Reveries & Radical Imaginations – A Week in Paris
Celebrating life in Paris, Paris Makers, and the strange, new, true and beautiful – forever!
🔶 Now open at the Grand Palais, Matisse, 1941–1954 brings together over 300 works from the artist’s final years, a period of extraordinary reinvention. In his 70s and 80s, Matisse developed his now-iconic cut-outs, transforming painted paper into a bold new language of pure colour and form, without ever abandoning painting, which here reaches new levels of intensity. Conceived as an immersion into his studio, the exhibition unfolds room by room, showcasing the thrilling energy and inventiveness of his late work. Don’t miss!
🎬 The great Michel Gondry revives his cult 2002 clip for Kylie Minogue’s hit Come Into My World for the latest Chanel 25 handbag campaign. Originally filmed in a realistic looking corner of Boulogne-Billancourt, the clip saw Kylie strolling the streets, doubling and quadrupling in a hypnotic and fun choreography – now with Margot Robbie in the starring role, though with a cameo from Kylie herself, the ersatz streetscape lacks authentic Paris grit, don’t you think?
🐅 Fresh from its season at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, Henri Rousseau: A Painter’s Secrets is now on view at the Musée de l’Orangerie. The self-taught artist, collected by Picasso and other avant-garde figures, only gained full recognition long after his death. This exhibition brings together around 50 of his dreamlike, symbolic and deeply strange paintings, showing a world both real and enchanted, primal and poetic – a celebration of the human imagination.
🎒New at the Puces, one of the founders of indie label Études Studio Jose Lamali has left the brand to open this vintage clothes stand Lamali inside Marché Dauphine (Stand 203). Part conceptual project, part nostalgia trip, these are garments as Art Brut: vintage Eastpak backpacks or denim jackets customized with band names or other teen obsessions, and channeling Lamali’s own adolescence as a skater in the late 90s. The stand is staged like a suburban house, containing all the boredom and restless energy of youth.
✏️ For Paris Drawing Week, Galerie Dina Vierny presents If You’ll Believe in Me, I’ll Believe in You, an exhibition of works on paper by the rising Catalan painter Marcel·la Barceló. Installed in Vierny’s private apartment behind the Musée Maillol, the show inhabits an intimate space once home to the trailblazing gallerist, resistance fighter, and last muse to Aristide Maillol, perfectly suited to Barceló’s otherworldly works. Founded in 1947, Galerie Dina Vierny’s original Perret-designed space on Rue Jacob remains intact, and today is run by her energetic grandsons Pierre and Alexandre Lorquin, who are opening the gallery to contemporary artists. (Visits by appointment only until 4 April.)
Thanks for reading :)
Kate
Welcome to Paris, Puces. on Substack. Expect the best of : LIFE IN PARIS 🇫🇷 each week, plus expert intel and tips from the world’s most epic FLEA MARKET✨ Art, Fashion, Design !
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