France Magazine #90 - Summer 2009 by France Magazine

the best of culture, tr avel & art de vivre

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$5.95 U.S. / $6.95 Canada / francemagazine.org

No.90

ARLES Goes Gehry

The Art of Christian BOLTANSKI

Artisanal BEER

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Summer 2009 features 28 Being Boltanski A contemporary artist’s struggle with fleeting time, lost memories, forgotten lives by Sara Romano

38 Arles Will this Provençal town be the next Bilbao—only better? by Amy Serafin

50 Blondes, Brunes & Rousses France’s new artisanal beers are turning heads by Renée Schettler

departments 5 The f: section Culture, Sons & Images, Beaux Livres, Bon Voyage, Nouveautés edited by Melissa Omerberg

18 Voyages A Village in the Médoc by Alexandre Kauffmann

22 Evénement Madeleine Vionnet by Rebecca Voight

58 Calendrier French Cultural Events in North America by Tracy Kendrick

64 Temps Modernes Almost Famous

by Michel Faure

• A detail of an evening gown from

Vionnet’s Summer 1931 collection, part of a retrospective at Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Story page 22.

Dear Readers, This past week, i ran into an old acquaintance, a french journalist who had been posted to Washington, DC, 20 years ago. He was back in town on a Toquevillesque assignment to observe and sum up the United States for his readers. Having just read David Brooks’s insightful and amusing article on such undertakings (“Mirror on America,” in The New York Times Sunday Book Review), I was in awe of his courage. As Brooks wrote, “Jacques Barzun once observed that of all the books it is impossible to write, the most impossible is a book trying to capture the spirit of America.” I admire the French who take up that daunting challenge, just as I admire American efforts to capture France and Frenchness for Americans. The latter is a genre that runs from the ridiculous to the sublime and just keeps growing—our books editor has an entire shelf of such tomes to prove it. Curiously, the more I know about France, the less I understand how one can come up with the sort of generalizations and summary declarations that are typically the mainstay of such books. During my Arles’s sleek Aux Bains du •Calendal nearly 25 years editing this magazine, I have been spa, with views of the told more than once that I know France better than ancient Roman amphitheater. Story page 38; photo Hervé Hote/ many if not most French people. And it is always Agence Caméléon. tremendously gratifying when French residents of a city we have reported on tell me they learned something about their hometown by reading our magazine. Yet I don’t feel even remotely close to having mastered my subject. Truth be told, I don’t really want to understand the French, at least not completely. And I don’t want to know everything about their country. What would be the fun in that? I think the joy of putting out this magazine—and, we hope, of reading it—is that France can be like that most wonderful mate, the kind with whom you enjoy a tremendous comfort level yet who always remains something of a mystery, who keeps evolving and changing just enough to keep you interested. The kind you can spend a captivating lifetime getting to know. Sometimes, France manages to upend even our most basic assumptions. Everyone knows the French are all about wine, right? Yet it turns out that during the past couple of decades, while we were focused on the vineyards, craft brewers were springing up throughout France, bringing an entirely new attention to quality ingredients and technique. Right under our noses, they had been redefining “French beer” and winning over discerning palates, including some of the country’s leading chefs. Thanks to Renée Schettler’s article in this issue, now we know. Yet again, we were delighted to discover how little we know about France. K a r en Tay lor

Editor 2

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France magazine Editor Karen Taylor

Senior Editor/Web Editor Melissa Omerberg

Associate Editor RACHEL BEAMER

Copy Editor lisa olson

Proofreader steve moyer

Art Director todd albertson

Production Manager Associate Art Director/Webmaster patrick nazer

Contributors MIchel faure, now

retired from L’Express, is pursuing a variety of journalistic ventures • Alexandre Kauffmann is a Paris-based author and journalist; his latest book is J’aimais déjà les étrangères • TRACY KENDRICK is a freelance journalist who often writes about French culture • Sara romano covers French cultural topics for a number of publications • RENéE SCHETTLER is a freelance writer with a special interest in food; she has worked as editor and writer at Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple and The Washington Post • AMY SERAFIN, formerly editor of WHERE Paris, is a Parisbased freelance journalist who has contributed to The New York Times, National Public Radio, Departures and other media • Rebecca Voight writes on style for Interview, The New York Times T Magazine, the International Herald Tribune and V. She was previously co-editor of Dutch magazine. EDITORIAL OFFICE

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Photo credits

Being Boltanski pp. 28-29: angelika platen ; pp. 30-33: courtesy christian boltanski and marian goodman gallery, paris /new york ; pp.

34-35: bernd uhlig ; pp. 36-37: courtesy kunstmuseum, vaduz, liechtenstein.

Arles pp. 38-39: courtesy of réattu museum, office du tourisme d’arles, hervé hote /agence caméléon ; pp.

40-41:

42-43: 44-45: jean dieuzaide, office du tourisme d’arles, kahala; pp. 46-47: l’instantanée, michel denance, hubert marot; pp. 48-49: hervé hote /agence caméléon, courtesy of bistro à côté, © jacques guillard /scope. Blondes, Brunes, Rousses... pp. 50-51: ©jacques guillard /scope; pp. 52-53: ©musée carnavalet/roger-viollet, courtesy of agence vianova ankea ; pp. 54-55: courtesy of brasserie georges, lyon, © envison /corbis, © john wigmore /agstock images /corbis ; pp. 56-57: courtesy of dbdg /new york city; brasserie de bretagne ; © jean-luc barde, jacques guillard, roland huitel /scope. bernard touillon, courtesy of bistro à côté, © philippe matsas ; pp.

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• The pâte-de-crystal

“Troya” by Spanish sculptor Carlos Mata is part of Daum’s new “Hippic” collection. See Nouveautés, page 16.

TransMedia Group

magazıne

Edited by melissa omerberg

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Culture

Paris & the provinces

Helen Frankenthaler’s luminous “Spring Bank” •(1974) is part of the Centre Pompidou’s new look at women in art.

1970s and 1980s, Bernard Lamarche-Vadel wore many hats, curating exhibits, editing the review Artistes and establishing his own collection. Dans L’Oeil du Critique, at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, gathers more than 250 works—paintings, sculptures, installations and photographs—that he loved, wrote about or purchased. Among the 72 artists included in this eclectic show are Arman, Joseph Beuys, Sophie Calle, César, Helmut Newton, William Klein and Richard Serra. Through Sept. 6; mam.paris.fr.

exhibits paris

Kandinsky The completion of a catalogue raisonné as well as recent discoveries in Russia challenge the narrow view of Kandinsky as “merely” the inventor of pure abstraction. Kandinsky, a major retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, revisits the oeuvre of this lawyer-turned-painter who saw the artist as prophet and art as a spiritual endeavor. The exhibit includes Kandinsky’s work with the Blue Rider, watercolors and manuscripts from his “Russian” period, and the Bauhaus portfolio produced for his birthday in 1926. Through Aug. 10; cnac-gp.fr.

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Changing Design The Espace Fondation EDF presents Paris, design en mutation, featuring 11 of the most original designers of the past few years including François Azambourg, Matali Crasset, Delo Lindo, Mathieu Lehanneur and JeanMarie Massaud. Through the use of new materials and manufacturing processes, their humor- and poetry-infused work goes beyond the merely aesthetic, taking into account the impact of environmental changes and energy consumption on our way of life. Through Aug. 30; http://fondation.edf.com. A Critical Eye A major art critic and theoretician during the

Henri Cartier-Bresson In 1975, Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) curated a traveling retrospective of his work dubbed “Forty Years of Photography”; he later donated all of the photographs to the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. To fête the master’s centennial (give or take a few months), the museum is presenting L’imaginaire d’après nature, a reconstitution of the earlier show featuring 70 large-scale photographs as well as a film about the man sometimes referred to as the “father of modern photojournalism.” (Through September 13; mam.paris.fr.) A companion show at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Henri Cartier-Bresson à vue d’œil, showcases its own collection of the master’s works. Through Aug. 30; mep-fr.org. Valadon - Utrillo Suzanne Valadon carved out a place for herself in the bohemian, male-dominated art world of late 19th-century Paris, posing for Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec and creating her own powerful work. She transmitted this passion

J a c q u e l i n e H y d e l / © 2 0 0 9 H e l e n F r a n k e n th a l e r

Watchmaker Watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823) played a revolutionary role in the art and science of watchmaking; an ultra-talented inventor and technician known for his style and entrepreneurship, he created stunning timepieces that were prized by the crowned heads of Europe and the Continent’s political, military, scientific and financial elite. Breguet au Louvre: un apogée de l’horlogerie européene offers a timely tribute to this quasi-mythical figure and to the company that bears his name. Through Sept. 7; louvre.fr.

to her son, the noted Impressionist Maurice Utrillo, who went on to become one of the most important exponents of the Paris School. Suzanne Valadon – Maurice Utrillo: Au tournant

at the Pinacothèque de Paris, focuses on their creative dialogue before and after World War I. Through Sept. 15; pinacotheque.com. du siècle à Montmartre,

50 Candles The Musée de la Poupée is fêting the 50th birthday of a certain statuesque blonde: Rêve ta vie avec Barbie® ! looks back at five decades of the improbably proportioned doll that lots of people love and plenty of others love to hate. Nearly 500 Barbies are presented with their original outfits and accessories—a fun way to revisit the fashion trends of several generations. Through Sept. 20; museedelapoupeeparis.com.

Bath Time The reopening of the Cluny frigidarium— the pool that ancient Romans cooled off in after taking a hot bath—has inspired a twovenue exhibit at the Musée de Cluny and the Musée National de la Renaissance at the Château d’Ecouen, 12 miles from Paris. Le bain et le miroir examines the history of hygiene and the development of cosmetology through a variety of objects—personal implements, combs, mirrors, perfume bottles, cosmetic jars and so on—as well as sculptures and paintings. The Musée de Cluny focuses on the period between the Roman era and the Middle Ages, while the Château d’Ecouen looks at the beauty secrets of the Renaissance, when paintings of half-naked ladies sitting at their table de toilette became the hottest thing in portraiture. Through Sept. 21; museemoyenage.fr and musee-renaissance.fr. Moi Tarzan The world’s most famous yodeling ape-man swings his way into the Quai Branly this summer with Tarzan! ou Rousseau chez les Waziri, an exhibit devoted to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s loincloth-wearing hero. Inspired by various legends and literary antecedents—Rousseau’s

• Breguet timepieces, now on view at the

Louvre, were must-have accessories for the 18th-century European elite. Top to bottom: Breguet No. 2585, with an engraved map; No. 611, sold to Joséphine Bonaparte in 1800; No. 1320, created for the Turkish market.

“noble savage” and Kipling’s jungle boy, to name just two—the character had an indelible impact on pop culture. The show, which features an original soundtrack composed for the occasion, includes comic strips, film stills, movie excerpts, parodies and African artifacts. Through Sept. 27; quaibranly.fr. Occupation Fashion Between 1940 and 1944, the women of Paris learned to adapt to chronic shortages, becoming experts in recycling and substitution. Their resourcefulness found its expression in the fashion accessories of the time—often made out of unconventional materials, such as car tires—with items often serving more than one use: A scarf bearing Pétain’s likeness functioned as Vichy propaganda while a bag with a false bottom might conceal Resistance pamphlets. In Accessoires et objets : témoignage de vie de femmes à Paris 1940-1944, the Mémorial du Maréchal Leclerc de Hauteclocque et de la Libération de Paris-Musée Jean Moulin displays 300 Occupation-era articles, with photos, fashion magazines, newsreels and sheet music providing context. Through Nov. 15; ml-leclerc-moulin. paris.fr. Madeleine Vionnet Considered a “designer’s designer” for her technical prowess and rigorous vision, Madeleine Vionnet is known for pioneering the bias cut, among other things. Inspired by ancient Greece, she also perfected the art of drapery, achieving an extraordinary purity of line. Madeleine Vionnet, Puriste de la Mode, a major retrospective at the Musée de la Mode et du Textile (see page 22), traces the career of this influential couturier whose rejection of the corset helped emancipate the female body. Through Jan. 24, 2010; lesartsdecoratif.fr. Cherchez Les Femmes The Centre Pompidou is devoting its entire fourth floor and part of the fifth to more than 200 female artists from the early 20th century to the present. Featuring some 500 works drawn from the museum’s permanent collection, elles @ centrepompidou highlights the role of women in the artistic avant garde. A wide variety of media will be represented: painting, sculpture, photography, design, architecture, video, film…. Through Feb. 2010; centrepompidou.fr.

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Culture Aix-en-provence

Strasbourg

Estuaire, a three-part cultural event that debuted

Picasso Plus Provence is Picasso Central this summer: Aix’s Musée Granet hosts Cézanne-Picasso, featuring 70 works by the Spanish artist and 30 by the man he famously called his “only master.” The paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints on view explore Cézanne’s inf luence on Picasso and the themes and shapes that fascinated both artists, from fruit bowls and skulls to Harlequins and bathers. (Through Sept. 27; picasso-aix2009.fr.) Visitors can continue their pilgrimage at the nearby Château de Vauvenargues —open to the public temporarily, for the first time— where Picasso once lived and is buried. On the tour: the artist’s studio, several rooms and a bathroom where he painted a faun over the tub. By reservation only; through Sept. 25; aixenprovencetourism.com.

Color Codes Strasbourg offers a two-part look at color:

in 2007 and will conclude in 2011. The festival, which runs along the Loire River from Nantes to Saint-Nazaire, features site-specific sculptures and installations, with venues including the former LU cookie factory, town squares, the roof of a submarine base—even the waters of the Canal Saint-Felix, which serve as a screen for the projection of images. Sites may be visited by car, bicycle, public transportation and by a special river cruise. Through Aug. 16; estuaire.info.

Doisneau’s Artists There are no kissing couples in Doisneau, Portraits d’artistes; this exhibit at the Musée Angladon focuses on some of the photographer’s least known works. On view are 50 portraits—many commissioned by magazines such as Vogue or Le Point—of 40 important artists, including Utrillo, Picasso, Braque, Arp, Léger and Duchamp. Though shot in the studio, they manage to convey the same feeling of intimacy that comes across in Robert Doisneau’s most emblematic images. Through Nov. 11; angladon.com.

at the Musée Zoologique, explores the role of color in nature, and particularly in the animal world. Chromamix 2: des pigments aux pixels, at the Musée d’Art moderne et contemporaine, examines pigments and the color choices artists make. The show brings together a wide array of works, from archeological shards to contemporary videos. Through September 27; musees-strasbourg.org. Vic-sur-Seille

Japanese Influences Emile Gallé, one of the founders of the Art Nouveau movement, was a trained botanist whose passion for nature led him to appreciate Japanese culture and its sensitivity to natural forms. That fascination, nurtured by the rise of le japonisme in France, drove him to seek a new style of art that melded East and West. Emile Gallé: Nature et Symbolisme, Influences du Japon, at the Musée départemental Georges

de la Tour in the Lorraine region, explores this aspect of the artist’s œuvre through some 150 exquisite items, including ceramics, glassware and preparatory drawings. Through Aug. 30; vic-sur-seille.fr.

FESTIVALS Nantes to Saint-Nazaire

Estuaire 2009 This summer marks the second installment of

Manderen

Imperial Splendor Built in the early 1500s, the Château de Malbrouck—named for a famous occupant, the Duke of Marlborough—is located in the Lorraine region near France’s border with Germany and Luxembourg. The latest in a series of important exhibits hosted by the château, Splendeurs de l’Empire: Napoleon et la Cour Impériale examines every aspect of Napoleonic society, including Napoleon’s military victories, his influence on modern France, Empire Style and the imperial family’s support for the arts through nearly 300 works of art, historical artifacts and documents. Through Aug. 31; chateau-malbrouck.com. 8

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flacons •byTwo Emile Gallé (c. 1900), on view in Vic-sur-Seille.

Avignon

Theater Fest The famous Festival d’Avignon has joined forces with theater festivals in Athens/Epidaurus, Barcelona and Istanbul to identify and showcase Mediterranean artists. All four festivals will be premiering French-Israeli director Amos Gitai’s Guerre des fils de la lumière contre les fils des ténèbres—based on Josephus Flavius’s War of the Jews—at outdoor locations this summer. Also on the menu in Avignon: new plays by artists from Lebanon, Egypt, Madagascar, Congo and Quebec. July 7 through 29; festival-avignon.com. Orange

Grand Operas Orange’s majestic Roman Theater turns into a Paris salon and a Sicilian village this summer during the venerable Chorégies opera festival. Patrizia Cioffi and Vittorio Grigolo star in “La Traviata,” while “Cavalleria Rusticana” is performed in a double bill with “Pagliacci” (look for Beatrice Uria-Monzon, Roberto Alagna and Inva Mula). Symphonic performances feature works by Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Mussorgsky. July 11 through Aug. 3; choregies.asso.fr. La Roque d’Anthéron

Keyboard Magic Aldo Ciccolini, Hélène Grimauld, Katia and Marielle Lebèque, Boris Berezovsky and Anne Queffélec are just a few of the headliners at the 29th Festival International de Piano de la Roque d’Anthéron. Featuring solo performances and chamber music, this extraordinary festival takes music to such unconventional sites as a quarry, a château garden, an abbey and a lake. July 24 through August 22; festival-piano.com.

Avignon

Chromamix 1: du camouflage à la seduction,

• Dervishes whirl their way through France during “La Saison de la Turquie.”

spotlight on... Saison de la Turquie Visitors to France this summer get a twofer—a trip to Turkey thrown in for free. The SAISON DE LA TURQUIE EN FRANCE kicks off in July, showcasing Turkish culture in such major cities as Paris, Lille, Marseille, Lyon, Strasbourg and Bordeaux, as well as smaller towns throughout the country. Events include exhibits of traditional and contemporary art, architecture and photography; theater and dance performances; film festivals and concerts; literary events; and lectures and panel discussions. Head over to Paris’s Trocadéro for an unforgettable opening performance on July 4, when Mercan Dede—a famous Sufi DJ inspired by both traditional music and electronic sounds—spins discs for a whole troupe of whirling dervishes. They’re followed by Fire of Anatolia, holder of the Guinness World Record for fastest dance (241 steps per minute!). For something a little more leisurely, stop by the Turkish café set up in the Tuileries gardens; you can dream of the Bosphorus while sipping a syrupy Turkish coffee and enjoying a bite of sweet lokum. Fall ushers in a slew of intriguing museum shows, including “Istanbul, un port pour deux continents” at the Grand Palais, “François 1er et Soliman” at the Château d’Ecouen, “VideoSeZon” at the Centre Pompidou and a trio of exhibits at the Louvre. The festival wraps up next spring in a burst of poetry, when Turkey steps into the spotlight at the Printemps des Poètes. All in all, the year promises to be a true Turkish delight. July 1, 2009, through March 31, 2010. For a complete program of the Saison de la Turquie en France, visit culturesfrance.com.

