Art flourishes this summer and embellishes the whole of France. In this profusion of works, from photography to sculpture via painting and town planning, Le Point has selected twenty-eight exhibitions not to be missed. Let yourself be tempted by Asian medicines, Palestinian art, photography festivals and retrospectives of great artists.
The eye of Frank Horvat
What prompted his urge to get a camera in the 1950s? Picking up girls. The goal is not achieved, but Frank Horvat becomes a precursor in fashion photography. The Jeu de Paume is devoting a major exhibition this summer to the photographer, who died in October 2020. First presented at the Château de Tours, the exhibition, enriched, presents the first cycle of his career, from 1950 to 1965. The photographs, at dizzying style of a busy post-war city, show how Frank Horvat made Paris and its streets his testing ground. The intensity of the images is also found in the looks of his subjects, giving the shots great depth. The highlight of this exhibition, the world tour carried out by the artist in the early 1960s, which reveals all his work around love and the body.
“Frank Horvat. Paris, the world, fashion”, Jeu de Paume, Paris 8ᵉ, until September 17.
Sarah Bernhardt, a star
“The golden voice”, thus Victor Hugo qualified the great actress Sarah Bernhardt, designating what was not yet named: a star. At the Petit Palais, nearly five hundred objects and documents offer an insight into the life of this diva, a personality adored by millions of people, who marked her era and still has some great surprises in store for us, starting with her little-known talent for painting and sculpture. Part of the exhibition presents her wardrobe and objects from her interior, revealing a woman who assumed full responsibility, committed, independent. An event not to be missed to rediscover the admirable career of the Bernhardt phenomenon.
“Sarah Bernhardt. And the woman created the star”, Petit Palais, Paris 8ᵉ, until August 27.
Asian medicines
Acupuncture, meditation, pharmacopoeia and even the gesture of taking the pulse are care practices that have become common and which have their roots, nearly two thousand years before our era, in Asian medicine. The Guimet Museum aims to retrace the history of the great Chinese, Indian, Tibetan and even Korean medical traditions, whose precious heritage enriches Western practice. Bringing together more than three hundred works and objects, this journey creates a dialogue between care and the sacred, art and medicine, body and spirit, in a holistic approach that seems to reconcile science and the supernatural.
“Asian Medicines, the Art of Balance”, Guimet Museum, Paris 16ᵉ, until September 18.
When artists talk about money
While the first immaterial works of art, available only online in the form of NFT, joined the collections of the Center Pompidou in February 2023, the Monnaie de Paris is devoting an exhibition dedicated to the notion of value of works of art. From the original representations of money in ancient myths to contemporary artistic reflections on the consumer society, this thematic journey fuels a fruitful dialogue between Warhol and Dali, the first figures of “businessmen” artists, Marcel Duchamp or Damien Hirst. It leads the visitor to question the active role of the creator, the gallery owner and the buyer in determining an artist’s price. As the economist Léon Walras thought, the value of art no longer seems determined by the work invested, but by the demand for it. This redefines the role of the public and art critics, no longer mere observers but essential cogs in the mechanism. Enlightening introspection.
“Money in Art”, Monnaie de Paris, Paris 6ᵉ, until September 24.
surreal women
Women belonging to the surrealist movement are finally put forward. The Musée de Montmartre is devoting an exhibition that pays tribute to fifty artists who have long been misjudged on the art market, even though their works participated in this major aesthetic turning point of the 20th century. Feminine surrealism reveals the fight led by Lee Miller, Dora Maar and Marion Adnams to break free from both societal and artistic norms. Surrealism, for them, also consisted in opposing the established order, by freeing themselves from the themes initiated by their male counterparts.
“Feminine surrealism? », Museum of Montmartre, Paris 18ᵉ, until September 10.
Naples at the Louvre
This summer, dozens of works imported from the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, currently under construction, will be integrated into the collections of the Louvre Museum, thanks to a unique partnership between the two institutions. A fascinating exhibition, “Naples in Paris” takes up the challenge of displaying the finest international collections in the most visited museum in the world. A unique dialogue that could cause Stendhal syndrome among art and history enthusiasts. A program of concerts and shows is to be planned around and throughout the exhibition for total immersion. An exceptional experience.
