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theatre | «Ma nuit chez Dante» in collaboration with Denis Lavant among others at Opera Garnier

My Night at Dante's is a hybrid show designed as an echo of the opera Il Viaggio Dante. It offers the spectator a journey through the spaces of the Palais Garnier under the aegis of the Divine Comedy, with each performance constituting, one after the other, a stage.

Following in the footsteps of the “diseurs en rime” who popularized the Comédie in his day, French actor Denis Lavant will pay tribute to Dante's text with a “poetic haste”, accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Bruno Ducret.

Soprano Raquel Camarinha and pianist Yoan Héreau will then perform La Natura del Mondo, a piece by Pascal Dusapin based on an extract from Paradise, as a prelude to his opera Il Viaggio Dante.

On the opening verses of Inferno, electro duo You Man will close Ma nuit chez Dante with Tutti va bene, their EP released in 2019.

As ‘Ma nuit chez Dante’ unfolds, saxophonist Laurent Bardainne and pianist Eve Risser will serve as guides to the sound of Albert Ayler's Angels.

Duration: 3h45 with 2 intervals

Palais Garnier

22 March 2025, 9 pm

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fashion | exhibition Azzedine Alaïa, Thierry Mugler : 1980 - 1990 Two decades of artistic affinities

“We have been very influenced by each other.”Thierry Mugler

Established in Paris in 1956, Azzedine Alaïa owes his training more to his female friends and customers than to any training school. He accompanies them in their desire for a demanding yet discreet wardrobe. A great couturier who has lost none of the closeness that a fitting or cutting session imposes, Azzedine has acquired the reputation of a great cutter heir to an academic tradition that places him in the direct line of Cristóbal Balenciaga or Madeleine Vionnet.

His expertise and technical virtuosity are coveted not only by the elegant women of the moment. Couturiers and fashion designers know they can count on him to refine certain complex designs or lend a hand on a collection that needs finishing. This was the case for Yves Saint Laurent. It was also the case with Thierry Mugler, whom Alaïa met in 1979 and with whom he forged a real friendship.

For his autumn-winter 1979-80 collection, Mugler invited Alaïa to design the series of tuxedos for his fashion show, and in the press kit that accompanied the presentation of his creations that season, he thanked him publicly. In the hands of the man who never wanted to transgress the laws of cut, powder-grain and satin trouser suits acquired a form of notability and fluidity that was much appreciated. This collaboration encouraged Alaïa to become a designer himself. Thierry Mugler strongly encouraged him, and his support proved both vital and unfailing. On Rue de Bellechasse, where Azzedine has set up his workshops, Mugler, always flanked by his bicycle, brings in the top fashion journalists. In 1982, at the request of the American department store Bergdorf Goodman, Alaïa presented a show in New York. It was Mugler who persuaded him to do so, Alaïa imagining that the invitation was a joke! The designer, friend and admirer, accompanied him, organized and built the show himself, answered and translated interviews, and supported his comrade in the smallest tasks, for which he was eternally grateful. In the summer, they spend their vacations together in Tunisia at the home of lifelong friend Latifa and Leila Menchari.

Companions for a decade that they preempted stylistically, Alaïa and Mugler freely let their influences influence each other's creations. In the 1980s, both divinized the woman, proclaiming the return of glamour in glory and Hollywood as their inspiration, a world away from the folkloric fashions of the 1970s. They shared a common silhouette where majestic shoulders contrasted with choked waists and blossoming hips, memories and fantasies of the fashions of the 1930s and 1950s and the couturiers Adrian, Jacques Fath, Christian Dior and Cristóbal Balenciaga in the lead.

It's striking to see the extent to which Alaïa's creations have borrowed the charisma of the silhouettes Mugler used to claw his way through hundreds of shows, while the former concentrated on just a few.

United by “mutual love at first sight”, Mugler always showed the young couturier a preview of his collections. He even agreed that Zuleika, his lifelong muse, and Mirabelle, his no less regular collaborator, would marry into the Alaïa family and company, which he firmly supported in its development.

Contemporaries, friends, both deceased within six years of each other, the two designers showed deep respect for each other's careers throughout their lives. Their daywear and eveningwear echoed each other, dictating a four-handed fashion style that was the hallmark of contemporary fashions.