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• Yolande Moreau

won a best actress César for her title role in Séraphine.

On Screen

new on dvd

SERAPHINE Visionary painter Séraphine de

LOUISE BOURGEOIS: THE SPIDER,

Senlis (1864–1942) lived a simple life in a small village outside of Paris before being discovered by influential German art critic Wilhelm Uhde, for whom she worked as a maid. Her complicated partnership with Uhde (who also discovered Henri Rousseau) helped establish her as a player in the naïve art movement, but that success didn’t come without a price. Yolande Moreau brings a remarkable sensitivity to the role of the religiously devout and mentally fragile painter, delivering a performance that has earned her a best actress César. Slated release: June. (Music Box Films) GIRL FROM MONACO Something’s fishy when bikinis, mopeds and carefree Mediterranean romance start popping up in an Anne Fontaine film. A director who specializes in psychological tension, she created the part of the complicated main character, a smug and uptight lawyer, with Fabrice Luchini in mind. Luchini’s comedic delivery and his chemistry with his straight-and-narrow bodyguard—as well as his fling with the local TV weather girl—might trick you into thinking Fontaine has switched genres. But the film’s disturbing conclusion hits hard and is all the more shocking, given the seemingly goofy and initially likeable characters. Slated release: July. (Magnolia Pictures) AGNES’S BEACHES Although some have called Les Plages d’Agnès Agnès Varda’s swan song, the tirelessly curious 81-year-old “grandmother of the New Wave” shows no signs of slowing down in this documentary. The film traces Varda’s life and overlapping oeuvre from Sète (where she filmed her first feature, La Pointe Courte) to Los Angeles (where she made documentaries in the early ’80s) to Paris, where an artificial beach stretches in front of her home/production company. Select screenings. (Film Forum)

Music Serge Gainsbourg Histoire de Melody Nelson

Some four decades after Melody Nelson was released in France (where it initially flopped), this inventive album from music icon and quintessential dirty bird Serge Gainsbourg has made its way across the Atlantic. Written as a gift for his paramour, Jane Birkin, and loosely inspired by their relationship, the concept album details a lecherous older man’s pursuit of a young virgin. (Light in the Attic)

Phoenix Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Since appearing on Saturday Night Live in April, the Versaillesbased indie rock foursome (friends since childhood) has been selling out venues on their U.S. tour in a matter of days. The band’s clean-cut front man, Englishspeaking (and singing) Thomas Mars, enthusiastically belts out the peppy danceable tracks on their fourth studio album. (Glassnote Records)

Additional film and music reviews as well as sound clips are available on francemagazine.org.

By RACHEL BEAMER

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THE MISTRESS AND THE TANGERINE (2007) Marion Cajori and Amei Wallach

spent 14 years filming groundbreaking artist Louise Bourgeois, creating what may be the most comprehensive documentary of a visual artist’s life and work. Bourgeois opens up as uninhibitedly on camera as she does in her art work, offering not only insights into her pieces but opinions on the role of the artist. The film is the final work of awardwinning director Marion Cajori, who died from cancer in 2006, a year before its completion. (Zeitgeist Video) THE HAIRDRESSER’S HUSBAND (1994)

Director Patrice Leconte (Les Bronzés, Ridicule) stretched his versatility a notch further with this dreamlike tale of a young boy’s sexual obsession with the village’s curvaceous hairdresser. Jean Rochefort (a Leconte regular) plays the boy as a grown man with a new coiffeuse on his mind. DVD extras include an interview with the director and actress Anna Galiena. (Severin) A GRIN WITHOUT A CAT (1993) Le fond de l’air est rouge (a reference to Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat) is a two-part documentary from experimental and reclusive director Chris Marker. Marker flashes haunting and horrific video footage and photographs of world events from the ’60s and ’70s (the Vietnam War, May ’68 in Paris) in newsreel style. Narrators, including Simone Signoret and Jim Broadbent, provide voiceover. (Icarus Films) SCIENCE IS FICTION: 23 FILMS BY JEAN PAINLEVÉ (1902-89) Jean Painlevé’s

underwater shorts offer a comprehensive look at the six decades he spent uniting his passions for film and science. His cast of sea horses and jellyfish and their dance-like movements were appreciated by the public and scientific community alike. This compilation includes The Sounds of Science, for which alt-rockers Yo La Tengo created an innovative 2001 soundtrack. (Criterion Collection)

TS Production

Sons & Images

Beaux Livres THE CULTIVATED LIFE Artistic, Literary, and Decorating Dramas by Jean-Philippe Delhomme

A prolific illustrator and animator, Delhomme is sometimes described as Paris’s answer to the droll cartoonists who publish in the New Yorker. This first-ever English-language compilation of his work—a monograph featuring more than 100 illustrations—introduces his instantly recognizable style and signature dry wit to American readers, along with the favorite targets of his gently satirical pen: interior design mavens, art world snobs, literary poseurs…. In other words, the arbiters of Paris chic. Rizzoli, $30.

ERIC KAYSER’S NEW FRENCH RECIPES

by Eric Kayser with Yaïr Yosefi, photographs by Clay McLachlan

Master baker Kayser has some 30 boulangeries to his credit in eight countries ranging from France to Lebanon to Ukraine. With this latest collection of 50 sweet and savory recipes—all gorgeously styled—he makes his way into American kitchens. Inspired by his favorite nutritious ingredients— whole grains, seeds, dried fruit, nuts—he renews classic French dishes and creates some fresh new ones. Exotic fruit salad with quinoa, anyone? Flammarion, $34.95.

HIGHS AND LOWS

by Jean-Jacques Sempé

Sempé’s fifth album of cartoons and illustrations is being released for the first time in English this summer together with Panic Stations, his sixth; both were originally published in France in 1970. Beautifully illustrated in Sempé’s inimitable style, they wryly capture the absurdities of modern life and feature some of his stock characters—artists, psychoanalysts, old married couples—along with a few newcomers, such as gigantic computers and friendly aliens. Modern Library, $15.

PHOTOGRAPHING AMERICA Henri Cartier-Bresson / Walker Evans

edited by Agnès Sire

Henri Cartier-Bresson and Walker Evans had great esteem for one another’s work; they shared an insatiable intellectual curiosity, and the Frenchman once said that it was Evans’s work that inspired him to remain a photographer. This intriguing new book—edited by the director of the Fondation Cartier-Bresson in Paris—offers a fascinating opportunity to compare and contrast the work of the two photographic masters between 1929 and 1947. Thames & Hudson, $50.

A HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY The Musée d’Orsay Collection 1839-1925

edited by Françoise Heilbrun

The Musée d’Orsay was the first French art museum to amass a collection of 19th- and early 20th-century photography—one renowned for both its quality and size. This impressive volume, which showcases the collection’s most treasured works, traces the origins and evolution of photography from the first daguerreotypes to the Modernist works of Stieglitz and Steichen; thematic sections focus on portraiture, landscapes, still lifes, photo-reportage and so on. Flammarion, $75.

LONGCHAMP

by Marie-Claire Aucouturier, photographs by Philippe Garcia

Longchamp got its start creating leather goods for smokers before expanding its line in the 1950s; today it is probably best known for its Le Pliage line of foldable travel bags made of vinyl with leather trim (two billion of them have reportedly been sold since 1993). In commemoration of the company’s 60th birthday, this lavish coffee table book chronicles the history of a maison whose name has long been synonymous with quality and style. Abrams, $75.

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Bon Voyage

Notes for the savvy traveler

HOTELS

• Hôtel Gabriel in the Marais bills itself as a “detox hotel”; its 40 rooms and suite boast a

très modern eco-zen aesthetic interpreted in a soothing palate of neutrals. Massage spaces feature green products; the lounge/bar serves up herbal teas. But it’s not all New Age-y: Rooms have flat screen TVs, iPods and Wi-Fi access. €180 to €280; hotel-gabriel-paris.com. Hôtel Gabriel offers •calming hues, organic products and high-tech amenities.

(a ) avignon anniversary

In 1309, amid civil strife in Italy, the newly elected Pope Clement V moved the seat of the Papacy to peaceful architectural savvy to Paris’s 17th arrondissement. The building’s undulating glass façade is highly distinctive yet fits in perfectly with the surrounding neighborhood. Rooms are sleek and contemporary with pops of color; the restaurant combines Malaysian and Indonesian cuisine with French savoir faire. €289 to €399 with special promotions online; renaissancearcdetriomphe.com. • Hidden Hôtel, a four-star, 23-room oasis near the Arc de Triomphe, is said to be one of Paris’s first all-organic hotels—the four-star establishment incorporates such natural materials as linen, slate, wood, marble and stone as well as hand made ceramics. From €240 with special promotions online; hiddenhotelparis.com. BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS

With a fresh (60-ton!) coat of paint, new offerings for visitors and a starring role in several summertime events, the Eiffel Tower celebrates its 120th birthday in style: • The first floor brasserie has been renovated and reopened as the 58 Tour Eiffel, with contemporary French menus from €45 at lunch and €65 at dinner. restaurants-toureiffel.com • A new discovery trail leads kids through the Eiffel Tower in the fluorescent yellow footsteps of “Gus,” their cartoon guide. Pick up a game book at Cineiffel, the theater located in the Ferrie Pavilion on the first floor. eiffel-tower.com • L’Epopée Tour Eiffel, an exhibit tracing the Iron Lady’s evolution from construction project to international icon, is on view on the first floor and along the stairs. Through December 31; eiffel-tower.com. • Gustave Eiffel: Le Magicien du fer is a free exhibition at the Hôtel de Ville about the brilliant engineer behind the tower and the structure’s role as a muse for artists, photographers and filmmakers. Through August 31; paris.fr. • This year’s Bastille Day fireworks pay tribute to Gustave Eiffel and his most famous creation; starting at sundown on the Champ de Mars.

F r a n c e • S U M M ER 2 0 0 9

Avignon, where it would flourish for almost a century, leaving a lasting architectural and cultural legacy. This year Avignon celebrates the 700th anniversary of that event with concerts, art exhibitions and festivals, including a 3-D sound-and-light show screened on the façade of the Palais des Papes. avignon-700ans.com

• The Renaissance Paris Arc de Triomphe brings Christian de Portzamparc’s

Bon Voyage

Notes for the savvy traveler GREAT DEALS

• City Passes Pretty much all major French cities now have their own special city passes offering travelers everything from free guided tours, museum entries and monument visits to discounts on transportation, dining and shows. Ask for it at the tourist office of your destination. • Bike Tours Book an allinclusive, self-guided cycling vacation with company Rando Vélo from just €100 per day, Rando Vélo’s including accommodations, bike tours include bike rental, luggage transfer the Loire Valley. and most meals. Available in regions throughout France including Provence, Loire Valley, Normandy and Bordeaux. http://randovelo.fr • Rail Atmosphere Travel between French cities in the style that suits you best with “iDTGV.” There are three different specially themed train carriages: iDzen (the quiet trip: no cell phones or kids), iDzap (the fun trip: mobile bartenders, video game and DVD movie rentals), and iDNiGHT (the night trip: live DJs, bars and parties). Book up to four months in advance at rates starting from €15 one way. http://ventes.idtgv.com • Responsible Travel Rent a holiday home, stay in a B&B or book a nature adventure in the French countryside with Responsible Travel. Their “Special Offer Holidays” offer great discounts for last-minute getaways such as walking trips in the Mercantour National Park and lodging in a country retreat in the French Pyrenees. responsibletravel.com

•

Through January 2010, the Tahiti Tourism Board is sponsoring a contest to send six lucky couples or families on the vacation of their dreams. Contestants must send in a short video showing why they and a loved one need and deserve the trip. The prize includes air fare, accommodations for seven days and six nights, two meals daily, and land and

guides

• Paris: Made by Hand by Pia Jane Bijkerk. Known for her discerning eye, Australian stylist, blogger and sometime Paris resident Bijkerk divulges the addresses where she shops for her own clients. Organized by arrondissement, this charming guide features some 50 unique boutiques—milliners, stationers, umbrella makers and artisans of all kinds—where things are still made “the old way.” The Little Bookroom, $18.95. • The Flea Markets of France by Sandy Price; photographs by Emily Laxer. This attractive little book is a great resource for anyone who enjoys the thrill of the hunt. Laxer covers flea markets in every region of France (including Paris), rating them for their value, visual appeal and nearby amenities. She also explains what collectibles to look for at each venue and offers suggestions on neighborhood cafés, restaurants, bakeries and museums. The Little Bookroom, $18.95.

F r a n c e • S U M M ER 2 0 0 9

lagoon excursions. For contest rules, visit investinyourlove.com. L o i r e Va l l e y T r av e l ; T h e Ph e l p s G r o u p

(g)

NEXT STOP PAPEETE

Nouveautés

What’s in store

world views Working under the name Cahokia Creations, Lyonbased designer Elsa Somano creates lamps with a pointillistic flair: Made of industriallooking aluminum, they have perforated lampshades that add a touch of poetry when illuminated. Her latest: Etape 1, featuring a map of the world. From €150; http://elsa-somano. blogspot.com.

Pot Addiction Alain Gilles’s modular planters for Qui est Paul? are equally at home in settings ranging from rock gardens to living rooms. They vary in height from about one to four feet and come in a number of shapes and colors. €94 to €320; qui-est-paul.com.

Equestrian Arts A horse is a horse? Not necessarily. Daum’s new Hippic Collection comprises 13 noble steeds inspired by art and archeology; each unique piece is hand-crafted using pâte-de-crystal and the ancient technique of lost-wax casting, imparting a rich, subtle palette and delicate bubbles. From $1,300; daumusa.com.

F r a n c e • S U M M ER 2 0 0 9

QUI ES T PAUL ; e l s a s o m a n o ; T r a n s M e d i a G r o u p ; d r i a d e

Hot Seat You like this chair? Put a ring on it. Otherwise Driade’s sexy polypropylene ring chair by Philippe Starck and Eugeni Quitllet—a big hit at the Milan Furniture Fair—is sure to be snapped up by someone else. $506; driade.com.

ROCk STAR THRILL SEEkERS

u n -T i e d a r T i s T s ; l F o / l i G n e r o s e T; l o u i s v u i T T o n ; T H e p r o M o T i o n Fa c T o r y

A small publisher based in Silicon Valley, Un-Tied Artists has adopted some of Hollywood’s principles—writers work collectively on novels using colorful storyboards. One such tale is Trap, a mystery about an American Interpol agent in Paris. The company donates its proceeds to the Nobel Prizewinning Doctors Without Borders. $13.49; http:// siliconvalleynovel. com/Trap.aspx

With its simplified shape and bright colors, Claudio Colucci’s MiNi DaDa CHair for Ligne Roset has undeniable appeal. Put it in the nursery and let it rock your toddler’s world. $650 to $1,185 for a set of two; ligne-rosetusa.com.

LINENS AND THINgS With its first collection of aCCESSOriES, luxury linen maker D. Porthault moves from bed to beach. Its summery sacs and beach bags come in two patterns: “Corail Matisse,” evoking works by the French master, and “Fond des Mers,” inspired by the aquatic world. $125 to $495; dporthault.fr.

NEw HuES Louis Vuitton wowed fashionistas six years ago with its popular Monogram Multicolore line, a collaboration with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami. The pair blurs the lines between art and commerce once again with new, cheerfully colored Insolite pOCKETBOOKS. $710; louisvuitton.com

ADuLT PLEASuRES

If you ever envied the little kids who got to wear those cute petit Bateau togs, your time has come! The purveyor of classy cottons has vastly expanded its selection of clothing for les grandes personnes to include undies, T-shirts, sleepwear, dresses, accessories and more. And to make your selection in a child-free setting, visit the brand’s first boutique for adults, located on rue 29 juillet, in Paris’s 1st arrondissement. Fr a nce • SUMMer 2009

Voyages

a winemaker revives a charming bit of local history

by Alexandre Kauffmann

Stendhal wouldn’t believe his eyes. The writer who complained of Pauillac’s poorly paved roads in his 1838 Travels in the South of France would be amazed if he could come back today and visit Bages, a picturesque village just south of the town. Here, the Place Desquet has seamlessly aligned paving stones, a gleaming white stone fountain and small businesses with freshly painted 1930s-style storefronts. A stone’s throw away, just past a few houses, manicured vineyards slope down toward the Gironde estuary. But for a few TV antennas, you have the curious sensation of having gone back in time—at least until you notice “Wi-Fi” printed in neat letters on the façade of the café, right between “Cuisine de famille” and “Apéritifs de marque.” Along with its retro-French vibe, Bages also conjures up another century in another place: the Quattrocento, when the arts flourished under the great patrons of the Italian Renaissance. This tiny hamlet boasts artists’ studios, exhibition spaces, frescoes, a literary prize and a cooking school. It’s not uncommon to run into writers, artists, actors and Michelin-starred chefs as you browse in Bages’ Bazaar or grab a bite at Café Lavinal. Yet barely a decade ago, Bages resembled a ghost town. Most of its residences were in ruins, its narrow alleyways deserted. Despite its location in Pauillac, one of the world’s most prestigious wine appellations, it had fallen into neglect—a fate it shared with a number of other Médoc villages. The rural exodus that began in the mid-20th century was to blame. Over the years, owners of small vineyards, blue-collar workers and artisans 18

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had left the area; businesses and workshops had closed; old buildings not linked to winemaking had been forgotten. Even the unprecedented boom experienced by the grands crus in the 1980s, when winegrowers spent freely to restore their vineyards and châteaux, couldn’t reverse the tide. One man, though, would change Bages’s destiny. Owner of the famous Château Lynch-Bages, Jean-Michel Cazes didn’t even know that he also owned most of the village adjacent to his vineyards until architects suggested that he tear down the empty buildings to make way for new wine storage facilities. “I didn’t want to go down in history as being the guy who destroyed Bages,” he laughs. So instead, he decided to bring the place back to life, to revive a colorful and convivial aspect of Médoc life that had long existed in the shadows of the great Bordeaux châteaux. Considered a visionary among wine professionals, Cazes had already revamped Lynch-Bages’s 19th-century cellars back in 1989, refitting them for art exhibitions. With the collaboration of renowned galleries, he regularly mounts shows featuring some of the great names in contemporary art, such as Pierre Alechinsky, Titus Carmel, Ernest Pignon-Ernest…. When contemplating Bages’s future, he knew that he wanted culture—painting but also literature, cuisine and crafts—to be part of the mix. Bit by bit, plans were drawn up, buildings were restored, streets were repaired. In 2003, Bages inaugurated its first new business: Le Baba d’Andréa. Named after Cazes’s grandmother, this boulangerie celebrates tradition and authenticity; all its breads, for example, are made with only natural, slow fermenting yeast. Bakers turn out a tempting selection of pâtisseries—including local classics and, of course, babas au rhum— and the shop also carries artisanal jams and other gourmet goodies. For local residents such as retired teacher Hugette Mérian, Le Baba d’Andréa has been a blessing. “There used to be traveling sa lesmen in this area, but they have disappeared. Now you have to get in your car whenever you need groceries. So I was

C o u r t e s y o f Ly n c h - B a g e s

A Village in the Médoc

• Top: Little by little, the once desolate Bages has regained the convivial ambiance of a Médoc village. Above, left to right: Displays in Bages’ Bazaar; an accordionist in front of Café Lavinal; artisanal breads at Le Baba d’Andréa; baskets woven on site by resident artisans. Opposite: Jean-Michel Cazes, the man responsible for Bages’s renaissance.