“Naples in Paris”, Louvre Museum, Paris 1ᵉ, until January 8, 2024.
Degas in black and white
“If I had to start over, I would only do black and white,” said Edgar Degas, whose 160 black and white works are on display at the National Library of France this summer. They highlight the Manichean side of the artist. His self-portraits, which open the exhibition, illuminate the shadowy areas of his personality. He is a jack-of-all-trades artist revealed by his monotypes, lithographs, engravings, prints…, so many techniques he has experimented with in his career! Their common point: a praise of gray. As early as 1874, Degas presented at the First Exhibition of Impressionist Painters a gray painting, Ballet Rehearsal on the Stage, which stood out by its darkness among the dazzling works of the other exhibitors. A true innovator in this scabrous singularity.
“Degas in Black and White”, National Library of France, Paris 2ᵉ, until September 3.
The artistic power of the LGBTQIA movement
The song performed by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, which has become an anthem of the LGBTQIA community, gives its title to the exhibition presented by the Center Pompidou. With more than five hundred works and documents (films, photographs, magazines, etc.) from the 20th and 21st centuries, by Jean Cocteau, Romaine Brooks, Kenneth Anger or the collective of New York lesbian artists Fierce Pussy, the exhibition reveals how these men and women creators have changed the representation of so-called “minority” sexualities. They set themselves up as a culture after having been a subculture, highlighting the complexity and the power of a movement which intertwines victories and failures, beauty and violence, and which is not at the end of its struggles.
“Over the Rainbow”, Center Pompidou, Paris 4ᵉ, until November 13.
From art is born hope
Allowing Palestinian artists to reclaim the reality of their experiences in order to envision the future: this is the bet of the Institut du monde arabe. From photographs, the artists conceptualize daily questions to offer a sometimes chimerical account and to promote a culture that is always frenetic. Beyond claiming their right to social and political existence, it is freedom of expression and creation that they want to conquer. A lesson in courage and a culture broth.
“What Palestine brings to the world”, Institut du monde arabe, Paris 5ᵉ, until November 19.
The figurative at the Caillebotte house
At the heart of this impressive estate located in Yerres, which was the property of the Caillebotte family between 1860 and 1879, the “Figurations” exhibition invites you to rediscover the figurative facet of contemporary art, long overlooked. No less than a hundred works, produced by thirty-five artists, thus awaken the walls of the Ornate Farm, the estate’s former agricultural building, and question the representation of humans and their expressions. The visitor will take the opportunity to discover the house of Gustave Caillebotte, a singular personality, patron of the Impressionists, philatelist, horticulturist and painter himself, whose spirit still permeates the walls and gardens.
“Figures. Another art of today”, Caillebotte house, Yerres, until October 22.
Open porthole on the submarine
Do you dream of becoming a submarine expert? So, dive under the seas! The Brest Navy Museum and the ECPAD archives are teaming up with two photographers invited for the occasion to present fifty photographs, as well as audiovisual productions, which free themselves from constraints and detail the evolution of -sailors with great creativity, in technical terms, but also by exploring the role they have played in fiction. The life of the crews composes with the collective imagination, to offer an immersive story about these weapons of war, with a power as aesthetic as it is deterrent.
“Diving, low angle: submarines in the lens”, national museum of the Navy of Brest, until March 10, 2024.
Photographers for the planet
The La Gacilly Photo Festival, in Morbihan, is celebrating its 20th anniversary and is devoting an exhibition of contemporary outdoor photographs entitled “La nature en patrimoine”. With the ambition to restore a relationship between Man and nature, at a time of climatic and environmental crises, the festival welcomes photographers from all over the world. Alain Schroeder, expert in scuba diving photography, Pascal Maitre, whose world tour has shed light on the ravages of uncontrolled urbanization, or even Evgenia Arbuvaega, who is interested in the autarkic communities of Siberia – cold region where the thermometer can now reach 40 degrees! –, share their stories to reconcile us with our ecosystem.
“La Nature en patrimoine”, Festival Photo La Gacilly, until October 1st.
