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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2010 14:19:20 GMT
Okay, anybody who has been paying attention is probably aware the Nuit Blanche season is upon us around the world, and last night was the date of the 9th annual Nuit Blanche in Paris. I have not yet seen figures for participation this year, but last year they calculated one and a half million, and it looked to me like there were just as many people everywhere. The night was unseasonally warm (too warm!), and there was no rain, probably because I was carrying my umbrella. Kick off time was 19:00 and I came out of a movie at 19:15, just as light was beginning to bleed from the sky. And thus I hopped on the metro to emerge at Belleville, one of the three centers for this year. This truck is full of the free programs that are distributed everywhere. Just a few steps from the metro was one of the first "installations" in the windows of an elementary school. A Swiss-American team was responsible for these inflated tubes entitled "Comfort #4". www.langbaumann.com/Just up the street was the Zèbre de Belleville, the location of another event. It is a very interesting place, even when there is not a special event. Twenty years ago, it was a last run completely dilapidated neighborhood cinema. Video of course put it out of business, and the building was abandoned. But some artistic squatters took over the building and began to host events there (in total violation of all safety codes). The building was scheduled for demolition, but neighborhood support helped the squatters to protect the place from the authorities. They were prevented from allowing the public inside, and a long series of court cases began. As often turned out to be the case in the end, it was the new municipal administration that came to power in 2001 that put culture as a priority rather than real estate interests, and the Zèbre was saved, renovated and is thriving. Its old fashioned charm has been lovingly preserved and going inside takes you back to the 1920's. Anyway, this was a very simple but very popular interactive installation consisting of one video camera and one movie screen. Anybody who wanted to could sit in front of the camera for a few moments and display themselves to the world. One thing that I liked a lot was that it attracted a lot of the local immigrant workers of the neighborhood, who were so thrilled to exist for the first time in their life. Leaving the Zèbre, I climbed up to the Parc de Belleville to see "Mon Repos aux Tuileries" (called that because its first intallation was in the Tuileries in 2007). www.claudeleveque.comIt apparently shows how an old delivery van would like to imagine its retirement days. Along the various streets, there were some isolated installations posted at random, for example on the very first street where I lived when I arrived in Paris. I lived in a 7th floor walk-up residential hotel for my first two months and actually had a metal basin and the traditional metal pitcher for my washing needs. (Water was available from a faucet next to the Turkish toilet in the stairwell.) No heat, and I arrived at the beginning of a very cold spring. I often went to bed at 8pm and huddled under the blankets fully clothed. Ah, the romance of Paris, and I paid 280 francs a month for this -- with maid service. Oh jeez, I am going off topic. Sorry! Anyway, this was in rue Jouye-Rouve, right next door to that delightful place were I spent my first two months as a Parisian. (to be continued) |
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 3, 2010 14:33:57 GMT
Oh boy oh boy oh boy! This looks like it may be even better than last year, if that's possible. Thanks so much for throwing yourself into the fray again ~~ this is a fabulous event, and you present it brilliantly. Loved all the pictures and commentary, but this really, really moved me: Anyway, this was a very simple but very popular interactive installation consisting of one video camera and one movie screen. Anybody who wanted to could sit in front of the camera for a few moments and display themselves to the world. One thing that I liked a lot was that it attracted a lot of the local immigrant workers of the neighborhood, who were so thrilled to exist for the first time in their life. |
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Post by tod2 on Oct 3, 2010 15:15:42 GMT
Wonderful Kerouac! I am hoping to be in Paris maybe next Nuit Blanche and hope to see a lot more than I did 5 years ago. We had a GTG and after dinner went looking for the 'action'. Well, all we saw was the domed roof of the Grand Palais all lit up in different colours. The line for the cheap Batobus trip (5euros) was a mile long and we called it a day/night.
Your photos and insight tell me it is better to choose one specific place/area in Paris than running here, there and everywhere.