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Voyages happy when a bakery the days when ships opened near my house. from all over the world It has given a bit of life docked in the Garonne, back to the village. It and passengers set sail needed it, because as for America and Africa old people passed away, from the port of Verdon, no one was moving in just north of Bages. to replace them.” Back then, ocean liners Ca fé L avina l a nd frequently glided past Bages’ Bazaar were the the family vineyards. next to open their doors. “In the evening, we’d sit With its red-leather on the terrace and watch b a nque t te s , mo s a ic the ships sail by, all lit tile f loors and brass up. The wind would fixtures, the Café is a carry music all the way delightful blast from to the house.” the past. Even the prices He is a lso deeply at this brasserie are oldattached to another bit fashioned—a €14 lunch of vanished local hismenu includes three tory: the Montagnols. courses and coffee. The T he se a g ricu lt u ra l equally quaint Bazaar workers came from the caters more to tourists Eastern Pyrenees in the than locals, with an • The stars came out in Bages for the advanced screening of the film Mes Stars et moi. late 19th century, spade a ssortment of wines Festivities included their induction into the Commanderie du Bon Temps du Médoc, in hand, to replant the et Barsac. Left to right: actor Kad Merad, producer Christophe Rossignon, from the Cazes Family Sauternes vines t hat had been winemaker Emmanuel Cruse, screen legend Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Michel Cazes. Estates, gifts (including ravaged by phylloxera. quintessentially French brands such as Of course, it’s one thing to restore a Cazes’s own family, originally from the Opinel and Laguiole knives, Jean Vier village, another to make it economically Ariège, descends directly from these laand Artiga Basque linens, Bernardaud viable. Cazes explains that part of Bages’s borers who were forced by poverty to leave porcelain), and books on food and wine. success is the synergy it enjoys with his their native region. “When I was a child,” Bages now also has its own playground family’s other ventures—the bakery, for he recalls, “I used to meet shepherds who and pétanque area; later this summer, a example, supplies their two restaurants, had come here from the Ariège—they still reeked of goats!” His grandfather, JeanCharles Cazes, became a boulanger in Pauillac and in the 1930s acquired Château Lynch-Bages. “It’s important to remember the history of the immigrants who shaped this region,” says Cazes. “Hardly any of the owners of grand cru vineyards were native to the Médoc.” Today, too, Bages is being repopulated largely by families of diverse backgrounds who h ave moved here f rom out side the region. A couple of basket makers butcher shop is slated to open, and an Le Chapon Fin in Bordeaux and the two- from eastern France weave their wicker épicerie is on the drawing board for 2010. star Cordeillan Bages, located just a few creations in a local atelier; Cordeillan Meanwhile, a dozen houses have been hundred yards away. Bordeaux Saveurs, the Bages chef Thierry Marx, who grew up renovated and rented, and ateliers welcome family enterprise that offers tours, cooking in Paris’s Belleville neighborhood, lives visiting artists and artisans. A full calendar classes and wine tastings, holds a number near Place Desquet; Cazes’s mother-inof events draws ever yone from loca l of its activities in the village, and bakers law, whose Portuguese family resided in children (Easter egg hunts) to intellectuals and chefs working in Bages often hail from Mozambique, has a home just north of the village. That’s the charm of the Médoc: It (the annual literary prize) to celebrities (film other Cazes establishments. screenings). There are traditional fêtes du There is no doubt that Cazes has put renews itself by adopting all those who village, seasonal outdoor markets—even Bages back on the map, but not even he can cross the Garonne. manga festivals, complete with cosplay. truly turn back time. He nostalgically recalls For more information, visit villagedebages.com.

Bages also conjures up another century in another place: the

Fr a nce • summer 2009

C o u r t e s y o f Ly n c h - B a g e s

Quattrocento, when the arts flourished under the great patrons of the Italian Renaissance.

Evénement

Madeleine Vionnet fashion’s force tranquille

by Rebecca Voight

Luxe, calme et volupté—Baudelaire’s famous words perfectly capture the essence of designer Madeleine Vionnet. Her remarkable clothes convey a whispered elegance, which perhaps explains why she has always been something of an insider’s secret, a designer’s designer. The fact that the world’s first retrospective of the couturier is taking place only now, almost 35 years after Vionnet’s death at age 99, indicates how difficult it is to pin down the creative talent who laid the foundation for 20th-century fashion. How do you describe clothes that seem to have no beginning and no end, that fall over the body in a seamless swirl as they suggest every curve and respond to the slightest movement? Vionnet (1876-1975) is most commonly credited with having invented the bias cut, a construction technique using fabric on the diagonal (bias) rather than straight across, allowing the body to dictate the shape of the clothes. As it turns out, not even that most basic assumption is exactly right. Pamela Golbin, curator of “Madeleine Vionnet, Puriste de la Mode” at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (June 24, 2009, through January 31, 2010), explains: “Bias already existed in couture before Vionnet, but it was used only for small pieces such as cap sleeves. She was the first to apply bias to an entire dress, which meant there was no need for hooks and eyes, zippers or buttons. Total bias construction was her way of continuing the liberation of women that she had started earlier, when she did away with the corset.” Dramatically breaking with ornate, constricting 19th-century fashion, Vionnet’s designs were all about the body, movement, proportion, balance. She was so revolutionary

that the aftershocks of her work continue to ripple through the fashion industry. Azzedine Alaïa has always collected Vionnet, and John Galliano has taken her bias slip dress on a wild ride over the past decade at Christian Dior. Issey Miyake—who has fathered his own share of inventions, notably his A-POC seamless clothing—says his first contact with Vionnet’s work was as powerful as the moment he first saw “Nike of Samothrace” in the Louvre. “I again stood transfixed,” he recalls in his introduction to Betty Kirke’s 1991 book on the designer. “It was probably awe from the realization that her basic concept of the relationship between the body and cloth is the basis of all clothing. Vionnet’s clothes transcended her times.” Along with Paul Poiret (1879-1944) and Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (1883-1971), Vionnet is responsible for launching the major trends, or vocabularies, that established contemporary fashion. Of the three, Vionnet was the only one to have dressmaking

• Above: Madeleine Vionnet in 1937. Left: Hundreds of photographs showing front, back and side views were taken to document copyrighted Vionnet creations. This gown is from the 1938 Winter collection.

expertise—Poiret did not know how to sew, and Chanel started her career as a hat maker. Their approaches to their craft were also very different: Poiret’s designs were flamboyant and exotic; he loved throwing costume balls and making the outfits for them. Chanel created simple and comfortable clothes for the modern woman, establishing a signature look. “But for Vionnet, technique and aesthetics were one,” says Golbin. “Technique determined her silhouettes. She was the purist— hence the title of this exhibition.” Fr a nce • summer 2009

investment bank Natixis to restore almost the entire Vionnet collection made the show possible. “They’ve been an amazing partner,” says Golbin. Thanks to them, we were able to restore not only the clothes but also photos. We could not have put together a show like this without that support.” The bank has long been involved in cultural philanthropy, having underwritten restoration projects at the Louvre, the Musée Rodin and other venues, but this was its first foray into fashion. “I think what convinced them was that this project involved an important collection, not just certain pieces,” says Golbin.

At Jacques Doucet, Vionnet’s radical innovation was to create

déshabillés to be worn outside the home— and to show them on models walking barefoot. easier. The museum has been sitting on a gold mine: In 1952, Madeleine Vionnet gave her extensive archives to the Union Française des Arts du Costume, whose holdings are on permanent loan to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. The collection includes not only 122 dresses but also 750 patterns, 75 volumes of photographs of models wearing copyrighted designs, accounting ledgers and books from her personal library. Of the 125 pieces in the show, only three had to be borrowed from other museums. The unprecedented decision by corporate 24

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Another coup was getting Andrée Putman to design the exhibition. She was the perfect person for the job: In the 1980s, the worldfamous designer did much to revive interest in Vionnet’s contemporaries, including JeanMichel Franck, Eileen Gray, Pierre Chareau and Robert Mallet-Stevens. She was such a proponent of their work that she even reissued some of their designs. Madeleine Vionnet started her career while still a child—a brilliant child with a grudge. By age 10, she had already obtained

her primary school certificate, and her teacher was angling to get her a scholarship. Her dream was to become a teacher herself. Vionnet’s father raised her on his own—her mother had left them when Madeleine was only three to open a vaudeville casino—and although he was ready to let his daughter continue her studies, an acquaintance convinced him otherwise. Saying Madeleine would be a financial burden to him for many years, the woman persuaded him to have Madeleine apprentice at her sewing shop in Aubervilliers. “Vionnet never forgave that woman,” says Golbin. “But the setback only increased her determination to make something of herself.” Years later, Vionnet would acknowledge that it had probably all been for the best—how else would she have discovered the great talent that was in her hands? Vionnet married at 18 and soon had a daughter of her own, although the child did not survive. Then in 1895, she decided to divorce, leave her job and cross the Channel to learn English—a daring plan to say the least. “Initially, she worked as a linen maid at a psychiatric hospital outside London,” explains Golbin. “Built by Thomas Holloway, a wealthy philanthropist, it was an amazing place, the most luxurious, modern building in England dedicated to treating the middle class.” The asylum’s large windows, plumbing and ventilation would later inspire Vionnet’s design for her own atelier in Paris. Soon, the young woman managed to get a position better suited to her talents, working for London dressmaker Kate Reily, who did a lot of business with the U.S. There, Vionnet got her first taste of dealing with an international clientele. When she returned to Paris in 1900, this experience positioned her to climb the fashion ranks, first as a première, a kind of technical assistant, for Marie Callot Gerber at Callot Soeurs, whose clients included Mrs. Astor, the Vanderbilts and Mme Eiffel. She credited that experience with a number of formative lessons, such as teaching her that the body must be at the center of every design and that nothing short of perfection would do. Within five years, Jacques Doucet had offered her a position as modéliste, or designer, asking her to rejuvenate his house. While Doucet himself adorned actresses Régine, Lantelme and Cécile Sorrel in sequins, feathers and embroidery, Vionnet wanted to introduce a more simplified look. Her first

F r a n ç o i s K o ll a r / Pa r i s , B i b l i o t h è q u e F o r n e y

Golbin had to work like a stylish private eye to prepare this retrospective, as no one had previously drawn up a definitive chronology of the designer’s life (her finished manuscript is some 30 pages long). Indeed, the only major reference work on the couturier to date is Betty Kirke’s masterful Madeleine Vionnet, which was two decades in the making. In addition to biographical material, it contains 38 patterns of Vionnet gowns that Kirke reconstructed from garments loaned to her by the designer and museums. But Kirke didn’t meet Vionnet until she was 98 years old and had to limit her technical questions, due to the designer’s “age and frequent forgetfulness.” To fill in the blanks, Golbin pored over tax records, death and marriage certificates, previously unpublished texts by Vionnet and the few interviews she gave. Time was short—there was little more than a year to prepare the show—and locating sources was difficult. “When I worked on the Balenciaga exhibit [in 2006], I was able to contact people who knew him, but with Vionnet, we were about 10 years too late.” She did manage to track down two women, aged 95 and 96, who had worked for Vionnet, and they helped sort out the facts. Locating the objects to display was infinitely

• Above: A 1939 cover of L’Officiel de la Mode featuring Léon Benigni’s drawing of a Vionnet design. Right: A 1935 evening gown illustrates Vionnet’s masterful touch with draping, a technique she admired in the clothing

of ancient Greece. Opposite page: A 1931 photograph showing a Vionnet employee carefully dressing a model.

collection—inspired by Isadora Duncan, who in 1906 had danced barefoot, braless and without a corset—included déshabillés. These loose-fitting dresses were typically worn at home, perhaps for afternoon tea, and offered a relaxed reprieve from the period’s bone-crunching corsetry. Vionnet’s radical innovation was to create déshabillés to be worn outside the home—and to show them on models walking barefoot. Her work attracted the attention of Doucet’s more fanciful clients, such as the

eccentric Marquise de Casati. Betty Kirke describes Casati’s look: “a black velvet Vionnet dress, a top hat made of tiger skins, a black patch over one eye, and live snakes wrapped around her arms.” The Doucet saleswomen, however, were not amused. Deeming Vionnet’s less decorative and unrestricted silhouettes heretical, they simply refused to show them to clients. Frustrated, Vionnet began toying with the idea of opening her own house and finally did so in 1912, setting up shop at 222 rue

de Rivoli. By then, however, Poiret had gotten all the credit for freeing women from the corset. His designs came out after her déshabillés, but because her styles were boycotted by the Doucet saleswomen, no one knew this. It was something she bitterly resented for many years. Within two years, WWI had broken out and Vionnet had to close her business. She reopened at the same location after the war, Fr a nce • summer 2009

• Above: Vionnet’s innovations included the halter top, the cowl neck and the handkerchief hem, which can be seen on this 1937 dress. Right: An evening dress from the Winter 1938 collection. Opposite page: Madeleine Vionnet working with

encouraged by the fact that women were now looking for simpler, more functional garments and excited by the possibilities presented by new textile technologies, which produced fabrics that lent themselves better to her bias-cut designs. By 1924, her business had grown to the point where she needed more space, and she moved to 50 avenue Montaigne—currently home to Ralph Lauren. There, by the mid’20s, she employed a team of 1,200, making Vionnet et Cie the largest couture house in Paris, larger even than Lucien Lelong and Chanel. But her contributions to the fashion 26

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industry went well beyond clothes. “She was extremely progressive, a feminist at the helm of this huge company,” says Golbin. “She was the first to introduce social responsibility in her industry, giving workers paid vacations and other benefits such as paid maternity leave and access to an in-house dentist and gynecologist. French legislation on these issues did not come about until 1936.”

She was also a pioneer when it came to protecting intellectual property, joining with other couturiers in lobbying efforts to obtain international copyright laws and engaging in numerous lawsuits to prevent copyists from selling knock-offs of couture designs. At one point, she even included her thumbprint on her label to indicate that the garment was an authentic Vionnet.

the articulated doll she used throughout her career to create new designs.

Thérèse Bonney

Meanwhile, her business flourished. She outfitted the best-dressed women in the world, the ones who could get away with total simplicity and who could afford the prices. That included royalty, actresses and the wives of the powerful, from Mrs. Edouard de Rothschild and Mrs. Robert Lazard to Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Princesse de FaucingyLucinge and Begum Aga Khan. “Her clientele was women who didn’t need all the frills you could find at other fashion houses,” says Golbin. “And she was unapologetically the most expensive in Paris.” Throughout her career, Vionnet designed not with pen and paper but with an articulated wooden doll that was about two feet tall and attached to the rotating seat of a piano stool. Turning it to see her work from every angle, she would drape and redrape muslin before cutting patterns that her assistants would then enlarge to full size. Then she would try her design on a mannequin or a client and correct the proportions until she found perfection. The Depression took a serious toll on French couture, and Vionnet et Cie was no exception. Even when times improved, her business never regained its former momentum. In 1939, another war meant she had to once again shutter her house. This time she would never reopen it. As Betty Kirke recounts, she was nearly 70 years old when the war ended, and the world was a different place. Knowing that she would never recapture the glory that was once Vionnet, she retired. The first floor of the exhibition is devoted to Vionnet’s designs from 1910 to 1920, with a focus on structure and decoration. “Vionnet always said, ‘For me a dress is mental.’ She first thought about the concept and then made the dress,” says Golbin. “She repeatedly worked with three shapes: the square, the rectangle and the circle.” One observer even called her the “Euclid of fashion.” Vionnet herself described her job in these terms: “Dressmaking should be organized like an industry, and the couturier should be a geometrician, for the human body makes geometrical figures to which the materials should correspond.” Her thinking was likely influenced by the Purism movement, launched in 1918 by Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant. They

rejected a decorative approach to art in favor of clarity and objectivity, preferring the architecture of geometry to pictorial qualities. “Vionnet was part of that,” says Golbin. “She knew those people, they were her friends.” With their sensuous draping, Vionnet’s clothes also recall classic Greek dress. “She was inspired by these primal clothes, the first cloth that enveloped the body, in which nothing has been cut,” says Golbin. In an interview with Betty Kirke, Vionnet remarked: “I like to look at old costumes and fashions of times gone by, because of what they say about their times. They tell me so much about their era and the people

Golbin thinks part of Vionnet’s great talent was her ability to balance creativity and practicality. “She never called herself an artist, but I think she considered her work artistic. The fact that she decided to give her archives to a museum proves she had that vision of herself.” But Vionnet was fluent commercially as well. She produced 500 to 600 models every year, which puts her on a par with a modern house. She understood that collections need to have something for all body types, and she offered every piece in five colors as well as black and white. Even her use of bias was practical because working on the diagonal gives fabric a stretch that makes fit much easier. And when the house closed during WWI, Vionnet allowed her team to stay on and work independently for her clients— her workers maintained their income, clients were happy and the atelier was ready to re-open as soon as the war was over. By the end of her research, Golbin felt almost as if she had known Madeleine Vionnet personally, and the show’s catalogue includes her imaginary interview with the designer, with “answers” culled from unpublished texts by Vionnet, who gave very few interviews throughout her career. When asked her definition of taste, Vionnet is succinct: “Taste is what allows us to differentiate between what is beautiful and what is merely

