Exhibitions, theater, music… Every fortnight, Madame Figaro offers its cultural selection.
Art Basel Paris: Paris, capital of art
Name change: “Paris + Art Basel” becomes simply “Art Basel Paris”. Change of location: the event returns to the Grand Palais. The 2024 edition is structured around three sectors: “Galleries” which brings together established galleries, “Emergence” dedicated to emerging artists, and “Premise”, new sector which brings together nine galleries with atypical curatorial proposals, a more inclusive rereading of art history. A dialogue is shown between the little-known photographic works of two German masters, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter, or the work of Juliette Roche (1884-1980) on marginalized minorities, notably black or homosexual people… A new initiative called ” Oh La La!” will allow galleries a hang-up, or the possibility of showing the public rarely exhibited works. Added to this are cultural events in the capital, such as Olga de Amaral at the Fondation Cartier or the Tom Wesselman retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton… All of which makes Paris the cornerstone of the global art market.
Art Basel Paris. From October 18 to 20, artbasel.com
“Arte Povera” in majesty at the Bourse de Commerce
Courtesy of GAM – Galleria Civicad’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Turin) / Fondazione Guido ed Ettore De Fornaris. Adagp, Paris, 2024
Magnificent exhibition, orchestrated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, which will be a landmark. But what is “Arte Povera”? This name was given at the end of the 1960s to describe the work of a group of Italian artists. This is a new conception of the work of art linked to the question of energy. Their installations use living things like Jannis Kounellis’ parrot and natural materials, such as earth, potatoes, lettuce, water, coal, trees… This living thing, which has a non-urban memory, signs the birth of ecological thinking in art. The very poetic Penone tree welcomes us on the square. First time that the space of the Rotonde is not allocated to a single artist, but to the 13 who constitute this movement with their early works. The first sculpted tree by Giuseppe Penone stands next to the first Igllo by Mario Merz. The first refrigerated sculpture by Pier Paolo Calzolari dialogues with the first Direction of Giovanni Anselmo. Il ya la fountainaine d’Alighero Boetti Autotritto et The Spirit by Luciano Fabro. Watch out, masterpieces!
“Arte Povera”, from October 9, 2024 to January 20, 2025, pinaultcollection.com
Corita Kent: her first exhibition in France
Photograph by Arthur Evans, Courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Immaculate Heart Community, Los Angeles, CA
The picture rails of the Collège des Bernardins welcome Corita Kent (1918-1986), American artist known as Sister Mary Corita. With the exhibition “Corita Kent. The joyful revolution, several decades, from the 1950s to the 1980s, pass before our eyes. Photographs, screen prints (his favorite medium), an installation… That is to say 30 works which reveal his audacity and his activism. Through images taken from advertising and newspapers, mixed with slogans, she talks about feminist movements, artistic counterculture, consumer society, but also poverty, racism, war and social injustices.
“Corita Kent, the joyful revolution”, until December 21, 2024, collegedesbernardins.fr
“A delicate situation”: vaudeville revisited
Photo: Bernard Richebé
Misunderstandings, misunderstandings and improbable situations, the plot is effective: direction Bures-Sur-Yvette, in a bucolic setting where Nicolas, played by Max Boublil, is an awkward lover. His relationship with Julie, played by Elsa Rozenknop, is touching. But the beauty has a lover that she is preparing to leave: Philippe, played by Gérard Darmon, a little cynical but surprising, forming a shock couple with Clotilde Courau, perfect in the role of wife. The pace of the play is frantic, the aberrant situations follow one another and there is a cascade of laughter. The alchemy between the actors is palpable with a special mention for the duo Gérard Darmon and Max Boublil. Love, fidelity, lies in the couple are treated with finesse and humor. And it works. A pure moment of pleasure.
A delicate situation, theatredesnouveautes.fr/
The Pop & Psy festival: freeing people to speak out about mental health
Press service
While Michel Barnier has made mental health the great national cause of the year 2025, the Pop et Psy festival, the 3rd edition of which will be held from October 11 to 13 at Ground Control, in Paris, has moved ahead . For two days, conferences, performances and concerts follow one another, to free speech around still taboo ills, but also to educate, and de-dramatize, on disorders that are often too stigmatized. On the program: talks with Judith Godrèche and Isild Le Besco on the violence suffered in the world of cinema, round tables on the increasingly studied use of psychedelic substances in psychiatry or on the inclusion of people in on the autism spectrum. But also workshops, led by health professionals, intended to answer all questions about schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, depression, and ADHD. Without forgetting the evenings: concerts by Solann, Thx4crying or Joanna, DJ sets by MM’X or Powerpouf, a show by the Madame Arthur cabaret. To get better, now and in the future.
Pop & Psy Festival, from October 11 to 13 at Ground Control, 81 rue du Charolais, 75012 Paris.