Women travelers
Honoring traveling artists at the turn of the 20th century is the objective of the new temporary exhibition at the Musée de Pont-Aven. Andrée Karpelès, Marcelle Ackein, Alexandra David-Neel, Thérèse Le Prat… all share the same enthusiasm for travel and discovery, from the 1880s to the eve of the Second World War. No less than two hundred paintings, sculptures, drawings and photographs testify to the affirmation of these female figures, far from the domestic space and the hearth in which they were confined. Their works, in a wide variety of styles, reveal an intimate facet of the populations they meet, in the East and in the territories they travel through.
“Traveling artists the call of the distant, 1880-1944”, museum of Pont-Aven, until November 5.
Le Havre, an open-air museum
For the sixth year in a row, “A Summer in Le Havre” takes over the city’s public spaces and museums: exhibitions, ephemeral performances, installations follow one another, until September 17, in a successful marriage between art and urban heritage that transforms the port city into an open-air museum. The pediment of the town hall is thus transformed by the artist Mathieu Mercier, who revisits the Republican motto, while the bay windows of the Le Havre station are transformed by the visual artist Isabelle Cornaro, who adorns them with multiple colors reminiscent of church windows. In terms of exhibitions, the Hôtel Dubocage in Bléville invites you to an edifying work of memory retracing the history of Normandy’s participation in the Atlantic slave trade and the MuMa presents the works of Albert Marquet devoted to his stays in Normandy…
“A Summer in Le Havre”, Le Havre, until September 17.
Fascinating Jellyfish
At the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Caen, 65 works present the Gorgon from all angles. Polymorphic, Méduse is a metaphor for contemporary issues and fits in with the times. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes melancholy, femme fatale or feminist, the myth of the snake-haired creature has been transformed through the ages. The representations on display are as diverse as their interpretations, painting a complex portrait of Medusa, symbolizing our desires and our fears. This exhibition is an invitation to confront them, in a form of personal and collective introspection.
“Under Medusa’s gaze.” From ancient Greece to digital arts”, Caen Museum of Fine Arts, until September 17.
Aix on Neapolitan time
The private collections of the art historian Giuseppe De Vito, considered an expert on the Seicento – the Italian culture of the 17th century – Neapolitan, invest the Granet museum, in Aix-en-Provence. After “Via Roma” and “Italia discreta” in 2022, “Naples for passion” focuses on the influence of this historic city in the 17th century: 40 masterpieces by 24 artists who contributed to the artistic influence of Naples, such as Caravaggio, the master of the Announcement to the Shepherds, Mattia Preti… Between naturalism, classicism and baroque, Naples was, at that time, the heart of the European art market: its prosperity asserted itself three centuries later. later being the central point of the collections of the passionate De Vito.
“Naples for passion. Masterpieces from the De Vito Collection”, Granet Museum, Aix-en-Provence, from July 15 to October 29.
Roma culture at the Mucem
In the Romani language, the term “barvalo” means “rich”, “proud”. And it’s a question of pride in this exhibition devoted to the history and diversity of the Roma populations of Europe. Located at the entrance to the port of Marseille, the Mucem, which opened its doors just ten years ago, brings together for the occasion 200 works and documents from public and private European collections. Among them, a “release ticket” dated 1848 testifies to the slave condition of this population in Romania in the 19th century. An impressive work of fabric by the artist Malgorzata Mirga-Tas demonstrates all the cultural richness of these nomadic communities, far from stereotypical representations. A unique highlight of the Romani heritage, which questions the visitor on the crucial themes of belonging and identity.
“Barvalo. Roma, Sinti, Manouches, Gitans, Voyageurs…”, Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations, Marseille, until September 4.
Matisse, 1930s
For the 60th anniversary of the Matisse museum in Nice, the exhibition “Matisse 1930s” recounts a decisive moment in the artist’s career, at the junction between his success and his desire for the unknown… Eager to experiment, Matisse changes dimensions as he changes ambitions, leaves established frameworks to carry out larger works, such as the mural composition La Danse. This is also the period when he begins his state photographs: this process allows him to see his works hatch, to bear witness to their metamorphosis. His participation in the review Cahiers d’art is also discussed as well as his link with the city of Nice, two events that allowed him to establish himself as an eminent figure of international modernism.