Vionnet repeatedly worked with three shapes: the square, the

rectangle and the circle. One observer even called her the “Euclid of fashion.” in it. My inspiration comes from Greek vases, from the beautifully clothed women depicted on them, or even the noble lines of the vase itself.” A second floor features creations from the 1930s, with dresses from every collection that came out during this period. Other displays focus on various aspects of her life and work; there are deconstructed dresses revealing her extraordinarily complex technique; objects showing her efforts to fight counterfeiting and, perhaps most riveting of all, her wooden doll.

spectacular—and also, what’s ugly. It’s usually handed down from mother to daughter, but certain people don’t need to be educated to have taste, it’s within them, and I think that’s my case.” For many in the fashion world, Vionnet had not only taste but genius, that rare gift for achieving timelessness. “Vionnet’s clothes speak of values that are considered very important today: authenticity, purity and truth,” says Golbin. “With her, there’s no frills, there’s no thrills. There’s no space between you and the garment, so there’s no place to hide.” Fr a nce • summer 2009

By Sara Romano

“What drives me as an artist is that I think everyone is unique, yet everyone disappears so quickly. [...] But I like something Napoleon said when he saw many of his dead soldiers on a battlefield: “Oh, no problem—one night of love in Paris and you can replace everybody.” — Christian Boltanski , Tate Magazine

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The seminal events that shaped Christian Boltanski’s

career occurred while he was still in his mother’s womb. The son of a Jewish father and Catholic mother, he was born in Paris on September 6, 1944—just weeks after the French capital’s liberation. His father had spent most of his wife’s pregnancy crouched beneath the floorboards in their apartment, concealed in a space so cramped that he could neither lie down nor stand. The family preserved the dark and dusty lair for years afterward, a physical reminder of its close brush with tragedy. The episode was seared into Boltanski’s consciousness. “I am an artist who began working in the second half of the 20th century,” he explains. “And World War II is one of the major question marks of that century. For the past five decades, I have been wrestling with that question mark.” Yet rather than dwell specifically on the Holocaust, Boltanski ponders the transience of all human existence. He chases lost moments, lapsed lives—his own, those of people he knows as well as those of strangers. While each of us is one of a kind, he muses, we are all cogs in a wheel that will continue turning long after we’re gone. “Every individual is unique yet at the same time so fragile that, after two or three generations, he or she disappears completely,” he says. “My work is a sort of exploration of uniqueness and disappearance.” Boltanski’s art addresses everyone, not just those with experience of Nazi atrocities. “The beauty of being an artist is that when you talk about your village, your village becomes universal,” he says. “And if you’re a good artist, when you talk about your childhood, people say, ‘That’s me.’” Few today would dispute that Boltanski is a “good

artist.” In the past decade alone, he has participated in exhibitions in the U.S. (New York, San Francisco, Austin, Boston), Germany, Italy, Mexico, Poland and Venezuela, not to mention his native France. Some two dozen museums have acquired his installations for their permanent collections, among them the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. These installations aren’t pretty. Made out of clay, dirt, razors, rusted cookie tins, light bulbs, old photos or used clothes, they don’t dazzle the way a Botticelli or a Rembrandt might. Instead, they grab you by the gut, making you ponder your time on earth. The artist is a visual philosopher, constantly tugging at that cruel thread called time. 30

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Entre-temps (2003) Throughout his career, Boltanski has created pieces that document his past. This video presents a string of photographs showing the artist’s face at different stages of his life, from early childhood to age 60. The installation reflects his signature preoccupation with the inevitable passage of time and the loss of childhood, “the first part of us that dies.”

He recounts his past, real or imagined, struggles with his memories and documents the lives of those who have come and gone. MoMA’s “The Storehouse” (1988), for example, consists of seven blurry black-and-white portraits of young women. Lit by seven lamps, they are set atop a stack of 192 “old” cookie tins with pieces of cloth inside them. Although none of the elements are authentic (the photos were taken from magazines and newspapers, the fabric is generic), the association of these elements evokes mourning, relics of lives lost, the Holocaust. “Strange it is, beyond a doubt, and first cousin to performance art,” the New York Times’s John Russell wrote when MoMA first exhibited it in 1989. “Mr. Boltanski is a true poet, even if he doesn’t happen to use words.” The enigmatic artist is currently the subject of a major retrospective at the Kunstmuseum in Liechtenstein. On view through September 6, 2009, “La Vie Possible” features works from the mid-1980s to the present, with most pieces dating from the past 15 years. Kunstmuseum director Friedemann Malsch, who curated the exhibition, wanted to focus on these pieces in order to show the German-speaking world a side of the artist that is less funereal and less related to World War II. “Since the 1960s, especially in Germany, we have constantly been saying, ‘We must not forget,’” he says, referring to the death of millions

6 septembres (2005) This interactive video, just five minutes long, consists of footage of events that all took place on September 6— the artist’s birthday. The images fly by 2,000 times faster than usual, offering a remarkable overview of the past 60 years and emphasizing the fleeting nature of existence. Viewers may select one of the events to examine and remember, giving them the illusion of stopping time while heightening their sense of its inexorable flow.

of Jews in Nazi concentration camps. “So Boltanski’s art has been perceived within that context. But his newer work emphasizes life itself. With this show, I want to make clear, or more apparent, that there is another side to his work that is much more vital, one that is oriented toward the real life we live every day, every one of us.” Among the pieces on view is “La Vie Impossible” (2001), on loan from the Centre Pompidou in Paris. It is a series of 20 large glass display cases containing random paraphernalia—an electric bill, a Japanese journalist’s business card, a picture of the artist at a restaurant with friends, a letter from a Culture Ministry adviser, blood-test results. They are all traces of the artist’s life, yet they could just as well be the contents of anyone’s desk drawer: yellowing mementos of yesterday. The exhibition’s introductory text points out that such works are not monuments to the past; rather they are meant “to activate memory, i.e., to promote a culture of memory that constantly underscores the living in the face of what has been lost.” Boltanski created several new works for the Lichtenstein show while at the same time preparing what will likely be his biggest installation ever: In January 2010, he will become the third artist—after Anselm Kiefer in 2007 and Richard Serra in 2008—to participate in Monumenta, a series that invites a single artist to create a work

specifically for the giant vaulted space of the Grand Palais. Built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, its glass dome rises 150 feet above a 145,000-square-foot nave. One of Boltanski’s preliminary sketches shows rows of old items of clothing laid out flat in neat, cordoned-off rectangles, the entire space divided up as if it were an enormous vegetable garden. Although the artist will not yet comment on the work, the abandoned clothing immediately evokes the garments taken from people interned in Nazi death camps. Judging by the themes of his works, Boltanski would

seem to be a distressed, and distressing, character. Yet he is in fact something of a Parisian bon vivant. He enjoys food and wine, and is a cook—although by his own admission, not a good one. A pipe smoker, he dresses in dark denim and fashionably cut jackets, shaves his head and still has a boyish look about him. “I am a joyous person, a man who’s very much at peace with dying, at peace with life,” he says. “I know that you have to take advantage of every moment of happiness on this Earth.” Boltanski lives and works in the close Paris suburb of Malakoff; his partner, the equally renowned artist Annette Messager, lives and Franc e • su m m e r 2 0 0 9

Monument: Les enfants de Dijon (1986) Small tin frames hold photographs of children from a Dijon middle school; the snapshots have been re-photographed and enlarged, resulting in a loss of detail. Each image is softly illuminated by a small bare light bulb. Displayed in the Chapelle de la Salpêtrière, this installation—complete with a central altar—evoked a shrine, possibly commemorating a massacre of innocents. For Boltanski, the children, by becoming adults, have been murdered by time.

works elsewhere. Her art addresses the condition of women by exploring themes such as sexual abuse, physical appearance and motherhood through photography, drawing, embroidery and found objects. Although the two have collaborated in the past, he says they lead parallel careers and never attend one another’s openings. In spite of the family trauma caused by his father’s wartime experience, Boltanski says he never lacked affection from his eccentric parents while he was growing up and that overall, his was a happy childhood. In a book of conversations with Catherine Grenier, set to be published by Boston University Press in the U.S. in September (La vie possible de Christian Boltanski), he reveals that his mother was from a fine but penniless Corsican family and published novels under a pen name (he says he never read them). When she was a child, she lived for a time with a foster family and thereafter constantly feared separation from her loved ones. She contracted polio after the birth of her first son, and from then on needed her family’s help to get around. She kept her sons close to her at all times—even when the family vacationed, they never checked into a hotel though it was well within their means. Instead, they piled into the family car and slept in it for weeks, inseparable. Boltanski’s father, a Jew of Lithuanian decent, was a respected 32

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doctor, quiet and devout. War had made him reluctant to be a practicing Jew and determined to blend in, so he had converted to Catholicism. Yet he was too intimidated to attend Mass; instead, he would drive the family to the Eglise Saint-Sulpice every Sunday and they would sit in the car quietly until the service was over. Young Boltanski was a sensitive and curious boy, and like many artists-to-be, he felt a world apart from other kids. “I was very strange, almost mentally ill, very closed, with no friends,” he remembers. “I tried hard to fit in but couldn’t.” His unconventional parents (his mother was also a card-carrying Communist) made it difficult for him to mix with the bourgeois students in his class. At age 12, Christian announced that he was dropping out of school. His family did not object. “I was lucky enough to have parents who understood me,” he says. “Had I been the son of a peasant from Corrèze, I would have been sent off to be an apprentice somewhere. That wouldn’t have worked—I would have ended up in a psychiatric ward.” The boy gleefully gave up classroom dictation and math for hours of idle play inside the family home. Those undisciplined years spent away from school proved to be decisive ones. At age 13, he made a little clay object that he showed to his brother Luc (now a prominent

Théâtre d’ombres (1986) The metal figurines featured in this “theater”—displayed at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme for a full year—were inspired by traditional shadow puppets. The mystical installation conjures up images from many ages and cultures: Plato’s cave; the Danse Macabre; the myth of the Golem; the Mexican Day of the Dead. Whether this spectral dance is joyous, eerie or downright sinister depends on the viewer.

sociologist). “It’s pretty, what you’ve done,” Luc films around them; these were shown at his first “I am a joyous said, unaware that his reaction would spark a lifeexhibition, held in May 1968 at the now-defunct person. Cinéma le Ranelagh in Paris’s 16th arrondissement. long vocation. From then on, Boltanski believed I know that In the early 1970s, Boltanski turned to an acthat he was good at making things and resolved to you have to tivity usually reserved for pre-schoolers: He made be an artist for the rest of his life. thousands of mud balls, desperately trying to creIn an explosion of creativity, he began to ate the perfect sphere with his hands. Later, he paint giant wall-sized canvases, mostly picturing used them in his installations. He also built varimassacres. Entrée des Turcs à Van (1961) is one of the few that survive; it is a Chagall-esque scene of ous structures out of some 900 sugar cubes and used modeling clay to re-create lost childhood violence with a central victim floating helplessly of happiness on possessions such as toys, tools and clothes, which at the center. this Earth.” he displayed in tin drawers covered with wire After a decade of such experiments, Boltanski mesh. All were efforts to recapture his long-lost decided to give up painting, preferring to express childhood. Why? “Childhood is the first part of himself through objects, words and moving images. It was the late 1960s, art in the traditional sense was passé— us that dies,” he explains. “We all have a dead child within ourMay 1968 had spawned a rejection of all conventional forms—and selves.” Time inevitably destroyed many of these works, underlining artists were looking for new and unusual materials to use in their the futility of all human endeavor and of artistic vanity. work. Boltanski became part of a new wave of artists that included Another iconoclastic project involved putting together a book, Jean Le Gac, Paul-Armand Gette, Sarkis, Gina Pane and, of course, which he mailed to 150 clients of his gallery. Within its pages were images of himself and his family, the bed he had slept in as a boy and a Messager, his partner-to-be. He started making life-sized dolls and staging short but violent shirt he had worn. To emphasize the impossibility of truly recovering

take advantage of every moment

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his own past, he included objects belonging to his nephew and passed them off as his own. In another pamphlet, he documented his makebelieve death in a bicycle accident. For Boltanski, it was a time of painful introspection, selfinterrogation and apparent aimlessness. Seeking empathy for his plight, he engaged in “mail art,” sending mysterious letters to unsuspecting recipients. One letter, which began with the words “You have to help me,” cited the “difficulties” he was facing and the “very serious crisis” he was living through. Things had reached “an intolerable point,” he wrote, begging for a reply. Five people wrote back offering to help. “That wasn’t bad at all,” he recalled in a 1975 interview. “If I hadn’t been an artist, I probably would have written only one letter and then maybe jumped out of a window. But since I’m a painter, I wrote 60 of them—that is, the same one 60 times—and told myself, ‘What a good piece and what a fine reflection on the relationship between art and life!’ [...] When you want to kill yourself, you make a portrait of yourself in the process of committing suicide, but you don’t actually do it.”

besides documenting his

own past, or feigning to, Boltanski attempted to document the lives of others. In “Album de photos de la famille D., 1939-1964,” made in 1971, he borrowed boxes of family snapshots from a gallery owner, had 150 of them reshot and pieced together the family’s history by showing the photos in chronological order. “I wanted—I, who knew nothing at all about these people— to try and reconstruct their life on the basis of these pictures which, having been taken at all the important moments, would remain after their death as the evidence of their existence,” he said of the work, which was exhibited at the influential Documenta exhibition in Kassel, Germany, in 1972. Yet Boltanski discovered very little about the family in question, and their images served essentially to remind him of his own family and past, becoming in a sense a self-portrait. Viewers had the same experience. A decade later, in 1984, he took little black-and-white portraits of children, put them in tin frames, interspersed them with colored rectangles and arranged everything in a pyramid shape. Light bulbs were placed on top of the installation, with loose wire dangling across the work. In their dim settings, they resembled candlelit Byzantine icons. Once again, Boltanski was invoking the dead child within and mourning the loss of memory. The trigger for the work was a class picture taken when he was seven years old; he had no recollection of the 17 classmates photographed with him. Throughout his career, he would continue to produce variations on this theme, calling these works “Monuments.” 34

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Nächte unter Tage (2005)

Created with director Andrea Breth, writer Albert Ostermaier and lighting designer Jean Kalman, this sitespecific installation opened the RuhrTriennale. Housed in an abandoned coke plant, it takes the visitor through a sort of otherworldly dreamscape—a journey marked by cast-off clothing, ghostly presences, snippets of German-language radio broadcasts and newspaper clippings about unemployment.

Les Suisses Morts (1990) and Menschlich (1994) “Menschlich” (Human) brings together all the photographs Boltanski has used in previous works: Jews and Nazis, missing children, dead Swiss—all sharing a common, fragile humanity. In the center of the room, “Les Suisses morts” is made up of stacked tin boxes bearing some 3,000 obituary photos. Boltanski acknowledges that the work is related to the Holocaust, but says that choosing the Swiss “means everybody dies. It’s a work about vanity: We’re all equal, all dust.”

In his seminal 1990 “Les Suisses morts,” he cut the world to create a library of them on the tiny un“I’m fairly happy out obituary photos from a Swiss newspaper, reshot inhabited island of Eijima, located near Naoshima, about the recent them and placed them side by side. “Before, I did Japan; the project is sponsored by the Benesse Art financial crisis. pieces with dead Jews but ‘dead’ and ‘Jew’ go too Site Naoshima foundation. “I have thousands and well together,” he said in an interview at the time. thousands of heartbeats already. When the place “There is nothing more ordinary than the Swiss. opens in 2010, visitors will be able to say, ‘I’m going to go listen to the heart of Madame So-andThere is no reason for them to die, so they are more So,”’ says Boltanski. “These people are alive today, terrifying in a way. They are us.” the way they but they’ll be dead tomorrow.” As the years have ticked by, Boltanski has gambled on the The heartbeat project has a direct correlation increasingly turned inward. “For a long time, I stock market. with the work that he has done before. “There was was interested in death, but it was always other That’s got nothing somebody here once, and now there no longer is,” people’s death,” he says. “Now, it’s my own.” to do with us.” he explains. “There isn’t much difference between The exact date of his passing and the question of a photograph of someone and the sound of their what will be remembered of him seem to haunt beating heart.” his current work. Boltanski is also creating a permanent installation that will be In one staggering project, Boltanski will have his workshop filmed 24 hours a day, and the images will be transmitted to a grotto in placed in the ruins of a Romanesque church found during excavations Tasmania; the recordings will be used after his death, when people beneath the Salzburg Cathedral. It will consist of a computer that will can watch the life of the artist Christian Boltanski. The project was announce the exact time every second, without ever stopping. “To commissioned by a very wealthy Tasmanian patron. me, the image of God is that of passing time,” he says. “A voice will Another work involves Boltanski recording heartbeats all around mark time underneath this Cathedral, in this crypt.”

People gambled on art

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Monuments noirs (2009) and Mes Morts (2002) With its simple metal panels illuminated by neon lights, “Mes Morts” is a stark memento mori. The work reduces the lives of the artist’s loved ones to their date of birth and death—a chilling reminder of one’s ephemeral existence and the loss of memory. “Monuments noirs,” which premiered this spring in Lichtenstein, is a three-dimensional representation of the same idea, with the black monoliths standing in for the souls that have passed on.

unlike

some

his

famous

contemporaries, Boltanski does not believe in mass-producing his art for commercial purposes. Although he likes the early works of Damien Hirst, known for his dead sharks in formaldehyde and $100-million diamondstudded skull, he labels as “ridiculous” a 2008 Sotheby’s auction that raised $200 million from more than 200 works produced by Hirst’s workshop. “I think it’s very bad for an artist to become the boss of a little factory,” he says. “And in fact, I’m fairly happy about the recent financial crisis. People gambled on art the way they gambled on the stock market. That’s got nothing to do with us.” One of the artists he admires most is sculptor Alberto Giacometti, who grew wealthy in his lifetime. “Giacometti didn’t move into a prodigious villa in Saint-Tropez. He stayed in his atelier in the 14th arrondissement because there was something that mattered more to him than money,” says Boltanski. “All of the major artists I know are the same. I’m not poor, but money doesn’t interest me. Money should be like medals: ‘never asked for, never refused, never worn.’”