Looking forward to more...lots more.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2010 15:40:40 GMT
Believe me, it was difficult to walk around Belleville at this time of the evening -- dinner time! I could smell the roasted ducks in the Chinese restaurants, the aroma of pho, some fabulous couscous places with steam of the stewed vegetables wafting out of the kitchen windows, the grilled meats of the kosher places... I had to refrain from going shopping for Egyptian groceries at this famous place. I was getting thirsty, too, and wouldn't have minded stopping in for some rapid culture. But I was on a mission, so I continued on, although I did pause to admire once again this great wall decoration by Ben, including two statues.  Beware of words.Back at the bottom of the hill, I saw that the school tubes had taken on a more pleasant, softer glow in the dark. I jumped on to the metro for a couple of stations, to see what was going on at Oberkampf. The "Maison des Metallos" -- the headquarters of the metal workers union -- is a splendid venue at any time, but tonight it was glowing.   There were experimental art films playing in the theatre and two big function rooms. In the main "salle noire," Ulla von Brandenburg was presenting Singspiel, an extremely stylized bit of weirdness. I am always captivated such things, which one has no need to understand, but just to be transported by hypnotic images about which you can imagine your own story. I needed to sprawl some on the floor anyway, since I was overheated from all of the other walking around. I watched the screen, I watched the kids running around, I watched the couples making out in the dark, and I even enjoyed watching the reflections from the screen on the shiny floor. And then I got up and walked into the next room to see "Kaleidoscope," which had ever changing mandalas on the screen, different colors, different sizes, different speeds. This was by a Chinese artist. And I went to the next room to watch quite a bit of the fascinating Brazilian Cidade Submersa. It documents the gradual submersion of the city of Remenso in 1978 due to the construction of a dam, and the visit of a former fisherman from there in 2010. An old water tower emerges from the lake, and many of the old buildings are lurking just under the surface. The fisherman wanders into the water, deeper, deeper, deeper in his own fantasy submersion. I regretted not staying longer, but other parts of the Nuit Blanche awaited me. The Maison des Metallos had a great bar in a great space, though. I left the place with a brave face and returned to the street. (to be continued) |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2010 16:52:49 GMT
I went back to Boulevard de Belleville, which was the backbone of the "East" section of the Nuit Blanche this year. Time to go to the other end near Colonel Fabien metro, so I grabbed a bicycle and pedaled my merry way. There are excellent protected bike lanes on both sides of the boulevard, and it is a joy to ride a bike along there, even though I had to drrring drrring quite a bit due to the crowds. After going about ten blocks, I saw the wall of Père Lachaise cemetery alongside, which caused me to go "Shit! I am going the wrong direction!" In my defense, I had been really concentrating on the pavement and its possible holes or broken bottles -- and my headlamp was not working -- or I would have noticed earlier. I just turned around and went back. Now the only problem with a Vélib as transportation on a night like this is 1) full stations and 2) not knowing where the stations are. Naturally, I couldn't find a station to return the bike when I arrived, but by going up a side street I actually lucked out and found a perfect station at the far end of rue Sainte Marthe, which was my destination in the first place! This was an installation of 20 different neon signs in 20 different languages to remind us that we are " Foreigners Everywhere." Back on the boulevard (now called Boulevard de la Villette but still the same street as Boulevard de Belleville), it was time to get in line to enter the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris-Belleville. I was particularly interested to see the inside, because I had only known the building in ruins as the former Lycée Diderot. It was an artists squat until 2001. The original façade is still there, but the interior was completely demolished and rebuilt, with impressive results. The main event was the film Gunkanjima, about which Ilbonito made a truly remarkable report last March. It was being shown in the main lecture hall to stunned silence. I noted that many of the people in lecture hall were Japanese expats. In spite of all of the details that we learned from Ilbonito, I learned a few new things, of course. For example, the neighborhoods and friendships were all horizontal rather than vertical. Since all of the buildings were interconnected, people asociated with people on the same level as theirs rather than people in the same building. Another item of interest was that in the early years, all of the fresh water was obtained through desalinization, with the obvious byproduct of salt. The island actually earned more money from the sale of salt than from the sale of coal. Anyway -- another incredible hypnotic movie, with long shots of the crumbling ruins and the vegetation trying to take over the island. There were a couple of other things on display in the building, but nothing could hold a candle to Gunkanjima. (to be continued) |
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Post by fumobici on Oct 3, 2010 18:32:08 GMT
Wow. Belleville hardly needs une Nuit Blanche to be intriguing but this is strong stuff. I love how the city celebrates not only the sort of bland art that usually accompanies civic involvement in art but a little of the subversive/flaky/political ethos that art culture travels with. Probably only great cities and towns possess the self confidence to embrace art as it is rather than in the safe Disneyesque pasteurized version.
This is great, I hope there will be more.
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Post by mich64 on Oct 3, 2010 19:05:12 GMT
Kerouac, my gosh, thank you.
The visuals and narratives of your experience of Nuit Blanche 2010 gives me the feeling of really being there. I enjoyed your photos of 2009 but like you said, having a new camera for this year's event should be better, absolutely.
Thank you for including ilbonito's post on Hashima/Gunkanjima otherwise I would not have understood the history of what the film represents. His post was extremely enlightening.
The idea of horizontal living was more easily understood once I seen the pictures.
I felt sadness for the Japanese ex pats who you were among the stunned silent viewers of the film. "When I saw that place, with that wall, in the middle of the sea, I lost all hope. There was no escape." (Korean salve) It astounds me what we can do to one another.
The mesh of balloons was also beautiful.
In anticipation of more....
