BOOK INN FRANCE

Crime and punishement at the Musée d’Orsay

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 | Main events, Uncategorized | No Comments

Parricides, infanticides, crucifixions, beheadings: the imagination of artists is populated with murders and bloody crimes! Look at the paintings in Museums: more than half of the works are devoted to them. Why is man killing? Can a man who killed be killed at his turn? These ancestral questions are at the heart of the current exhibition of the Musée d’Orsay, to see in Paris until June 27.

After the exhibitions L’Ame au corps and Melancholy, the academician and curator Jean Clair explores the dark side of human psyche again. Crimes et châtiments is a multidisciplinary exhibition, which explores the gaze of artists on crime.

Yet, the idea of this exhibition is due to the ex Attorney General of France, Robert Badinter. Almost 30 years after the abolition of the death penalty in France, the man who fought hard against the death penalty thought it was high time to offer a retrospective, to shed new light on the crime and its punishment, accross the time.

“I thought that art would help me to go further in my reflection about crime and its punishment. I discovered that what interests the artist, is the violation of fundamental taboos : sacrilege, sex, death“, confides Robert Badinter. If crime has inspired so many artists, it is because violence and drama are very photogenic!  Much more than love, which has no climax, no acting out… › Continue reading

Tags: exhibition, orsay, paris 8

Retrospective Yves Saint-Laurent

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 | Main events | No Comments

The first retrospective Yves Saint Laurent, currently at the Petit Palais

Until August 29, the Petit Palais presents the first retrospective devoted to the work of the designer Yves Saint Laurent. Occuring less than two years after the death of the Haute-Couture French grand-name, this exhibition is a tribute to 40 years of career that revolutionnized fashion. 

Initiated by the Pierre Bergé, his partner for over 50 years, and president of the Foundation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent, and the Museum of Fine – Arts of Paris, the exhibition presents more than 300 models as well as many sketches, documents, and films in order to illustrate his extraordinary work.

Since the start of hit career at Dior in 1958, to the gorgeous evening dresses of his last years of creation, emblematic parts of the “Saint-Laurent style” are presented to the public, tracing the evolution of dress codes at the end of the 20th century: cabans, safari-jacket, tuxedo or pants-suit, Saint-Laurent drew for the modern woman an androgynous silhouette, which borrows from the men’s locker room attributes of power.

An exciting exhibition to discover or rediscover the models which have freed women, and radically transformed her wardrode.

Petit Palais
Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris
Avenue Winston Churchill
75008 Paris
+33 1 53 43 40 00

Access
Métros 1-13,
Champs-Elysées- Clémenceau
 
Opening times
Tue – Sun 10.00 – 18.00
Night opening on Thursday

Hôtel Mac Mahon ***
Hôtel Mathis Elysées ****
Hôtel Opéra Marigny ****
Résidence Mac Mahon Champs Elysées****

Tags: champs elysees, exhibition, fashion, paris 8, yves saint laurent

Nature Capitale : let’s green the Champs Elysées!

Friday, April 23rd, 2010 | Main events | No Comments

Did you know that? 2010 is the year of biodiversity.If the event went relatively unnoticed so far, it won’t go on any longer…

Indeed, from 22 to 24 May 2010, the world’s most famous avenue will metamorphose into a very special garden. Imagine the kilometre that connects the Arc de Triomphe to the Champs Elysées Roundabout, covered with 150 plant species from all four corners of France… That’s what you could see if you’ll be passing through Paris in May. › Continue reading

Tags: biodiversity, champs elysees, paris 8, sustainable developpement