“Matisse 1930s. Through ‘Cahiers d’art'”, Matisse Museum, Nice, until September 24.
Feast your eyes on Arles
Through the power of images, the photography festival Les Rencontres d’Arles envelops ecological and social messages: the title of its 54th edition, “A state of consciousness”, testifies to this. Exhibitors are spokespersons for socio-political issues, Soleil Gris and Ici pres are examples of displays that relate the importance of visual identity and territory, whether natural or industrial. The Rencontres d’Arles are also committed to supporting and defending the creation of artists from all over the world to spread their words and offer a global synthesis of struggles in society. Voluntary ecological redirection is felt even in the adaptation of exhibition spaces that respect the environment, and the festival qualifies as a laboratory responding to a dynamic of “research-action”. An absolute and essential edition.
“Arles 2023. A State of Consciousness”, Les Rencontres d’Arles, until September 24.
Art at the castle
An exceptional setting a few kilometers from Aix-en-Provence, Château La Coste is both a winery and an art centre. Located in Puy-Sainte-Réparade, it welcomes internationally renowned sculptors, designers and artists. This summer, four exhibitions establish a dialogue between the unique architecture of the place, nestled in the heart of Provence, and the artistic eye of Anselm Kiefer, Andy Warhol, Pierre Paulin and even Jennifer Guidi. The first takes over the Renzo-Piano pavilion with his landscape paintings inspired by Finnish mythology and German pictorial romanticism. He also exhibits five impressive sculptures from his series “Women of Antiquity”. Warhol is given pride of place at La Galerie Bastide, housed in the estate’s former wine cellar. In partnership with the Rencontres Photographiques d’Arles, the exhibition presents forty photos of the founder of the Factory revealing a more secret facet of the career of this pop art star. A unique luxury between art and nature.
“Andy Warhol. Travels with Warhol, Pierre Paulin, Anselm Kiefer”, Château La Coste.
Color your reality at the Lambert Collection
Pascale Marthine Tayou is honored at the Collection Lambert in Avignon, where 23 works are presented, including around ten that have never been seen before, and other installations, such as Plastic Tree – a tree made of plastic bags – redesigned for the exhibition. “Petits Riens” builds a contemplative narrative based on everyday objects. The internationally renowned Cameroonian artist wishes, drawing inspiration from his personal experiences and his doubts, to offer a luminous and colorful spectacle. “Color is the bullet in my gun,” he says. This innovative project emphasizes the singular personality of the artist who, for his part, does not respond to any scheme, plays with codes, goes beyond a reality that he considers overwhelming, even in the spelling of his name, which he playfully modified!
“Pascale Martine Tayou. Petits Riens”, Collection Lambert, Avignon, until November 19.
Riopelle, the artist with a hundred faces
On the occasion of the centenary of his birth, the Marguerite-et-Aimé-Maeght Foundation, in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, pays tribute to the Canadian artist Jean Paul Riopelle by retracing the themes he addressed in his career. The goal is to make us (re)discover the artist in all his aspects: from the influence of Matisse to his bestiary and his collages… Riopelle has experimented with many creative techniques, as evidenced by the 180 works on display. His daughter, guest curator, confides his desire to transmit the diversity and intimacy of his father’s art: a man with a big heart, he designed the Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg fresco in memory of his former companion, Joan Mitchell , who said that painting was “the reverse of death”.
“Jean Paul Riopelle – Parfums d’Ateliers”, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, until November 12.
The life-size Spanish masters
Invitation to travel to the Bassins des Lumières in Bordeaux, which this year is devoting an immersive exhibition to two major Catalan painters: Dalí and Gaudí. In the long format “Dali. L’énigme sans fin”, the visitor is immersed in the heart of his work, with futuristic surrealist inspirations, exploring the meanders of dream and consciousness. Pink Floyd’s music accentuates the dreamlike side of the experience and exacerbates the mystical character of Dalí’s productions. The short program gives a view of Gaudí’s unique architectural structures, with the Junta Constructora del Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia Foundation. The artist’s emblematic creations, from the Casa Batllo to the Sagrada Familia, via Parc Güell, are as if transported to Bordeaux, projected onto the concrete walls of this former submarine base, thanks to ingenious effects materials and reflections.
