
Louise Bourgeois: World’s Top Female Artist?
UK Observer. Oct. 14, 2007
For 70 years, from traumatised childhood to fierce old age, Louise Bourgeois has been producing provocative variety of painting and sculpture. The French-born, American resident's new retrospective at Tate Modern in London is wowing critics, some even judging her "the most important living woman artist." >More
Book Release: Loyrette's Nineteenth Century French Art
Flammarion/Rizzoli. Oct. 13, 2007
This month Flammarion
publishes Louvre Museum Director
Henri Loyrette's
"Nineteenth Century French Art: From Romanticism to Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Art Nouveau." This complete chronological history is illustrated with more than 400 images and covers painting, sculpture, and architecture, as well as the advent of photography, its impact on painting, and its emergence as an art form of its own. >More
Book Release:
The French Century, An Illustrated History of Modern France
Flammarion/Rizzoli. Oct. 13, 2007
This month Flammarion publishes Brian Moynahan's
"The French Century," the history of France from the end of the 19th century to the present day, encapsulating everything from political events and scientific discoveries to cultural achievements and sporting triumphs. This book includes two hundred and photographs of the main events and key personalities. >More
Book Release:
Parisiennes, A Celebration of French Women
Flammarion/Rizzoli. Oct. 13, 2007
This month Flammarion publishes "Parisiennes," a light-hearted and nostalgic romp through 20th-century Paris, a beautiful history of the world’s most romantic city and its exceptional women. This collection of one hundred and thirty duotone photographs captures the essence of the Parisian femme fatale. >More
Book Release:
In the Company of Stars, The Paris Opera Ballet
Flammarion/Rizzoli. Oct. 13, 2007
This month Flammarion publishes the glossy volume "In the Company of Stars: The Paris Opera Ballet." Gerard Uferas spent a year with the Paris Opera Ballet family, and his photographs lead readers into the private world of the Opera Garnier, Paris’s landmark opera house. He follows the dancers through their routine of arduous practice and glamorous performance. >More
DVD Release: Godard's Breathless (Criterion)
Criterion Collection. Oct. 13, 2007
This month Criterion DVD releases a newly restored high-definition digital transfer of Jean-Luc Godard’s seminal 1959 New Wave masterpiece Breathless (A Bout de souffle), approved by director of photography Raoul Coutard. Sexy Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg star in this paen to Paris, love, and youth. DVD extras include archival interviews with Godard, Belmondo, Seberg, and others. >More
French Jewellery Theft Nets $28.4 Million
New York Times. Oct. 12, 2007
A brazen and meticulously planned robbery of the Harry Winston store in central Paris last weekend netted the unknown thieves about $28.4 million in gems, one of the largest jewelry thefts ever. There were 253 recorded robberies of French jewelers last year, 20 percent more than in 2005, according to an internal report of the French jewelers’ federation. >More
French Monumental Art Show Comes to Miami
IHT. Oct. 12, 2007
For two weeks starting Dec. 1, 2007, in parallel with the nearby Art Basel Miami Beach art fair, South Beach will play host to Miami Monumental, conceived by French sculptor Laurence Panadero and curated by Panadero Destephen, who before moving to Miami, set up an international artists' collective, Vim near Paris. The exhibition will feature assortment of giant, intricate and complex creations by 15 artists including Frenchman Jean-Louis Toutain. Also on show will be a mold of the head of the Statue of Liberty, made in 1995 to renovate the Statue of Liberty in Paris, lent by the Miami-based descendants of Louis Haligon, a French artisan who worked on the original statue. >More
Documentary Spotlights French Terror Lawyer
New York Times. Oct. 12, 2007
"Terror’s Advocate," Barbet Schroeder’s astonishing new documentary about French defense lawyer Jacques Vergès, is one of the most engaging, morally unsettling political thrillers in quite some time. Vergès is the controversial advocate and mouthpiece for villains like Klaus Barbie and Carlos the Jackal, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Red Army Faction in Germany, defending their bloodiest actions as the work of "soldiers in a noble cause." >More
Rugby hunks attract female fans
Stuff NZ. Oct. 12, 2007
Rugby is undergoing a glamorous makeover and seducing record numbers of women in World Cup host country France. French women swoon for Frederic Michalak and Sebastien Chabal who feature high in the "chouchou" (golden boy) stakes. Women younger than 50 made up almost half the 14 million TV viewers who watched the opening World Cup match between France and Argentina on September 7, 2007. >More
Book Release:
"
Fleeing Hitler"
Examines Nazi Occupation of France
Oct. 11, 2007
Hanna Diamond’s “Fleeing Hitler: France 1940” (Oxford University Press) is a fascinating look into French culture, the failures of the French military, the long-term effects of defeat, the reaction of other countries to the tragedy. >More
Monet Vandalism Culprits Charged
AP. Oct. 11, 2007
A Paris court has filed preliminary charges against five young people suspected of having vandalized Monet’s ''Le Pont d'Argenteuil'' at the Musee d’Orsay. They face preliminary charges of destruction for having forced open a door to the museum. >More
France's Pinault stays top of art world power list
Washington Post. Oct. 11, 2007
French billionaire Francois Pinault held on to number one spot in
ArtReview's "Power 100"
annual list of leading figures in the contemporary art world. Pinault, who owns Christie's auctioneers, rejected Paris's Ile Seguin as a home for his fabulous modern art collecton, preferring a Renaissance warehouse in Venice. >More
Catherine Deneuve to be honored at Los Angeles film festival
AFP. Oct. 11, 2007
Iconic French actress Catherine Deneuve is to be honored with a special tribute at next month's American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival. The 63-year-old will be the subject of a tribute along with American actress Laura Linney, in recognition of their "extraordinary contributions to international cinema." >More
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