So while Hirst and Jeff Koons have dozens of assistants creating multiple editions of the same work and dealers marketing each of them for tens of thousands of dollars, Boltanski’s works are one of a kind. And more often than not, he gets rid of them soon after they are made: 60 percent of his art is destroyed after exhibition. He also shows little attachment to the physical objects that compose his creations. One of his works, “Archives de Deputés Allemands” (1999), is exhibited in the basement of the Reichstag building in Berlin. It consists of 4,781 rusting biscuit tins, representing the total number of Germany’s democratically elected members of parliament since 1919 (one bears the eerie label, “Adolf Hitler, NSDAP, 1933”). Boltanski was recently asked to travel to the Reichstag to replace one of the tins, which had been damaged. “I said, ‘Go ahead and replace it yourself.’ I scolded them a little bit, and told them, ‘You’re not going to call me over there every time a tin gets damaged!”’ This mindset made him a perfect candidate for the Grand Palais’s Monumenta series. Once the monthlong exhibition has wrapped up in February 2010, the colossal work will be destroyed. All that will remain will be instructions on how to make another. Boltanski doesn’t mind in the least. “My works are a bit like musical compositions,” he f says. “The object ceases to exist, but the sheet music remains.” Franc e • su m m e r 2 0 0 9

Arles Will this Provençal town be the next Bilbao— only better? By Amy Serafin

An eclectic destination, Arles combines traditional pastimes with modern amenities. left to right:

The corrida, a legacy of Spanish influences; Hôtel le Calendal’s new spa, which overlooks the Roman amphitheater. Background: Vasco Ascolini’s “Villeneuve-lèsAvignon” (1990), part of the Musée Réattu’s extensive photo collection.

When the mistral stops blowing, leaving the sky above Arles a cloudless, impossible blue, locals like to gather at café tables set up on the Place du Forum, basking in sunlight and 2,000 years of history. Two Roman columns—remnants of an ancient temple—are part of the façade of a hotel where Picasso used to sleep; nearby, a marble statue honors 19th-century poet and native son Frédéric Mistral. w

Across the way, the sunflower-yellow Café la Nuit is an example of life-imitating-art-imitating-life: It is a replica of an establishment formerly located here and immortalized in one of Vincent Van Gogh’s most famous canvases. “Ah, how I wish you could see all that I am seeing these days,” the artist wrote to his brother shortly after painting the scene. “In front of so many lovely things, I can only let myself go.” Contemporary residents feel much the same way. Yet it would be a mistake to think that Arles is a city mired in its glorious past. Roman slaves may have carved its ancient monuments, but Frank Gehry is sketchAnxious to ing plans for its future. The city’s convince local history has been a roller-coaster populations that it ride of booms and busts, and was a desirable after a period of stagnation, this new order, the provincial burg of 52,000 is now young Roman Empire lavished roaring back to life. Young peoArles with ple and artists are moving in, new architecture, stores and restaurants are opening entertainment (including three Michelin-starred and creature tables), and an heiress is investing comforts. millions of euros to develop a major cultural complex featuring a building by one of the world’s most famous architects. That Arles is embracing the 1st and 21st centuries with equal enthusiasm is not the least of its charms. Greek Phoenicians first settled this site in the 6th century B.C.,

drawn to its prime location on a hilltop above a fork in the Rhône river. The city prospered as a trading port, and in the 1st century B.C. 40

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sided with Julius Caesar in his civil war against Pompey, who was backed by Marseille. CaeArles has been shaped by some 2,000 years of history. sar prevailed and rewarded Arles Clockwise from above: (then called Arelate) by founding Café Van Gogh, one of the a Roman colony here and grantcity’s many tributes to the ing it Marseille’s confiscated territroubled artist; a Roman-era funerary statue at the Musée tory. It is still the largest commune de l’Arles Antique; the imin France, extending north to pressive amphitheater, symthe Alpilles, east to the arid Crau bol of the town’s importance and south to the Mediterranean during the Roman Empire. through the Camargue, the wild marshy plain where black bulls roam among white horses, and rice fields give way to sandy beaches. Anxious to convince local populations that it was a desirable new order, the young Roman Empire lavished Arles with architecture, entertainment and creature comforts. The town was located at a strategic intersection—waterways linked Gaul to the Mediterranean, and trade routes connected Spain and Italy. “There was no better place than this busy crossroads for displaying symbols of Roman culture,” says Claude Sintès, director of the Musée de l’Arles Antique. Which explains why the city, dubbed “little Rome in Gaul,” has a collection of Roman monuments second only to those in the Italian capital and a historic center now classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Among Arles’s many ancient edifices is a theater—once an ideal tool for introducing locals to the Roman language and lifestyle. Magnificent when it was built in the 1st century B.C., the Théâtre Antique became a quarry after the Empire’s fall, stripped to a lonely pair of columns now nicknamed “the two widows.” Today its ruins serve as a romantically decayed setting for concerts and films.

The Amphitheater, or Arena, has better withstood the test of time, though its soil has soaked up unimaginable quantities of blood over the years. Built in the 1st century A.D., it seated 20,000 spectators who came to watch gladiator combats, small game hunts and prisoner executions. During the Middle Ages, squatters built a veritable village of more than 200 houses inside its walls. After their eviction in 1830, the Amphitheater hosted its first courses camarguaises (games of skill against bulls) to celebrate France’s capture of Algiers. In recent years, sophistiThey still take place here, as do cated hotels and restaurants have sprung up all Spanish-style corridas. over town. Opposite: The Romans may have had no The elegantly spare spa problem killing people within city at the Hôtel Particulier, walls, but they insisted on burying housed in a 19th-century mansion. Below: A delecthe dead outside of them. Just betable Jerusalem artichoke, yond the stone fortifications is the parmesan and truffle Alyscamps necropolis, famous as the mousse by two-star chef final resting place for Saint Genest, Jean-Luc Rabanel. a clerk beheaded by the Romans because he refused to sign death sentences for Christians. (The religion took hold early here.) The cemetery became the point of departure for medieval pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela and later inspired paintings by Van Gogh and Gauguin. The Dark Ages saw Arles repeatedly sacked by barbarians, but by the 12th century, it was thriving again as a free city and an important capital of Christianity. Romanesque constructions from this era include the gorgeous Eglise St-Trophime, with the Last Judgment carved on its portal. War and plagues cut short this golden age, and the city languished until the 16th century, when a Dutch engineer tamed the swampy Camargue by building canals. Landowners grew rich and built impressive hôtels particuliers in the city, while King Louis XIV’s official architect, JulesHardouin Mansart, helped design the majestic City Hall. These days, skateboarders practice on the square in front of the building while a Communist mayor presides within. Arles’s most recent decline was brought on by neither barbarians

nor plague but rather by the end of the Industrial Age, during which the town flourished thanks to its rail-repair yards. Opened in 1856, the Ateliers SNCF, as they became known, were long a pillar of the local economy. But technology did not keep pace with the times, and by the mid-20th century, the yards, originally designed to service steam locomotives, were hopelessly outdated. The SNCF finally closed them in 1984, precipitating an economic catastrophe from which Arles has yet to recover. “The city lost its bearings,” says Silvie Ariès, a journalist for La Provence newspaper. “It had to reinvent itself.”

Made in Arles Two of France’s most successful

purveyors of culture have long been based in Arles—a small city far removed from the glitz and glamour of Paris’s intellectual and cultural scene. The publisher Actes Sud took up residence here in 1983, and the classical music label Harmonia Mundi followed in 1986. Between them, they provide work for several hundred people in this city. Both houses are independent, built from the ground up to become leaders in their fields. Belgian native Hubert Nyssen created Actes Sud in 1978 in the Provençal village of Paradou, where his daughter, Françoise, soon joined him. Shortly afterward, she met Jean-Paul Capitani, an Arlesian who owned a large family property—a former dairy—in the city. They became personal and professional partners, converting the space into offices as well as a bookstore, restaurant, cinema and hammam. Together they built Actes Sud into a major publisher with a yearly turnover of €70 million and a roster of big-name authors that includes Paul Auster and Stieg Larsson, the late Swedish creator of the Millennium trilogy. Sitting at a leather-topped desk with a plane tree outside her office window, Françoise Nyssen recalls the early days, when it was difficult to convince writers even to send manuscripts. “At the time, Paris was where everything happened, but our philosophy was simple. Why shouldn’t you pursue the career you want, where you want to live? We made the best of it. And then, once we got fax machines, then the Internet and the TGV, the tables turned and it was obviously more advantageous to be here than in the capital. We have fewer distractions. And we have the Provençal sunlight.” Bernard Coutaz was equally attracted by the quiet when he

Bernard Coutaz moved his three-year-old company, Harmonia Mundi, from Paris to a hilltop in the Luberon in 1961. Since then, this risk-taking independent label has built up a large and loyal fan base with a winning formula: exploring lesser-known music, signing and developing new artists, and using period instruments when possible. One of its early ventures involved recording music played on historical organs throughout Provence. In 1986, the mayor of Arles offered to rent the company a collection of farm buildings, including a lovely Provençal mas, just outside the city center. The entire complex included some 100,000 square feet, and Coutaz leaped at the chance, selling his Luberon property and investing the proceeds in the business. In the years since, the company has branched into publishing and become renowned worldwide for reviving Baroque music; it now has distributors in 60 countries as well as 44 stores in France and three in Spain. “Between 2001 and 2006, the recording music industry lost 50 percent of its market,” says Coutaz. “During that same period, our sales went up 30 percent.” That said, Harmonia Mundi has not been immune to the recent economic turmoil; Coutaz notes that sales are down 7 percent this year compared with 2008. The company’s flagship shop is located in Arles’s historic center and sells CDs as well as books. Nyssen has no problem with that, saying that Arles can easily accommodate both companies. “You might think that Harmonia Mundi’s store would have eaten into our profits, but it has only increased our sales. The more cultural activity there is here, the more people —AS come. I am sure of it.”

Tourism was an obvious option and now represents more than half of the city’s economic activity. Efforts to further enhance Arles’s remarkable historic heritage are ongoing: The Théâtre Antique and the Amphitheater—both black with age—are in the midst of a 10-year restoration. Work should be finished in 2012, but already the contrast between the untouched and the newly cleaned stones is striking. At the same time, an American organization called the World Monument Franc e • su m m e r 2 0 0 9

“André Kertész in Arles” (1979), by Jean Dieuzaide.

Les Rencontres From its earliest days, the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie attracted the world’s top artists, notably Americans such as Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and Jerry Uelsmann. Passionate fans made the event an annual pilgrimage, Leicas around their necks, throwing tomatoes or setting screens afire when they disliked what they saw. The festival revealed budding talents from Annie Liebovitz to Nan Goldin, who awed visitors in 1987 with her raw, radical photos of New York City subculture, abusive couples and drug addicts. But by the end of the 20th century, the Arles festival was no longer the only game in town. Cities around the globe were hosting bigger and often better photographyrelated events, while the Rencontres progressively lost its focus and much of its public. Determined to reclaim its past glory, the city hired a new president, François Barré, who had run the Centre Pompidou and the fine arts department at the Culture Ministry. He took over in 2002, bringing back director François Hebel, who had headed the festival during its heyday in the 1980s. Together they worked miracles. “We completely redefined the Rencontres—both its content and its structure,” says Hebel, explaining that they now primarily host solo exhibitions rather than thematic shows, and that they invite a range of prestigious guest curators every

year to keep things fresh. They also created the Nuit de l’Année, a onenight, open-air party when photo agencies and magazines project images on the walls of buildings in the Roquette neighborhood. And they introduced educational programs such as Rentrée en Images, which brings in high school students from around southern France to see the exhibitions in early September. The festival now runs for two months, although the first week is the most action-packed, with screenings, parties and special guests. The results of the revamp have surpassed everyone’s hopes. Eight years ago, the budget was about E1 million; now it’s four times that, much of it coming from the private sector. In 2001 there were 14 exhibitions; last year there were 60. At the same time, the number of visitors has jumped from 9,000 to 60,000. “All summer long, you see people with the map of the Rencontres in their hands. They meet on the café terraces, at exhibitions, they talk to one another,” says Hebel. “A festival like this couldn’t happen in a major city. There’s not this feeling of humanity, of sharing something with others who came for the same reason you did.” This year, for the festival’s 40th anniversary, Hebel decided that the event needed a dual theme to adequately reflect its colorful history: rencontres, or meetings, and ruptures, or debates. A highlight of the ruptures category is the everprovocative Nan Goldin, returning with her oeuvre “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.” For the rencontres category, there’s a retrospective of celebrated French photographer Willy Ronis—who, incredibly, has never shown here before. The many special events will include a Vanity Fair soirée, during which the 95-year-old magazine will present its best portrait photography, from the Jazz Age to the present. —AS

Fund is financing the renovations of the lovely St-Trophime cloister. “Seeing these monuments restored has given residents new-found pride,” says Ariès. The city’s most ambitious initiative took shape after the longignored Rhône acted up in 2003, flooding some 7,000 homes in its northeastern sector. Built under Napoleon III, the quays had never been restored, and some €12 million is now being devoted to rebuilding them. Slated for completion in 2010, they will not only protect but also beautify the city. As Ariès explains, “The city turned its back on the river in the 19th century, when competition from railroads caused 44

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the port to shut down. After the flood, everyone suddenly remembered the Rhône, that it’s a living thing. People began asking, ‘Why not take advantage of its beauty?’ So it was decided to build promenades and bike paths along the quays and to develop waterfront neighborhoods that had long been neglected.” Developing cultural offerings is the other leg of Arles’s growth strategy. In 1995, a long-standing project finally became reality with the opening of the Musée de l’Arles Antique, which houses the city’s vast collection of antiquities. Architect Built in the 1st Henri Ciriani created a contempocentury A.D., the rary triangular building on the banks Amphitheater of the river, adjacent to the ruins of seated 20,000 a Roman circus. The blue enameledspectators glass façade was specially developed who came to by Saint-Gobain to match the azure watch gladiator color of the sky—“the only thing in combats, small Arles that hasn’t changed since Angame hunts tiquity,” quips director Sintès. Inand prisoner side, the clean, lofty space shows off executions. riches that include a massive statue of Emperor Augustus and the best collection of marble sarcophagi outA magnet for artists side of the Vatican. and young people, Arles nevertheless cherishes its The museum also enjoys an untime-honored traditions. usual relationship with the Rhône. Right: The Fête des GarOver the centuries, this big, powerdians, a colorful parade of ful river has served as a vast garbage Camargue cowboys and Arlesiennes, kicks off the dump—1950s-era Renaults rust bullfighting season. Inset: alongside terracotta amphorae once The courses camarguaises, used to transport wine and olive in which competitors vie to oil throughout the Mediterranean. unhook a rosette placed between the bull’s horns. For the past two decades, divers have spent one week every summer searching for archeological finds in these dangerous waters with their strong currents, pestilent diseases and silures, big, nasty-looking fish that sometimes mistake human extremities for dinner. The visibility is so bad that on the murkiest days, divers can’t see more than four inches in front of their masks. In 2003, the regional government joined with the Ministry of Culture to increase the budget for these expeditions, allowing the crew to work for a month or longer. That paid off in the summer of 2007, when they stumbled upon a fabulous treasure trove: Corinthian capitals, a head of Venus, an immense marble statue of Neptune, a bronze Victory covered in gold and the pièce de résistance: a marble bust thought to be the oldest-existing statue of Julius Caesar. All are on indefinite loan to the museum, and Sintès still can’t believe his good fortune. “It was like telling the director of an art museum, ‘We found a Renoir and two Van Goghs in a basement across the street, and we’re giving them to you. For free.’” This fall, the Caesar bust will be the highlight of “César, le Rhône pour mémoire,” a yearlong exhibition displaying some 500 objects discovered in the area during the past two decades. Many of them are remarkably well preserved, thanks to the Rhône’s muddy bottom. Sintès has added a surprising counterpoint in the form of a curiosity cabinet by contemporary American artist Mark Dion, whose provocative works question the role of specialists—including historians, curators and archeologists.

w “When it comes to culture, Arles is definitely a city of contrasts,”

says Claire Antognazza, the mayor’s deputy for cultural affairs. “We have the most traditional Provençal festivals as well as surprisingly modern cultural fare. This might seem contradictory, but Arles has a wonderful way of bringing people together for all sorts of events.” That was evident one Friday night this spring, when some 200 people filed into a 17th-century chapel to see an exhibition of contemporary paintings inspired by philosopher Gilles Deleuze followed by a fourhanded piano concert with music by Karlheinz Stockhausen and André Boucourechliev. The audience was entranced, responding to this esoteric program with the same enthusiasm they show for the crowning of the Queen of Arles, arguably the corniest of local traditions.

A World Heritage Site, Arles also embraces cutting-edge architecture. From Left: The Grande Halle in the city’s old rail yard recently received a major makeover; the structure serves as one of the venues for Les Rencontres. Background: A tribute to the city’s industrial past, the abstract pattern and rusted steel of the façade evoke the railroad network.

