londonienne
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object© Silvy
Warhol of the Victorian Age
The objects called carte-de-visites created the biggest collectible craze of Victorian Europe. These tiny cards (named after the visiting cards they resembled) were photographs pasted onto stiff cardboard. It was a French photographer, Louis Dodéro, who first enhanced visiting cards with portraits. It was another, André Adolph Eugéne Disdéri, who created the technique that their manufacture feasible.
Exposing small image...
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en passant© S.Sampson
Two odd birds for Tate Britain
The objects, one hanging suspended and the other lying side-swiped, are decommissioned war aircraft. They comprise the Tate Britain Gallery’s 2010 Duveen Commission by artist Fiona Banner. The curator is Tate Britain’s Lizzie Carey-Thomas.
Ms. Banner admits to a long obsession with fighting aircraft. She once created as art a “wordscape” by transcribing the whole of the movie ‘Top Gun’. He...
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memoryMuseum of London
Time-travel, pure Pleasure
A tourist attraction for two centuries, Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens once kept all of Europe talking. During Queen Victoria’s reign, however, it vanished completely. All that is now left are memoirs and depictions – many from names such as Samuel Pepys, Dr. Johnson, William Thackeray, Canaletto and Charles Dickens.
But you can still get a taste of it at the Museum of London. There, among the five galleries opened in 2010, a...
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expo© S. Sampson
Making the Lightness of Being bearable
The sculptures of Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto are always unique, because they concentrate on the space inside as well as the shapes he creates. Sometimes you wander inside an installation as well as around or through one. With ‘The Edges of the World’, Neto literally stitches together different dimensions of space, inviting you to explore all of them.
This piece was created by Neto to re-open London’s Hayward Gallery...
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colour© J.P. Poulet
Seeing red for summer
The scarlet surprise of summer 2010 is architect Jean Nouvel’s bespoke pavilion in London’s Hyde Park. Tenth in a series of special commissions, his Red Sun Pavilion is meant to function as a summer wing of the Gallery. It also offers a perfect chill-out zone and rest stop for the weary traveller.
The bright red pavilion is an unqualified success. Open from late July until October, best visited late in the day wh...
parisienne
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en passant© J.P. Poulet
Valentine or vice?
Lovers padlocked to Paris forever? Two souls that seal their future ensemble dans la perspective d’un beau monument ou d’une belle vue? Whatever the impulse, more and more couples are attaching tokens of their bonds to our loveliest bridges – before casting keys to their padlocks into the Seine.
Their legacy? The city’s cadenas d’amour, better known among les internautes as “love locks”....
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memory© S.Calle
Meeting Monique, obliquely
The installation “Rachel, Monique” by artist Sophie Calle deals with the death of her mother, after whom it is named. Her struggle to wrench something positive out of this loss drives the production.
Opening just after Toussaint, that annual moment which honours the departed, Calle’s installation is everything but traditional. This may be what one has come to expect from the artist. But here, even for her, ...
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colour© S. Sampson
Out of the blue
Blue is a colour it’s a pleasure to discover in Paris. Perhaps because of its prevalence in the language, in which it indicates countless different moods and expressions, one starts seeing it everywhere.
The blues of the dictionary are just a starting point: steel blue, sky blue, navy blue, Royal blue. Within the world of fashion and furnishings, innumerable artists, creators and makers find their own – from the R...
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expo© Steve Sampson
Art at home with heroes
The monumental installation Leviathan Thot, by Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto, typifies the epic public art that makes Paris unique. As part of the Paris Festival of Autumn, it ran from 15 September to 31 December 2006. It marked the beginning of an ongoing relationship between the artist and French art-lovers.
The work was named after two opposing forces. One is Leviathan, the Book of Job’s destructive monster. The oth...
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métier© B.Lomont
Air de Paris et ère numérique
Qui suis-je ? Une photographe professionnelle. Je me consacre à l’architecture, aux portraits en reportage, aux artistes dans leurs ateliers.
Je travaille régulièrement pour la Cité d’Architecture et du Patrimoine qui propose un panorama de l’architecture et du patrimoine français à travers des collections de moulages monumentaux à l’échelle 1, des fresques en volume, des vitraux, des maquettes de l...