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2010 19:42:58 GMT
Leaving the architecture school, I happened upon one of the mobile events. A many decibeled truck was slowly driving up Boulevard de Belleville with a band playing African percussions and a load of people being covered by African t-shirts. I'm not going to look it up tonight, but I'm certain that there must be some sort of explanation. I wasn't far from the Belleville metro station, so I returned there, knowing that I could take line 11 straight to Hôtel de Ville. Last year I had learned that it was wise to avoid the events in the center of the city due to the crowds, but I couldn't help myself. So a few minutes later, I popped back out of the metro into a total mob scene. Why such a crowd? Well, to see the new decoration of city hall, of course! In the twenty languages most frequently spoken in Paris, we were advised to love our differences. (to be continued) |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2010 18:26:11 GMT
I knew it would be a mistake to go to Ile de la Cité, but it was right next door, so I crossed the bridge where pedestrians no longer paid any heed to possible vehicles. I knew that one of the artistic events of Notre Dame was quite simply to leave it in the dark, just like 900 years ago, or 700 years ago, or 500 years ago, etc. All of the streetlights were extinguished, and just one light was on -- the central rose window was illuminated from the inside. There was a huge queue waiting to get in to see the interior "luminous creations" of Thierry Dreyfus, the same person who lit the Grand Palais from the inside five years ago. www.atelierthierrydreyfus.frHowever, I had been inside Notre Dame last year to see the luminous plastic crystals and did not want to wait in line again. I would have been more interested in seeing the installation in the Hôtel Dieu hospital next door to see the lucioles (fireflies) in the inner courtyard -- thousands of lights in the trees and the sky, powered by solar energy saved during the day. There was a sign to indicate the 30-minute mark in the queue, and the existing queue went 3x farther than that point. No thank you. I will look at lights in the trees at Christmas. Back to the metro. Should I go home or go to the "Ouest" section? What the hell! It's once a year, so I decided to take the metro to Trocadéro. I made a mistake, though. I really wanted to see the "performance" in the Saint Martin metro station. The station closed in 1939, but there were people on the platform to spell out word anagrams of "Saint Martin" as the metro trains rolled by (anagrams like "trains") with webbed bat wing arms in variable positions. But my direct path to Trocadéro was one station after Saint Martin, which my addled brain did not realize until it was too late. (News flash: they are continuing the performance tonight and tomorrow night between 19:00 and 23:00 so maybe I will drag myself out to see it tomorrow!) So, anyway, I arrived at Trocadéro to see "Apolitico," by the Cuban artist Wilfredo Prieto. www.wilfredo-prieto.comIt consisted of all of the flags of the world, drained of their colors. The meaty sponsors (charcutiers) were present with their items for sale. Frankly, most of the Eiffel Tower tourists did not seem to have any idea that anything exceptional was happening and they were only interested in the African vendors selling their Eiffel Tower trinkets. (to be continued) |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2010 21:25:34 GMT
I had pretty much finished my evening, but I decided to trudge along to the nearby Palais de Tokyo to see what was there. Meanwhile, I noted that in the "nice part of town," LCD animated screens had been placed to indicate the points of interest. I guess Belleville was not worthy of such things. I was glad to have selected the easily accessible Palais de Tokyo rather than the Musée Guimet across the street with its long line stretching down the block. As for the Palais de Tokyo, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be seeing there, but it was fun to wander around inside at midnight. The Eiffel Tower began to twinkle to tell me that I was about to turn into a pumpkin. I continued along to Place de l'Alma to see my last item of the night. RESPUBLICA, Latin for "the public thing." I had indeed seen the public thing tonight, but it would go on without me until 7 a.m. I was home by 1 a.m. And I had a great time. |
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Post by lola on Oct 4, 2010 22:13:42 GMT
Wonderful, Kerouac. Thanks so much for this report.
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on Oct 4, 2010 23:13:01 GMT
It's a sorry excuse but I was feeling too tired to go out and see the sights on Saturday. Now I wish I hadn't been such a couch potato. Great pix as usual. I'm not good at getting people photos like you, kerouac. Of course, since there are no people in the places I write trip reports about I don't have much practice. Also, for an event like this, my camera is a cheapo and doesn't take good night photos at all.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 5, 2010 2:52:36 GMT
This is so great, Kerouac. Really, I enjoyed your way of telling about it as much as I enjoyed the pictures.
What is so wonderful about this event is that it is ephemeral. Installations such as "foreigners everywhere" have more impact because once past the dazzle of seeing them, the message is burned into the brain to remain fresh there.
Palais de Tokyo ~~ modern things that have already become artifacts? And maybe the makers of the movie Garden City put up the hamster tube?
Lots of wonderful, even stunning stuff, but my favorite from looking at this thread has got to be "Apolitico".
I hope you recovered enough to return tonight to see the San Martin part you missed.
Thanks for the ride!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2010 13:37:38 GMT
Thanks, Bixa, tod2, mich64, lola, FMT! This might be my last photo report about the Nuit Blanche, because I really did not want to rip myself away from some of these places so quickly. Next year I would like to just go and enjoy things without a camera.
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Post by lola on Oct 5, 2010 15:20:06 GMT
Yes, do relax and enjoy the next ones, Kerouac, but we really appreciate these.
The Notre Dame rose window makes a moving photo, if I may make such an old school remark. So much public creativity: impressive and exciting.
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Post by bjd on Oct 5, 2010 15:41:56 GMT
It looks like fun, Kerouac. I have never been there for the Nuits Blanches. Will try to make it some time. Meanwhile, I'll look at your pics!
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