Culture just seems to be in the city’s DNA. The city’s two biggest private employers are Actes Sud, a publishing house specializing in French and foreign literature, and Harmonia Mundi, a classical music label. Over the years, the city has been home to artists ranging from poet Frédéric Mistral to Van Gogh (who left part of an ear behind) to the Gipsy Kings. Another favorite son, designer Christian Lacroix, made a triumphal return last summer, curating the annual photography festival and showing his designs in a wildly successful exhibition that drew 120,000 visitors to the Réattu art museum. Located in a newly renovated Renaissance palace, the museum is currently hosting an exhibition comparing the works of Brassaï and Picasso, yet another frequent visitor to Arles. A contemporary addition is slated to open in 2013—the year Arles and the entire Marseille-Provence region will reign as European Capital of Culture. Meanwhile, says Antognazza, artists from elsewhere in France are moving to the city. “It’s not always a logical decision—they know this is a small town with limited resources, but they come anyway.” Blame it on Culture just Arles’s inimitable art de vivre, seems to be in which blends the mystique of Arles’s DNA. Over Antiquity and the charm of the years, it has Provence with Spanish influbeen home to artences imported when migrant ists ranging from rice harvesters came to the Capoet Frédéric Mismargue and, later, when Spantral to Van Gogh iards settled here after fleeing (who left part of an their Civil War. ear behind) to the Still today, bulls weighing Gipsy Kings. more than half a ton make the one-way trip from Spain to Arles, where they fight to the death during corridas held twice a year in the Roman Arena. (Smaller local bulls are used for the courses camarguaises, in which participants try to unhook rosettes from between the bulls’ horns but don’t kill the beasts.) Bullfighting is the city’s equivalent of soccer, popular among all social classes, and matadors are celebrities. Just as young boys elsewhere dream of fame and fortune playing for Real Madrid or Manchester United, Arlesian children from modest or immigrant families dream of growing up to be masters of the cape. Blessed with a Mediterranean climate, romantic ruins and

intimate scale, Arles is an ideal venue for festivals. This summer alone, visitors can see a parade of colorful traditional costumes during the annual Fête d’Arles, Cesária Evora singing at the world music festival Les Suds à Arles, gladiator combats at the Festival Arelate and epic films shown at the Théâtre Antique during the Peplum festival. The biggest event, of course, is the one for which Arles is known worldwide: the annual Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie (see sidebar, page 34). Local photographer Lucien Clergue and two friends founded the festival 40 years ago. “At the time, there was nothing like this for photography,” Clergue explains. “No museums, no exhibitions—we had to start from scratch.” Now one of the country’s leading photographers, Clergue owes his own successful career to a particularly Arlesian incident: When he was 18, he met Picasso during a bullfight at the Arena, showed Franc e • su m m e r 2 0 0 9

him his photos, and the painter took him under his wing. This year, some 60,000 visitors are expected to attend Les Rencontres, which has made Arles practically synonymous with photography. Thanks to its influence, the Musée Réattu has built up an invaluable collection of more than 4,000 photographs dating back to the 1960s, including works donated by Clergue, Weston, Adams and Man Ray. In 1983, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie, the country’s only national school for photography, was opened here. And in 2004, the city inaugurated a campus for Supinfocom, a school of digital 3D imagery (in 2007, American magazine 3D World ranked it first worldwide). The city also boasts Europe’s second-largest diode screen. Two years ago, when the architectural firm Moatti et Rivière was asked to restore and revamp the Grande Halle, one of several dilapidated hangars remaining on the former rail-repair yards, the team wanted to give a nod to the city’s identity as a mecca for photography. So they installed the 400-foot-long screen into the building’s sloping roof. Arlesians were still fêting this bit of daring contemporary architecture when they received jaw-dropping news from Maja Hoffmann, the Swiss heiress to the Roche pharmaceutical fortune: She intended to donate millions to turn the 20-acre railrepair yards—now called the Parc des Ateliers—into a striking “Cité de l’Image.” A well-loved figure here, Hoffmann spent her childhood years in the Camargue, where her father worked to preserve wetlands biodiversity. She owns Heiress Maya a gourmet organic restaurant Hoffmann has there and still has a home in hired no less a town. She has hired no less a talent than Frank talent than Frank Gehry to deGehry to design sign a brand-new building to a brand-new house the Luma Foundation, building to house which she created in 2004 to the Luma Founproduce artistic and cultural dation, which projects. Only a five-minute she created in 2004 to produce walk from the Arena, it will artistic and culcontain facilities for experitural projects. mental creation, photo conservation and exhibitions, all surrounded by a large public garden—something currently lacking in this city. The rest of the Parc will also be renovated to accommodate Actes Sud’s new offices, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie, the headquarters of Les Rencontres d’Arles as well as artists’ residences, cinemas, a restaurant with a panoramic view—even a new train station. The overarching idea is to preserve the site’s industrial feel, with most new construction built on and around the existing hangars. Above all, it will remain open to the city, allowing Arlesians and visitors to walk through freely. Completion is slated for 2013. The question on everybody’s mind is whether Arles will experience the so-called Bilbao effect, in which a post-industrial city, a Frank Gehry building and exceptional cultural offerings spur an economic boom by attracting millions of visitors from around the world. The city’s leaders say it could be even better: After all, Bilbao never had a Roman Amphitheater. f 48

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Carnet

THE BASICS Getting There From Paris, take the TGV from the Gare de Lyon to Avignon Centre, then catch the local train to Arles. For schedules and fares, go to raileurope.com. Lay of the Land Arles’s city center is small and easily walkable. The Office de Tourisme on the boulevard des Lices offers monument passes, guided walking tours and self-guided MP3 tours of Arles in French or English, starting June 29 and running through the summer. Their Web site offers a wealth of information, from historic and cultural briefings to hotel, restaurant and event listings to Pdfs of maps and brochures. tourisme.ville-arles.fr Those wanting the personal touch of a guided tour may want to contact Claire Maurel, whose perfect English and deep knowledge of the city make for a pleasant, enriching experience. Tel. 33/6-11-15-24-32, E-mail: claire@ arlacarte.com.

BOUTIQUES & GALLERIES Maison Dervieux A family business established in 1884, Maison Dervieux is a favorite of Christian Lacroix’s, who has been coming here since he was a child. Two floors of an 18th-century mansion are furnished with French— mostly Provençal—antiques, vintage dresses, old children’s toys and home décor from such fine French houses as Prelle, one of the last silk makers in Lyon. Local products include checked blankets by Brun de Vian-Tiran; resembling Camargue horse blankets, they are made of merino wool from sheep from nearby Crau. 5 rue Vernon; Tel. 33/4-90-96-02-39; dervieux.com. Christian Lacroix The homegrown designer has two shops here, one featuring his women’s ready-to-wear label, the other carrying various brands of clothing for men and women. Offerings include his boldly colored men’s shirts and velvet “gardian” jackets inspired by those worn by Camargue horsemen. 52 rue de la République, Tel. 33/4-90-96-11-16; 30 rue de la

Arles

République, Tel. 33/4-90-43-34-91. christian-lacroix.fr La Chapellerie In case you forgot to bring protection against the Provençal sun, this boutique offers men and women a fine selection of Stetsons, berets, Borsalinos and the local equivalent of cowboy hats. 28 rue Suisses; Tel. 33/4-90-93-23-16. Carnet de Voyage A great address for high-quality regional products: fleur de sel from the Camargue, ceramic guinea hens, dishtowels and cotton tote bags in multicolored stripes. 4 bis rue Calade; Tel. 33/4-90-96-17-95. Ici & Là Stock up on local goods at this sweet-smelling boutique selling Pastis, olive oil, almond-flower candles and colorful bars of savon de Marseille made with peaches, poppies or herbes de Provence. 14 rue de la Calade; Tel. 33/4-90-96-22-04. Actes Sud The Arles-based publisher runs this cultural oasis in the Roquette neighborhood; it’s a favorite local hangout with an excellent bookstore, a restaurant-café, an art cinema and a hammam. Le Méjan, place Nina Berberova; Tel. 33/4-90-49-56-77. Harmonia Mundi The flagship store of Arles’s classical music label sells CDs and books (including many about Van Gogh). 3-5 rue Président Wilson; Tel. 33/ 4-90-93-65-39; harmoniamundi.com. Galerie Huit English writer Julia de Bierre moved to Arles two years ago and has been renovating this extraordinary 17th-century mansion ever since, turning it into a private home and art gallery for temporary exhibits. She also plans to open a chambre d’hôte for overnight guests. 8 rue de la Calade; Tel. 33/490-97-77-93; galeriehuit.com. Arlatino Gallery A two-year-old gallery opened by a couple of Parisians with an emphasis on art from Latin America as well as artists closer to home—such as Paco Gomez, a mailman who creates amazing Africanesque sculptures using tree trunks and mailbag straps. 8 rue de la Liberté; Tel. 33/4-90-18-58-27; arlatino.com. Soleileis Homemade ice cream, including the très Provençal flavor

“fadoli”: olive oil, honey and nougat. Near the Place du Forum—in the summer, look for the line snaking out the door. 9 rue du Docteur Fanton; Tel. 33/4-90-93-30-76. Farmers’ Market On Saturday mornings, the boulevard des Lices and surrounding area burst into color with what many consider the best farmers’ market in Provence. You can buy anything from olive tree saplings to lavender soaps, live ducklings, bull sausage, fresh strawberries and wool gardian horse blankets.

Left, Below: Arles’s local saucis-

sons, available at the farmers’ market; a chalkboard menu at A Côté.

HOTELS Hôtel le Calendal This 17th-century building offers an enviable location between the Amphithéâtre and the Théâtre Antique, along with views of one or the other from many of the rooms. The owners’ continual improvements and unfailing attention to guests recently earned their establishment three stars. Rooms are decorated in the warm reds and yellows typical of the area, the restaurant has a gorgeous garden for breakfast or lunch, and a brand-new spa features a Jacuzzi looking directly onto the Arena— very Roman indeed. Doubles are €109 year round. 5 rue Porte de Laure; Tel. 33/4-90-96-11-89; lecalendal.com. Hôtel Particulier The most luxurious hotel in town opened eight years ago in the Hôtel de Chartrouse, a 19thcentury mansion in the residential neighborhood of La Roquette. Fourteen rooms have lofty ceilings, spacious bathrooms and a mix of classic and white contemporary furnishings with contrasting touches such as black resin floors. There’s also a restaurant with a fireplace and terrace, a spa with a marble hammam and a long, narrow pool in the courtyard. Doubles from

€229. 4 rue de la Monnaie; Tel. 33/490-52-51-40; hotel-particulier.com. Hôtel de l’Amphithéâtre This terrific two-star hotel opened in 2002. Two owners with impeccable taste renovated the 16th-century home, which now boasts spacious guest rooms, high ceilings, stone tiles, wood beams and warm bordeaux and beige tones. Doubles from €55. 5-7 rue Diderot; Tel. 33/4-90-96-10-30; hotelamphitheatre.fr. Grand Hôtel Nord-Pinus Picasso slept at this four-star hotel when he came to town to watch bullfights. Located in the lovely Place du Forum, this 19th-century mansion is elegantly decorated with antiques and Peter Beard photos. Doubles from €150. Place du Forum; Tel. 33/4-90-93-4444; nord-pinus.com. Hôtel d’Arlatan Created in 1920, this 47-room hotel has been in the same family for five generations. It practically breathes history: Housed in a 15thcentury residence that belonged to the counts Arlatan de Bourbon, it was built over the 4th-century vestiges of Em-

A sun-drenched salon at Hôtel le Calendal.

peror Constantine’s palace (beneath the floor of the lobby, you can see an original Roman road). Rooms are simply furnished in traditional Provençal style; it’s one of the few hotels with an outdoor pool. Doubles from €85. 26 rue du Sauvage; Tel. 33/4-90-93-5666; hotel-arlatan.fr. Mas du Petit Prince An equestrian’s dream, this 15th-century farmhouse in Gageron, five miles from central Arles in the Camargue, has five simple though tastefully decorated rooms and a gîte. Doubles from €130. Tel. 33/612-16-84-60; maspetitprince.com.

RESTAURANTS La Chassagnette In 2000, Arles’s favorite heiress, Maja Hoffmann, opened this organic restaurant in the Camargue, 15 minutes from the town center. The bar is a renovated sheepfold with high sloping ceilings and a dried-leaf wall; an idyllic terrace (protected by mosquito netting) looks onto a vast organic garden cultivated by five full-time gardeners. The young chef Armand Arnal, a veteran of Ducasse in New York, arrived here in 2006 and received his first Michelin star this year. He says he strives for “purity in the plate, putting vegetables in the forefront, using meat and fish as seasonings.” A committed “locavore,” Arnal gets most of his produce from the restaurant’s garden, which boasts 170 varieties of herbs and vegetables— including 13 kinds of basil. Lunch menus from €34. 56 Domaine de l’Armellière, Route du Sambuc; Tel. 33/4-90-97-26-96; chassagnette.fr. Le Cilantro Chef Jérôme Laurent worked at Ducasse’s Louix XV and at the Hôtel Meridien in Boston before returning to his native Arles to open his own restaurant in the courtyard of his family home, renovated as a small, contemporary eatery with floor-toceiling windows. Laurent received a

Michelin star in 2007 for sophisticated dishes that pack big flavors, such as a perfectly cooked cod with a foamy caraway sauce and his passion fruit and gariguette strawberry soup dessert. The chef says, “I use local products and try to create something different from what my customers can cook at home.” No doubt of that. Lunch menus from €24; dinner menus from €29 (Tues-Thurs) and €65 (Fri-Sat). 31 rue Porte de Laure; Tel. 33/4-9018-25-05. L’Atelier de Jean-Luc Rabanel Rabanel earned a local following as head chef at La Chassagnette before opening his own organic restaurant in 2006, in the historic center. This year Michelin awarded him with a second star for a creative, contemporary style that gives vegetables a starring role. Lunch menu at €45, dinner menus at €85/ €150. 7 rue des Carmes; Tel. 33/4-90-91-0769; rabanel.com. A Côté For a less expensive, informal taste of Rabanel’s cuisine, this bistro offers up a convivial ambiance along with flavorful dishes and tapas such as white almond gazpacho, Pata Negra ham, grilled sardines and brandade de morue. It’s open late, and Rabanel often pops in to check how things are going. Lunch menu at €29, dinner menu at €37. 21 rue des Carmes; Tel. 33/4-90-47-61-13; bistro-acote.com. La Bodeguita This noisy, friendly tapas restaurant decorated with brica-brac and high stools serves a young local crowd late into the night. Inexpensive and fun. Tapas start at €3, à la carte €30 to 35. 49 rue des Arènes; Tel. 33/4-90-96-68-59; bodeguitaarles.fr.

SUMMER FESTIVALS Les Fêtes d’Arles A celebration of the city’s rich history with events including a parade of Arlesians in traditional costume and courses camarguaises. June 7 through July 5; fetes-arles.com. Les Rencontres d’Arles The worldrenowned photography festival, now in its 40th year. July 7 through 13, with exhibitions on display through Sept 13. rencontres-arles.com Les Suds à Arles A world music festival with performances by such renowned talents as Cesária Evora and Khaled. July 13 through 19; suds-arles.com. Peplum Festival Now in its 17th year, this event features outdoor screenings of movies from the ’50s and ’60s with Roman themes. The venue? The Théâtre Antique. August 24 through 30; festivalpeplum-arles.com. Arelate Held to coincide with Peplum, Arelate features historic re-enactments from Roman times. Museums and monuments also participate, offering tours with costumed guides. August 23 through 30; festival-arelate.com. Franc e • su m m e r 2 0 0 9

It’s

effervescent, complex, intriguing and incontrovertibly French. Champagne, right? Actually, we’re talking about beer. Yes, beer. From France. France may lack the suds-guzzling reputation of Belgium and Germany, but it has a brewing background as long and rich as that of its neighbors to the north and east. And during the past two decades, artisanal brewers throughout the country have been staging a renaissance of sorts, redefining and re-imagining time-honored recipes. There’s sweet and malty. Light and barely bitter.

Subtly spicy with hints of brioche. Beguilingly complex with caramel overtones. Delicate, grassy and hoppy. And just plain indescribably interesting. Whether pale ales or stouts or anything in between, these brews are taking their proper place not only in starred restaurants in France but stateside at brasseries and retail shops. They are even showing up at less likely locales such as chic wine bars and nondescript beer halls catering to post-college hipsters with gentrified tastes. Tasting is believing. French beers tend to inspire a respect and, at times, a near reverence among the previously dubious. The typical response of someone who tries one for the first time is something along the lines of, “Wow! I didn’t know beer could taste like this!” That was Jocelyn Cambier’s reaction when he first sampled several craft brews one evening in December 2007. He was so smitten that he immediately decided to expand his Virginia-based import company to include artisanal French beers in addition to French wines and spirits. He also went about learning everything he could about them, crisscrossing France, visiting breweries and getting to know this new generation of brasseurs. Cambier points out that in terms of basic technique, French beers are not fundamentally different from others. “What sets the French apart is that they approach brewing very much like winemak winemaking: The closer they are to the sources of their primary ingredients and the more control they have over them, the better.” Given France’s close proximity to other TASTING & BUYING brewing countries, it is not sur-prising that Alsatian beers re-The best—and most fun—way to become acquainted with French semble German-style lagers, beers is to tour craft breweries while those made near the while visiting France. A list of those Belgian border are similar to open to the public is available on abbey ales. Yet they are never the Brasseurs de France Web site (brasseurs-de-france.com; click identical. What distinguishes on “Tourisme,” then “Brasseries à them is not brash innovation visiter”). If your travels take you to but, as with most things Gallic, Lorraine, you can visit the Musée a compelling and seemingly Européen de la Bière (musee-dela-biere.com) which, along with ineffortless grace and finesse. 52

FRance • SummeR 2009

Right: Bofinger, Paris’s oldest brasserie, boasts

the kind of lavish and exuberant décor that made these eateries so popular in the late 19th and early 20th century. ABove: Stylish Art Nouveau posters, such as this one created in 1897 by Alphonse Mucha, enhanced beer’s cachet.

“PeoPle Are PASSIonATe ABouT Beer, AnD IT HAS A lonG

tradition,” says rodolphe de looz-Corswarem, Secretary General of The Brewers of europe, a professional association with members from 27 countries. “Few people realize it, but the French have been making beer for as long as the Belgians.” He observes that in recent years, dozens of regional craft brewers have emerged in France— there are currently more than 200—and not just in the historical brewing regions of the north and east. These new beer makers are reinvigorating their profession with innovative thinking informed by generations of know-how. Although beer is said to go back some 6,000 years, it didn’t become established in european culture until the Middle Ages, when water was considered impure. It was a fermented potion of sorts, an early ale brewed from water, malted grain and yeast that was deemed not only fit to drink but salubrious. Brewing fell largely under the domain of monasteries, by mandate of the throne, and secular brewers had to pay a tax to the abbeys. Craftsmanship and attention to quality were also regulated. Charles XIII laid down laws stipulating the proper ingredients for making beer, and they remained largely unchanged for centuries. By the late 18th century, a grand tradition of small, mostly family-owned breweries was firmly established throughout europe. Franck Mourot, formative exhibits, has a tavern where you can taste a wide array of artisanal beers. And in Paris, stop into the Académie de la Bière (88 bis bd de Port Royal, 5e; academie-biere.com), whose extensive selection of international brands now includes about 15 French craft brews, or La Cave à Bulles, which carries more than 100 French artisanal beers (45 rue Quincampoix, 4e; caveabulles.fr).

