Posts Tagged ‘Paris’
Paris: Chinese New Year
Trust the dragon to hog the limelight
FOR the second weekend running, Chinese Parisians welcomed in the Year of the Tiger, and in roaring style.
This week it was the turn of the 13th arrondissement. Now, I bet you thought the streets around avenue de Choisy were home to the largest of the city’s Chinese populations, didn’t you? (I did). Well, we’re wrong: many more live over in Belleville.
That said, the 13th is more visibly Asian, and very commercial, which still makes it one of the best places to head if you have a hankering for pork dumplings or a yen (yuan?) for saucy shot glasses. (By the way, if anyone knows why said shot glasses are a tradition in Chinese restaurants in Paris, but not around London’s Gerrard Street, please let us in on the secret…)
Anyway, it was a slate-grey Parisian day, but the vibe was lively. Just add firecrackers, cymbals and goodwill. Happy New Year 4078!
Walls that talk
I’m back. It’s been a while… Here’s a whisk around some of the street art clocked on Paris walls and buildings.
Old Masters get the Rancinan treatment
METAMORPHOSES, natures mortes et conversations opened this week for a whistle-stop show at the Palais de Tokyo, in Paris’ 16th arrondissement. If you’re a fan of David LaChapelle‘s larger-than-life still-lives (see my earlier post), don’t miss.
The event is a collaboration between French photographer, Gérard Rancinan and writer, Caroline Gaudriault.
Pietà on the runway
Caravaggio's The Entombment of Christ
Even if you don’t know them from Adam and Eve, you won’t be slow to clock their inspiration.Rancinan’s ironic mise-en-scenes take an backward glance at the works of Da Vinci, Caravaggio, Delacroix, Matisse and others.
The references, however, are pure 21st century.
Take The Last Supper, transmogrified into The Big Supper (below, detail). (Rancinan and his team crossed the Pond for his cast of size XXXL disciples…)
Eat up, you're at Uncle Sam's....
Meanwhile, in Las Meninas, Rancinan’s homage Velasquez, a grotesque troupe of tattooed and latex-clad handmaidens wait on a primped and lurid Marilyn. Er, eternal youth, anyone?
You’ll need to be quick to catch the exhibition. Metamorphoses is in Paris until 6 December 2009 – but is expected then to make NY and London appearances.
Below: Rancinan’s Raft (after Géricault’s masterpiece). See it being made here.
Apple’s new Paris flagship
WHAT’S not to love about the new Apple store, which opened last weekend in the Carrousel du Louvre?
If you’re a habitué of the NY or London stores, you may wonder what all the hype is about. Then again, the store’s cloud grey embrace should also make you feel at home… along with the racks of yummy pods, and an army of T-shirted staff primed to escort you with a can-do smile through every stage of your Macxperience.
Well, almost. Because, when it comes to the crunch, the Paris store hasn’t got quite got a handle on the service end of things yet.
The store assistants’ T-shirts tell me I’m going to be knocked out (“Vous allez être emballé”). But, actually, I’m not. Partly because it turns out to be quite hard to detach one of them from their self-absorbed huddles, and get them t to do some assisting. And also because, when it comes to paying for my purchase, the on-the-spot credit swipe system has developed a malfunction, so it’s back to the time-honoured French model…. you know, the one where you wait in a long and wooly queue, looking on as other johnny-come-latelys get served before you.
Just teething problems, no doubt.
Now the countdown starts for the real Paris flagship store. Almost twice the size of Apple Carrousel du Louvre, it’s due to open 2010, close to the Galeries Lafayette and Printemps.