“Dali. The Endless Enigma” and “Gaudí. Architect of the Imagination”, Les Bassins des Lumières, Bordeaux, until January 7, 2024.
A tribute in black and white
Pierre Soulages, painter with a remarkable longevity, crossed an entire century to offer us his most beautiful swan song. In the last decade of his life, Soulages took advantage of his long experience to pursue his technical work on black – the color to which he had dedicated his whole life – the play of light and shine. White is reintroduced in an unprecedented way in his works to offer the visitor new impressions and interpretations. A beautiful tribute paid by the museum bearing his name in Rodez with around forty works: the exhibition traces his last creation, conceived in May 2022 in his studio in Sète, six months before his death. “The Last Soulages”, a brilliant and essential synthesis.
“The Last Soulages.” 2010-2022″, Soulages Museum, Rodez, until January 7, 2024.
Silence in a world noised by tragedies
It is by creating a dialogue between the contemporary and the historical that the Cistercian abbey of Beaulieu-en-Rouergue, open to the public since June 2022, wishes to reinvent itself. It welcomes the artist sculptor Johan Creten, who evokes his responsibility as an artist to find the right harmony between his committed ceramics and the restored abbey, within the framework of this carte blanche exhibition. However, his works contrast in the transept: an imposing statue in black resin is erected in the center of the choir, in the middle of the immaculate stones of the building. A deliberate choice by Creten to affirm their radical discordance. “The overflowing heart” is the tipping point between light and darkness, a duality that is found even in the brightness of the different rooms of the abbey. A skilful in-between that deserves to be discovered.
“The overflowing heart, carte blanche to Johan Creten”, Abbey of Beaulieu-en-Rouergue, until October 1.
The Valadon Icon
First woman artist to create a male nude, protected by Degas, forming an “infernal trio” with her husband, André Utter, and her son, Maurice Utrillo, Suzanne Valadon is honored at the Center Pompidou-Metz. Inspired by the artist’s studio-apartment, located at 12 rue Cortot in Paris and now home to the Montmartre museum, the exhibition traces the career of this extraordinary personality. A painter of reality, she goes against the current of the cubist and abstract tendencies of her time. His representation of bodies, far from the tradition of the languid nude and his way of approaching the models, without ever looking for “the lovable or the pretty”, earned him a reputation as a precociously feminist artist. More than 200 of his works, including the personal collection of Edgar Degas, paint a counterpoint portrait of this resolutely modern figure of Montmartre bohemianism.
“Suzanne Valadon. A world of one’s own”, Center Pompidou-Metz, until September 11.
Gardens, witnesses of our changing climate
At the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, the International Garden Festival calls its 2023 session “Resilient Garden”. 24 teams of designers take up an ambitious challenge: to respond to the problems of global warming through the art of landscaping. Provided with a defined and limited plot, freedom and aesthetics make imagination rhyme with innovation, degradation with acclimatization: green card is given to them to arrange and exceed the excesses of the human. The artists are inspired by the constraints of our time to bring out solutions, making their creation a compendium of hope, authenticity and fantasy…
“Edition 2023. Resilient Garden”, International Garden Festival, Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, until November 5.
Monegasque printing
What could be better than Monaco’s Grimaldi Forum, an impressive structure of glass and steel facing the sea, to host one of the greatest monographs of Claude Monet, the emblematic painter of light? With the support of the Marmottan museum in Paris, the exhibition explores the artist’s stays on the Riviera, which began in 1883, shortly after his installation in Giverny. These coastal landscapes, bathed in water and sunshine, from Monte-Carlo to Antibes, inspire him. He captures the unique gleams and reflections of the Mediterranean. The course, both chronological and thematic, allows the visitor to discover a hundred paintings which reveal the importance of the pictorial moment in the painter’s work, even more than the motif.
“Monet in full light”, Grimaldi Forum Monaco, from July 8 to September 3.