Not going to France anytime soon? Whole Foods Market and a variety of liquor and beer stores carry French brands. There is no single resource for locating retail outlets, but some can be found through wine-search.com. A 12-ounce bottle of Fischer Amber averages around $4, and a 750-ml bottle of St. Rieul Grand Cru retails for about $12. Savor them as you would a Champagne or wine.

Lyonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s famous Brasserie georges, founded as a brewery in 1836, took advantage of local springs reputed for excellence since the Middle Ages. A restaurant was soon added, but for economic reasons, beer making ceased in 1939. in 2004, new owners installed a microbrewery on the premises; patrons may now sip beer in full view of mixing vats and fermenting tanks. Right: Craft brewers such as Brasserie georges seek out the highest quality hops and barley.

France, a product of the Industrial revolution. one of the first was Brasseries Fischer in Strasbourg; founded in 1821, it made a pale lager. The advent of railroads made it possible for these large producers to ship the beverage to distant destinations such as Paris, where water from the Seine was long considered unfit for making good beer. According to the Petit robert, brasserie took on a second meaning in 1852, that of “a place that served only beer” (the definition would later expand to mean café or restaurant). Brasserie Bofinger, a tiny establishment with Alsatian origins on rue de la Bastille, claims to be the oldest Parisian brasserie. It installed the capital’s first “beer pump” around 1870, allowing customers to enjoy a chilled draught along with heaping plates of charcuterie. These new watering holes were soon all the rage. Somewhat more elegant than bars and slightly more boisterous than cafés, they flourished during the Belle epoque. By the turn of the century, their iconic zinc counters, lavish Art nouveau décor and flowing beer had become hallmarks of the era. Beer even became favored by do-gooder teetotalers, who encouraged their tippling compatriots to sip beer rather than the allegedly hallucinogenic absinthe—with the stipulation, of course, that they do so only in moderation.

In the late 1700s, there were more than a thousand family-owned breweries in France, many near Flanders. curator of the Musée européen de la Bière in lorraine, relates that there were more than a thousand in France, many of them in the north, near Flanders, where the preferred crop was not grapes but grain—notably hops. The vast majority of today’s artisanal beers take their inspiration from bière de garde. Also known as farmhouse ales—many a working farm had its own brewery—these were developed before refrigeration, when brewing was feasible only during colder months because of the temperature-sensitive yeasts. The last of the malt and hops were brewed in late winter and cellared for several weeks before being released in the spring to be enjoyed in the warmer weather to come. The resulting beer, which benefited from continued evolution in the bottle, was complex, sweetly malty and rich. like its Belgian counterpart, known as saison, it was—and still is—available in large-format bottles with Champagne-style corks and wire cages. Throughout the 19th century, innovations including pasteurization, refrigeration, filtration and automatic bottling transformed beer making. large, modern-style brasseries, or breweries, sprang up in eastern ABCs OF BIÈRE All beers are either lagers or ales. Lagers rely on yeasts that ferment at low temperatures for a relatively long time, lending them stability. They are dry, pale or golden in color and contain ample hops, which gives them a bitter flavor. Some 90 percent of the world’s beers are lagers. Ales are fermented at higher temperatures. They are complex, full-bodied beers characterized by a malty sweetness, a slightly fruity character and only moderate bitterness. They range in color from palest gold to deep copper, depending on how the malt is roasted. Nearly all

French craft beers are ales. Some of the more common styles are listed below, along with suggested—and often award-winning—brands and favored food pairings. —————————————— BLAnChE An exceptionally

pale, almost white ale that tends to be highly aromatic with more than a hint of citrus and spice. Goes well with: Seafood and mild cheeses, particularly goat or those with nutty overtones such as Gruyère. We Suggest: Ch’ti Blanche. —————————————— BLondE A pale golden ale

that’s crisp and light with a

THe WAr BrouGHT An ABruPT HAlT To All THIS FroTHY

revelry. “Breweries in German-occupied Belgium and France were plundered,” says looz-Corswarem. “Copper and steel equipment was confiscated, horses were seized, workers were drafted.” The vast majority of local brasseries never recovered. For the rest of the century, options were limited largely to the entirely respectable if predictable mass-marketed lagers, including the still ubiquitous Fischer (currently part of the Heineken empire) and Kronenbourg (now part of the British brewing conglomerate Scottish & newcastle). only if you lived in the north and had the good fortune of a nearby brewer, such as Brasserie Duyck near Jenlain, could you bring in an empty Champagne bottle to be filled with a malty amber bière de garde. over the years, beer steadily lost market share to wine. And yet beer can rival wine when it comes to exacting standards. It’s not unusual for an artisanal French brewer to spend months procuring just

trace of fruitiness, a restrained bitterness, and a biscuity aroma and flavor. Goes well with: Chicken, spicy food and cheese from the north of France, such as Brie or a triple crème. Mild enough to enjoy alone, it also pairs well with foods that are notoriously difficult matches for wine, such as asparagus and artichokes. We Suggest: Brasserie du Bouffay L’Orge, Brasserie du Bouffay Blonde, Brasserie Castelain Blonde, Ch’ti Blonde, La Bavaisienne Blonde Ale, Fischer Blonde Ale.

AMBréE or roUSSE A complex ale that’s deeply colored and richly flavored. It often has caramel overtones, a hint of mild autumnal fruit and warming spices. Goes well with: All manner of bistro-style food, sausage, charcuterie, beef and cheese (including sharp or robust types such as Epoisses). We Suggest: Brasserie Castelain’s St. Amand, Ch’ti Ambrée, La Bavaisienne Farmhouse Ale, Fischer Amber Ale. —————————————— BrUnE A deeply colored

and flavored ale that varies in intensity but tends to be

somewhat sweet. Goes well with: Rich foods such as duck and beef stews; extremely dark beers are destined for chocolate. We Suggest: Ch’ti Brune. —————————————— In A CLASS By thEMSELvES

Some farmhouse ales, or bières de garde, are impossible to classify but are simply too intriguing, too unique to miss. two to try: St. Rieul Grand Cru, a triple cru (an exceptionally creamy, smooth Belgian-style beer), and the hearty, brash Gavroche Red Ale—it simply defies description

FRance • SummeR 2009

Chefs have been seeking alternatives to wine, preparing tasting menus tailored specifically to a beer’s terroir as well as its flavor.

Daniel Boulud’s new DBDG in New York City features French craft beers paired with refined takes on brasserie fare. Shown here is “Toscan”: pan roasted Italian sausage, spicy garlic, olive oil, fennel and tomato, served with an amber beer.

the right ingredients, ensuring that they have been grown or produced according to precise specifications so they will yield the desired results. “Most French brewers, especially those from Alsace, seek out hops that are less bitter than hops traditionally used in Germany and elsewhere,” explains Cambier. “This adds mellowness and a flowery, slightly spicy component.” Then there’s malt, the soul of the beer. Made from germinated barley that has been kiln dried, malt is available in many varieties; how it has been roasted determines whether a beer will be white, blonde, amber or dark. Malt lends the resulting brew complexity, an almondy or biscuity or brioche-like perfection. It’s the interaction 56

France • summer 2009

between the amount and type of hops and the malt that lends a particular beer its unique characteristics. Yeast, which feeds on the malt, is largely an enabler of flavor rather than agent itself, although certain strains do impart aroma. Finally, there is water. “Water is 95 percent of every beer you drink,” explains Cambier. And its quality can vary dramatically depending on a brewery’s location. “Everyone knows that the variety of microclimates and geography in France are what give rise to so many different wines,” he says. “By the same token, the springs in Burgundy, in Flanders, in the Alps are all very different, and each brings a very different quality to the beer. Think about it: France has 200 brands of bottled water— Belgium has only three.” These days, some European breweries are even setting up production facilities in France in order to gain access to coveted springs. Four basic ingredients, countless interpretations. Many brewers add layers of complexity by blending several different types of malt, hops and yeast to achieve “cuvées”—a process that is part science, part serendipity. Others create signature flavors by incorporating ingredients typical of a particular locale. The Brasserie Distillerie du Mont Blanc in the Alps, for example, flavors its Verte du Mont Blanc with Génépi; also used in Chartreuse, the herb gives the beer distinctive aromatic qualities—and a vibrant green hue. In Corsica, hand-picked chestnuts from Castagniccia, the largest forest of its kind in the world, make their way into everything, even the local brew, lending a robust yet refined lilt to the amber Pietra. And in Cognac, Brasserie des Gabariers is not the only brewery to blend the region’s namesake spirit with amber ale, but it is one of a very few that mingle its slightly bitter blonde ale with the dulcet notes of Pineau des Charentes. “Now as in the past, each local beer has a particular taste,” Mourot says. “And people love rediscovering these familiar flavors.” A beer’s characteristic nuances may also reflect a brewer’s ideals and, on occasion, his or her endearing quirks. “There’s what we call in France la touche de patte,” Cambier explains. “It means a special touch, like a painter’s unique brush stroke. It’s what tells you that a particular canvas has to be a Van Gogh. It’s all those things that a brewer does that makes him unique.”

THe GroWInG PoPulArITY oF ArTISAnAl FrenCH Beer

inevitably invites comparisons with recent developments in the united States. Since the 1980s, when imported beers became so chic among the yuppie set, craft breweries have proliferated in the united States, responding to the public’s desire for beers that are more flavorful and varied in taste than the mass-produced brands. According to the Brewers’ Association, there are now more than 1,500 craft brewers in the u.S., representing 6.3 percent of total u.S. beer sales. europe was the initial reference point for these small enterprises, so it was only natural that they would turn out German-style lagers, Belgian-style fruit-flavored beers and Irish-style stouts. like their european cousins, they have eschewed corn, rice and other cheap ingredients, sticking with the traditional hops, barley, yeast and water. While there is a full range of styles, u.S. beers tend overall to be dark in color and rather filling. The latest twist is “extreme beers”— experimental brews with up to 20 percent alcohol, made without hops or brewed with such iconoclastic ingredients as seaweed, peanut butter or espresso beans. elegance and refinement are not yet their strong suits (a 2007 new York Times article declared that “most American craft beers embrace an onslaught of flavor with all the nuance of a sledgehammer.”) u.S. brewers are becoming more savvy, however, and bières de garde are giving them a serious case of beer envy. Several, including Flying Dog Brewery, have attempted to emulate their balance and subtlety. Matt Brophy, vice president of brewing operations, says his company’s new Garde Dog aspires to emphasize the “sweetness and complexity of the malt with just a kiss of bitterness from hops.” In France, where palates trained on wine expect sophisticated and complex tastes, craft beers have captured a much larger market share. overall alcohol consumption continues to fall, but people are increasingly looking for quality, and craft beers already account for 25 percent of total beer sales. “On bois en moins, mais on bois en meilleur,” says François-régis Gaudry, restaurant critic for l’express. Although he doesn’t envision beer surpassing wine anytime soon, he concedes that “artisanal beer is increasingly appreciated in its own right. It, too, has the potential to become a boisson de dégustation, like wine, that can be appreciated and paired with courses at restaurants.” He’s already noted that as wine consumption has declined, chefs have been seeking other inspired accompaniments for their cre creations, preparing tasting menus tailored specifically to a beer’s terroir as well as its flavor. In another sign of the times, Daniel Boulud’s DBDG Kitchen and Bar, a French-American brasserie in new York City, gives equal weight to wine and beer, with a focus on often-overlooked options in both categories. The intent is to surprise. Sommelier Colin Alevras explains that the only French beers on the menu are “bières de garde SERVING TIPS tEMPErAtUrE rAt t r An extreme chill will mute a beer’s flavor; at the proper temperature, it will often reveal layers of complexity in both aroma and taste. Paler beers (lagers, blanche and blonde ales) should be served between 40 and 45 degrees; heavier beers (ambrée and brune ales) are best between 45 and 50 degrees; darker ales can be drunk even warmer. GLASS A proper glass can enhance

both the aesthetic and gustatory appeal of beer. In general, bières de garde are best served in glasses with rims that curl slightly outward; this emphasizes the aroma. White wine glasses work just fine for light and amber beers, red wine glasses suit darker beers, and snifters are great for very dark beers. hEAd Most beer enthusiasts like an ample head, particularly when it comes to ales. While aficionados

Award-winning artisanal breweries can now be found throughout France. CLoCkwiSe FRoM toP LeFt:

Britt from western Brittany, Ch’ti from northern France, Corsica’s Pietra (flavored with local chestnuts) and Bière de vexin from ile-de-France.

that exhibit a certain handcrafted and artisanal quality that we look for. Their unique characteristics and qualities make them stand out and also stand up to our house-made european-style sausages and charcuterie.” That said, Alevras sees no reason that beer should be confined to brasseries. “I really do think that beer is coming up strong and is finally going to get its place of respect in fine dining. Sometimes, the right wine is a beer.” Georges Perrier at le Bec Fin in Philadelphia would seem to concur. His upscale restaurant offers several French craft beers on its beverage list and hosts occasional tastings, typically featuring an array of bières de garde. And at Brasserie Beck in Washington, DC, general manager Thor Cheston says that although his beer list is heavy on Belgians, he will often suggest an appropriate French brand as a pairing, depending on what a customer orders. “My favorite is la Bavaisienne from Brasserie Theillier,” he says. “I couldn’t help but put it on the menu—it just shouldn’t be missed.” Sometimes, though, any beer from France is better than none at all. At l’Atelier de Joël robuchon at the Four Seasons in new York City, there was not a single French beer on the premises when General Manager Stéphane Colling arrived. He’s working on changing that. Although he remains open to discovering more inventive, less orthodox bottlings, at the end of the day, he prefers the more familiar Fischer and Kronenbourg. “I’ve been in the u.S. for 10 years, and drinking a Fischer or a 1664 still reminds me of hanging out with friends and family,” he says. “It brings back memories. It makes claim the froth reveals density, longevity and other arguably sigyou remember where you came nificant details, others claim that from. For French people who it does no more than accentuate travel and come across somearoma. The proper technique is thing they know from home, quite simple: Slowly pour the beer at a 45-degree angle into a tilted there’s something very comfortglass until it is three-quarters full. ing, very homey about that.” At Straighten the glass, then finish such moments, it matters very pouring the beer into the center. little whether home is recognized The head should be as high as the width of two fingers. for its beer—yet. FRance • SummeR 2009

Calendrier French Cultural Events in North America

July-September 2009

• Emanuel Gat shows off his amazing athleticism at New York’s Lincoln Center.

Founded in Tel Aviv in 2004, Emanuel Gat Dance has been based in the Provençal town of Istres since 2007. Its creator originally studied to become a conductor—an interesting footnote to one of his latest productions, S ilent B allet , which makes its North American debut this summer at Lincoln Center Festival 09. Described by Gat as “dance as musical score,” the piece seeks to give the performers’ bodies full voice, their audible breath and footsteps accentuating the mechanics of orchestrated movement. Sharing the program is W inter V ariations , a duet set to the music of Richard Strauss, Egyptian oud virtuoso Riad al Sunbati and The Beatles. Despite its intimate quality, the work was conceived for large performance spaces, whose very emptiness—much like the absent music in “Silent Ballet”—magnifies the gestures of the two male dancers, one of whom is Gat himself. July 14, 16 and 17 at Rose Theater; lincolncenter.org.

Fr a nce • summer 2009

Cat h y Pe y l a n

season highlights

exhibits Baltimore PRAYERS IN CODE

A kind of devotional day planner for lay Christians, books of hours became status symbols in medieval times; the finest featured exquisite miniatures and marginal decorations rendered in gold leaf, silver and costly pigments such as lapis lazuli. Prayers in Code: Books of Hours from 16th-Century France explores such themes as the vogue for rebuses and the intellectual currents that influenced patrons at the court of King François I. Through July 19 at the Walters Art Museum; thewalters.org.

Washington, Washington, DC DC

DUCHAMP PORTRAITS

One of the great iconoclasts of 20thcentury art, Marcel Duchamp helped reinvent the genre of portraiture through such pieces as his “Boîte-en-Valise,” a portable mini-museum of his works. A savvy self-publicist, he engineered his irreverent public image not only through self-portraits but also by collaborating with the many artists who captured his likeness. Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture brings together for the first time some 100 portraits and self-portraits of the artist in a variety of media. Man Ray, Alfred Stieglitz, Richard Avedon, Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns are among the 58 talents featured. Through Aug. 2 at the National Portrait Gallery; npg.si.edu.

New York THE MODEL AS MUSE

From the elegant figures sporting Christian Dior’s New Look in the classic Avedon photographs to the waifish Kate Moss as the face of 1990s heroin chic, models have both reflected and shaped the fashion zeitgeist. The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion examines this synergy through some 70 haute couture and ready-to-wear garments, along with photographs and video footage of models, actresses and other style icons. Among the many familiar faces on view are Suzy Parker, Twiggy, Lauren Hutton, Linda Evangelista and Gisele Bündchen; designers represented include Armani, Cardin, Chanel, Prada and Saint Laurent. Through Aug. 9 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; metmuseum.org.

Atlanta MONET WATER LILIES

Monet Water Lilies offers Southeastern museumgoers a chance

to view some of the most internationally beloved pieces in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The focused exhibition presents MoMA’s holdings from Monet’s late period, during which he devoted himself to painting the lush gardens of his home in Giverny. A highlight is the famous and beloved 42-foot-wide triptych “Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond.” Through Aug. 23 at the High Museum of Art; high.org.

Madison RETURN TO FUNCTION

A “playable” dress made of cotton and audiocassette tape, a do-it-yourself coffin and a weighty cell phone that doubles as exercise equipment are just a few of the quirky pieces displayed in Return to Function, which assembles works by an international array of artists who rethink everyday objects. Divided into four categories—transportation, shelter, clothing and commodity—the items shed new light on the familiar while offering commentary on environmental concerns, consumer culture and other socially relevant issues. The 20 artists featured include Joe Scanlan, Ralph Borland, Alyce Santoro, Lucy Orta, the collective Claire Fontaine, Jules de Balincourt, Fabrice Hyber and Franck Scurti. Through Aug. 23 at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art; mmoca.org.

San Francisco AURÉLIEN FROMENT

CCA Wattis Institute Presents: Aurélien Froment is an installment of “The Exhibition Formerly Known as Passengers,” a permanent yet constantly evolving show devoted to emerging international artists. Froment, whose work is partly informed by his former job as a projectionist at an art-house cinema in Paris, uses film, photography, performance and other media to

• A Picasso illustration accompanies Pierre Reverdy’s “Le chant des morts” (1948) in “Picasso and the Allure of Language” at Duke University.

probe themes such as the boundaries between language and meaning, the fictional and the documentary. Aug. 4 through 29 at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts; wattis.org.

advertising campaigns for Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent. Through Sept. 6 at the International Center of Photography; icp.org.

New York Atlanta

NAPOLEON III AND PARIS

LOUVRE ATLANTA

Photography flourished under the Second Empire thanks to imperial patronage and technological innovations such as the glass negative. Baron Haussmann’s transformation of the French capital from a warren of medieval streets to the city of broad axial boulevards we know today provided ample subject matter for photographers such as Gustave Le Gray and Henri Le Secq. This urban metamorphosis serves as the focus of Napoleon III and Paris, a dossier exhibition of some 30 photographs along with complementary works in other media. Also included are images of the imperial family and scenes of the destruction wrought by the Commune. Through Sept. 7 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; metmuseum.org.

Louvre Atlanta, now in its third and final year, has transformed a wing of the High Museum of Art into an outpost of the venerable French institution. The concluding exhibition, “The Louvre and the Masterpiece” brings together more than 90 sculptures, paintings, drawings and decorative items spanning four millennia to explore how taste, connoisseurship and the definition of “masterpiece” have evolved over the ages. Through Sept. 6; louvreatlanta.org.

New York THÉÂTRE DE LA MODE

In 1945, an exhibition of some 200 27-inch-high dolls clad in gowns by Lanvin, Balmain and other top designers of the day opened in Paris. Conceived to revitalize France’s war-battered couture industry, “Théâtre de la Mode” enjoyed a successful tour of Europe and the U.S. David Seidner: Paris Fashions, 1945 presents 15 color photographs shot for a 1990 reconstruction of the show; one of the original dolls is also on display. Seidner, who died in 1999 at the age of 42, was a leading portrait and fashion photographer whose résumé included

• André Derain’s “Portrait of Henri Matisse” (c. 1905), on view in Philadelphia.

Oklahoma City TURNER TO CÉZANNE

Presenting 53 paintings and works on paper, Turner to Cézanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection, National Museum Wales offers an overview of the major movements of 19th- and early 20th-century Western art, from romantic naturalism to Post-Impressionism. The pieces on display were among 260 donated to the museum by the Welsh heiresses Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, who between 1908 and 1923 amassed the largest collection of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art in Great Britain. Through Sept. 20 at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art; okcmoa.com. Fr a nce • summer 2009

Durham PICASSO AND LANGUAGE

•

Nathalie Baye has a gigolo habit in Cliente, part of the Boston French Film Festival.

Los Angeles CAST IN BRONZE

In the 16th century, thanks largely to Italian artists working at the court of François I, the French came to appreciate bronze for its aesthetic rather than simply utilitarian properties. During the next 300 years, the art of the bronze flourished in France in myriad incarnations, from statuettes to royal monuments. Today, however, the names of most of its leading practitioners are known only to connoisseurs. Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution brings together 125 works in the culmination of a decade-long effort by curators and scholars to shed light on this underappreciated subject. June 30 through Sept. 27 at the Getty Center; getty.edu.

Philadelphia SHOPPING IN PARIS

France’s economy fared very well during the Second Empire, increasing the demand for luxury goods and thereby stimulating the nation’s fashion industry for decades to come. Shopping in Paris: French Fashion 1850–1925 explores that industry’s influence on dress in the United States by pairing garments by Jeanne Lanvin, Charles Frederick Worth and others with American interpretations of the designs. Photographs and film clips provide background on the outfits and their wearers. Through Oct. 25 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; philamuseum.org.

Philadelphia LA CÔTE D’AZUR

As well as being one of the world’s most celebrated resort areas, the French Riviera holds a significant place in art history as a source of inspiration to some of the great masters of the 20th century. Among these was Matisse, who praised “the richness and silvery clarity of the light” in Nice, where he spent the last three

Fr a nce • summer 2009

decades of his life. Twelve of the works he created during this period form the core of Henri Matisse and Modern Art on the French Riviera, which also includes pieces by Picasso, Braque, Bonnard and Maillol, among others. Through Oct. 25 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; philamuseum.org.

Los Angeles CAPTURING NATURE’S BEAUTY

The 17th-century artists Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin, friends who sketched together in the Roman countryside, are both credited with elevating the landscape genre through their classical compositions. They are just two of the many masters represented in Capturing Nature’s Beauty: Three Centuries of French Landscapes, which brings together drawings dating from the 1600s to the 1800s and reflecting a wide range of styles and purposes. In surveying the evolution of the French landscape tradition, the show reveals an underlying tension between realism and idealism. July 28 through Nov. 1 at the Getty Center; getty.edu.

Philadelphia ÉTANT DONNÉS

Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés marks the 40th anniversary of the public debut of the artist’s swan song, discovered in his studio after his death in 1968. Described by fellow artist Jasper Johns as “the strangest work of art in any museum,” the multimedia assemblage features a wooden door pierced by two peepholes; peering through these, the viewer spies a nude woman reclining on a bed of twigs and holding up a gas lamp, a waterfall in the background. The exhibition sheds light on the genesis, construction, reception and legacy of the piece by placing it in the context of some 80 other works of art, as well

After setting up his studio in Montmartre in 1904, Picasso joined an artistic circle that included such literary figures as Guillaume Apollinaire, Pierre Reverdy and Gertrude Stein. These encounters fueled a lifelong fascination with the written word that would manifest itself in numerous ways, from the imagery in certain paintings to illustrated book projects to literary efforts of his own. Picasso and the Allure of Language explores this overlooked aspect of the artist’s oeuvre through some 70 works in all media, along with photographs, manuscripts and other archival materials. Aug. 20 through Jan. 3, 2010, at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University; nasher.duke.edu.

performing arts New York LES EPHÉMÈRES

The 14th-annual Lincoln Center Festival opens with the U.S. premiere of Les Ephémères. The play is performed by Le Théâtre du Soleil, a cornerstone of Paris’s avant-garde stage scene, under the direction of its renowned co-founder Ariane Mnouchkine. A search for meaning in the quotidian, it is a succession of highly realistic scenes from the everyday lives of ordinary people, each enacted on a rotating disk. In French with English supertitles. July 7 through 19 at the Park Avenue Armory; lincolncenter.org.

• A Ciborium (c.1200) by Master

Alpais, a Limoges goldsmith, comes to Atlanta from the Louvre.

Atlanta PUPPETRY FESTIVAL

The 2009 edition of the biannual National Puppetry Festival welcomes two French troupes. In Compagnie La Pendue’s Poli Dégaine (Punchy Draw), a pair of puppeteers and their stable of puppets are confounded by the commedia dell’arte stock character Pulcinella (known as Polichinelle in French and Punch in English), whose refusal to participate in the show becomes the show. In Nosferatu, the Dracula legend and its many film adaptations receive humorous treatment at the hands of Bob Theatre. July 14 through 19 at the Georgia Institute of Technology; nationalpuppetryfestival.org.

Becket, MA DES GENS QUI DANSENT

Groupe Emile Dubois performs the U.S. premiere of Des gens qui dansent (People Dancing) at the 2009 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. In choreographing the piece, company co-founder Jean-Claude Gallotta sought to evoke real life with as little artifice as possible. Ten dancers of different ages, their “characters” bearing their off-stage names, interpret everyday scenes with which audience members can immediately identify. July 15 through 19 at the Ted Shawn Theatre; jacobspillow.org.

Boston FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL

The 14th-annual Boston French Film Festival screens recent pictures by both emerging and established directors. The lineup includes Christophe Honoré’s La Belle Personne (2008), which transplants the plot of Madame de Lafayette’s classic 17th-century novel La Princesse de Clèves to a modern-day Paris lycée, and Josiane Balasko’s comedy Cliente (2008), in which Nathalie Baye plays a successful 50-something divorcée who hires young gigolos—a storyline rejected in the form of a screenplay until Balasko turned it into a successful novel. Also on the schedule is the runaway hit Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis (2007), which lampoons stereotypes about France’s Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. July 9 through 26 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; mfa.org.

Montreal LES FRANCOFOLIES

One of the world’s largest celebrations of French-language music in all its forms, Les Francofolies de Montréal draws crowds in the hundreds of thousands each summer. With some 60 indoor concerts and a slew of free outdoor shows, this 21st edition of the festival is dedicated to French rock superstar Alain Bashung, who died in March of this year. The performers include Jane Birkin and Juliette Gréco,

as documentary photographs. Aug. 15 through Nov. 1 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; philamuseum.org.

Bastille Day 2009 40 other selections. The signature event of the festival, now in its 22nd year, is a poodle parade that welcomes both coiffed purebreds and costumed wannabes. July 11 and 12 from 11 A.M. to 7 P.M. at Oak Park; frenchfestival.com.

Each summer, Bastille Day festivities offer people throughout the country a chance to immerse themselves in French culture for a few hours or perhaps even, in the case of the largest events, a few days. Below is a sampling of this year’s celebrations of all things Gallic, from Champagne to Citroëns. Stretching from the afternoon into the night, Bastille Day in Harvard Square starts off with face painting, a children’s parade and other activities for the younger Francophiles in the crowd, then moves on to dinner and dancing for the adults. A beer garden offers a place to relax throughout the day. The highlight of the event is a traditional French waiters’ race. July 12 from 3 to 10 P.M. on Holyoke Street; harvardsquare.com. Cambridge

Los Angeles For the first time in its eight-year history, the Bastille Day LA Festival will take place in the bucolic setting of Elysian Park. Entertainment includes a Provençal pétanque tournament; a waiters’ race; comedians, singers and artists; a French market; and “sidewalk” cafés. July 12 from noon to 10 P.M. at Elysian Park, Old Lodge; bastilledaylosangeles.com.

Francophiles may be surprised to learn that one of the nation’s largest celebrations of France’s fête nationale takes place in Milwaukee. Complete with a 43-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower that beams out light shows every hour, the 28th Annual Bastille Days start off with a Storm the Bastille run/

D ja m el R a m o u l

Milwaukee

walk, a 5K noncompetitive event. Nonstop entertainment on five stages includes musical acts ranging from balladeers to zydeco bands. While mingling with mimes, stilt walkers and other street performers, festivalgoers can take in food and wine demonstrations; shop for Provençal fabrics, soaps and other souvenirs; and sample French and Cajun edibles prepared by area chefs. July 9 through 11 from 11 A.M. to midnight and July 12 from 11 A.M. to 9 P.M. at Cathedral Square Park; bastilledaysfestival.com. A familyfriendly fête covering three city blocks, Bastille Day on 60th Street offers live entertainment as varied as cancan dancing, a New Orleans– style gospel choir and a DJ spinning Breton tunes; wine, cheese and other refreshments from France and other French-speaking countries; French-themed market stalls; and activities ranging from arts and crafts to a pétanque tournament. July 12 from noon to 6 P.M. on E. 60th St., from Fifth Ave. to Lexington Ave.; bastilledaynyc.com. New York City

The Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site hosts its annual Bastille Philadelphia

award-winning Malian singer-songwriter Rokia Traoré and folk-music scion Martha Wainwright, who will be singing primarily in French. July 30 through Aug. 9 at various Montreal venues; francofolies.com.

Santa Barbara MIGNON

The Music Academy of the West stages

Day Festival, which serves up croissants, baguette sandwiches, wine and other traditional French food and drink from local restaurants, as well as such kid-friendly activities as a tricycle Tour de France. The highlight of the event is a humorous reenactment of the storming of the Bastille, at which Marie Antoinette cries, “Let them eat Tastykake!” and 2,000 snack cakes rain down from the prison’s towers as she faces the guillotine. Festival-goers are encouraged to participate by dressing as French peasants or royalty. July 11, starting at

Ambroise Thomas’s 1866 opera Mignon, once a repertory staple but now rarely performed. Based on the Goethe novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, it dramatizes the title character’s rescue from the band of gypsies who abducted her as a child, her love for the man who buys her freedom and her reunion with her father. Aug. 7 and 9 at the Lobero Theatre; musicacademy.org.

5:30 P.M. at the penitentiary wall along Fairmount Ave.; easternstate.org. santa barbara Visitors to the Santa Barbara French Festival can sample Champagne, pâté, crêpes, escargots and other classic French fare in the shadow of a scaled-down Eiffel Tower. Mimes, jugglers and accordion players mingle with the crowd on the grounds, while three stages with continuous live entertainment offer something for everyone: Moroccan belly dancing, grand opera, a Maurice Chevalier tribute and some

New York CROSSING THE LINE

Now in its third year, Crossing the Line is a cross-disciplinary festival showcasing the talents of avant-garde visual and performing artists working in France and New York City. The 2009 edition includes the participation of choreographer Maria Hassabi, known for blending dance, performance art and installation, and the

Seattle Seattle kicks off its Bastille Day Festival by embracing the French tradition of the Bal des Pompiers (Firemen’s Ball). The evening of dining and dancing starts with a menu prepared by Thierry Rautureau, chef-owner of the city’s multi-award–winning Rover’s Restaurant. The celebration continues the following day with a Bastille Day bistro serving up sweet and savory French favorites, performances by French and local bands on two stages, cooking demonstrations, wine tastings, a Citroën car show and a variety of children’s activities, including a soccer penalty kick tournament. Bal des Pompiers, July 11 from 8 to 11 P.M. (Fisher Pavilion); Bastille Day celebration, July 12 from 11 A.M. to 6 P.M.; both events at Seattle Center; seattlebastille.org. Youthville, CA (Napa Valley) Oenophiles can celebrate Bastille Day at Domaine Chandon, which marks the occasion with live music in its tasting room, as well as a special Frenchinspired menu created by the winery’s Michelinrecommended restaurant, étoile. July 12 from 1 to 5 P.M.; chandon.com/events.

presentation of new scores by composers Missy Mazzoli, Tamar Muskal and others for silent pictures by Alice GuyBlaché, the world’s first female filmmaker. Sept. 12 through Oct. 4 at various New York venues; fiaf.org. —Tracy Kendrick For a regularly updated listing of cultural events, go to francemagazine.org. Fr a nce • summer 2009

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Temps Modernes

Almost Famous by MICHEL FAURE

Studio Harcourt is fêting its 75th birthday

this year. As you enter the posh townhouse it occupies on rue JeanGoujon, just off the Champs Elysées, you immediately realize that this isn’t just any photo studio—it’s a temple to photography. At the top of the broad staircase, you are greeted by an oversized portrait of actress Carole Bouquet and her plunging décolletage; it reminds you that the title of one of her films, Too Beautiful for You, is all too appropriate. The drawing rooms are lined with black-and-white images of French movie stars, old and new. In a way, they all look alike: The women are bare-shouldered with impossibly long eyelashes, gleaming hair and come-hither looks. The men are darkly romantic, their gaze intense and knowing. The place feels frozen in time, circa 1950-something. I was whisked right back to my childhood, when my parents used to take me to the gigantic movie theaters on the Champs-Elysées. They were decorated with those very same images—screen legends seemingly sculpted by light. I thought you needed an Oscar, or at the very least a Palme d’Or,

had become a Harcourt portrait, with its characteristic light and shadow and that poignant pre-war glamour. The photographer had her try various poses while snapping some 50 shots (digital nowadays, with a range of 16 to 20 million pixels to maintain that grainy quality—that’s the secret, photo buffs). In about two weeks, she will receive her 12"x16" portrait with the Harcourt logo at the bottom, as prominent as the studio’s influence on photography. It turns out that thousands of people in France come to get their pictures taken by Harcourt each year. “We often get grandmothers whom we’ve photographed throughout their lifetime—as a young girl, as a bride, with their families—bringing their granddaughters in for an 18th-birthday glamour shot,” says Catherine Renard, the studio’s director. “It’s true that in France, there’s a rather elitist tradition of portraiture,” she continues, “but it has changed with the times. After a divorce, for instance, the remarried spouses often bring their new families to the studio, as if somehow a photo would make things more solid.”

to enter this mythical portrait gallery alongside such luminaries as Brigitte Bardot, Jean Gabin and Sacha Guitry. Well, it turns out I was wrong: For €1,900, anyone can get a Harcourt portrait. That’s what Marie-Hélène, a French TV reporter, recently decided to do. She’s not a star. “You don’t see me onscreen all that much,” she says with a smile. “But I’ve wanted a Harcourt portrait for a really long time, to be part of that legend.” The day she decided to make her dream come true, I tagged along. Seated in front of a mirror, she watched as a make-up artist took out her brushes. “I’m a little nervous,” Marie-Hélène admitted. After that, we entered the inner sanctum, the studio: a room as black and white as the photos themselves, with dark walls and, at the end of the room, a white splotch of light. A photographer with an Italian accent—one of about a dozen freelancers who work for Harcourt— gently led me to understand that I was an intruder, but he put up with me anyway. Then he began circling Marie-Hélène, suggesting she hold her head more haughtily, adopt a dreamier expression, lower her shoulder, while an assistant adjusted the beams of at least six projectors. Then suddenly, voilà! Before my very eyes, Marie-Hélène 64

Fr a nce • summer 2009

Harcourt was co-founded in 1934 by the Lacroix brothers, who were newspaper publishers, and Cosette Harcourt, a photographer. In 1938, the studio moved into a sumptuous mansion on avenue Iéna, and le tout Paris flocked to get their picture taken. The studio survived the war; then in the 1950s it became synonymous with Hollywood-style glamour and remained hugely successful through the 1960s. All the top singers, actors and movie stars in France, as well as politicians such as Pierre Mendès-France, artists such as Salvador Dalí and writers such as Françoise Sagan, were photographed there—most of them for free. But even the hoi polloi who paid felt like real celebrities when they hung their Harcourt portraits on the wall. Then came the ’70s and ’80s, when the rise of the Kodak Instamatic changed the face of amateur photography. By 1990, the studio was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and decided to sell its archives to the Réunion des Musées Nationaux. The extraordinary collection consists of no fewer than five million negatives and 500,000 portraits. “It’s the largest family album of contemporary f France,” Renard says proudly.

STUDIO HARCOURT

• Harcourt immortalizes celebrities and wannabes alike. A beloved pet and a pair of siblings share the limelight with actors Jean Reno, Sabine Azéma and Fabrice Lucchini.