Azzedine Alaïa, the couturier and collector behind a vast and renowned fashion heritage, has preserved over 200 Thierry Mugler-branded creations, some 40 of which are exhibited here in dialogue with his own archives.

Curated by Olivier Saillard

03.02.2025 - 06.29.2025

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art | Asian Grand Tour at Christine

At Christine Cinema Club, new screenings will take visitors on an Asian Grand Tour with no less than thirty-nine films! Embark on a cinematic journey across Asia, from Shanghai to Tokyo, from Manila to Bangkok, from Seoul to Taipei.

“We will travel this continent in the company of Chinese stars like Yuan Muzhi (ANGELS ON THE BOULEVARD, 35mm) or Bruce Lee (THE DRAGON'S FURY), Japanese masters Akira Kurosawa (RASHÔMON, THE SEVEN SAMURAI), Kenji Mizoguchi (TALES OF THE MOON, WAVE AFTER THE RAIN, STREET OF SHAME), Yasujirô Ozu (LATE SPRING, TOKYO JOURNEY, THE TASTE OF SAKÉ) or Hayao Miyazaki (SPIRITED AWAY), new icons of Korean cinema like Park Chan-wook (OLD BOY, MADEMOISELLE) and Bong Joon-ho (MEMORIES OF MURDER, THE HOST) but also more solitary dreamers like the Taiwanese Hou Hsiao-hsien (MILLENNIUM MAMBO) and the Thai Apichatpong Weerasethakul (BLISSFULLY YOURS, 35mm).”

Cycle Asia Tour: Journey to the heart of Asian cinema

From February 26 to March 25

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culture | Art Basel announces its first annual Awards, powering cutting-edge creation, exhibition, patronage, and research

The first of their kind in the industry, the Art Basel Awards celebrate boundary-pushing artists, curators, museums, patrons, cross-disciplinary creators, media, and the behind-the-scenes heroes driving the future evolution of contemporary art.

Art Basel is delighted to reveal the International Jury of the Awards: Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi, President and Director, Sharjah Art Foundation; Elena Filipovic, Director, Kunstmuseum Basel; Koyo Kouoh, Executive Director and Chief Curator, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, and Curator, 61st International Art Exhibition (2026), La Biennale di Venezia; Jessica Morgan, Nathalie de Gunzberg Director, Dia Art Foundation, New York; Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine, London;

Amplifying connections between contemporary art and global culture, the Art Basel Awards are presented by renowned fashion brand BOSS, extending HUGO BOSS Group's longstanding tradition of art endorsement and commitment to inspiring dialog at the intersection of fashion and art.

timeline :

May 2025: Medalists of the 2025 Art Basel Awards announced

June 2025: Premier reception honoring Medalists and thought leadership program headlined by the awardees during Art Basel in Basel

December 2025: Gold Medalists named at the official night of the Art Basel Awards during Art Basel Miami Beach

photo credit : Art Basel press office

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cinema, art | Eva Ionesco presenting her new book « Grand Amour » at Librairie Gallimard

About.

When Eva has just turned thirteen, a juvenile judge decides to remove custody from Irène - an abusive photographer mother. The young girl then switches between two worlds. That of the DDASS centers, where she shares her daily life as a prisoner with other abandoned teenagers. And that of Paris in the 1980s, where, with an inseparable gang, she plunges into partying and adventure, drugs and violence.

In the chaos of her existence appears Charles, the encounter she is waiting for, who becomes her anchor. Together, they share a passionate love, carried by poetry, of an unprecedented tenderness, in the streets of Pigalle or Sentier.

Eva lonesco brings back to life from the depths of her memory this founding and saving story. With a style of rare sensitivity, which knows how to capture, like a camera nocturnal scenes, joyful, anguished, tragic, emancipatory, Grand Amour here captures the end of the childhood and the truth of the youth.

March 27, 2025, 7:00 p.m.

Librairie Gallimard

15, boulevard Raspail, 75007

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cinema | Christophe Honoré. Des fantômes et des arts : conversation at 7L

7L library, founded by iconic Karl Lagerfeld hosting a book signing and conversation “Christophe Honoré. Des fantômes et des arts”, published by Gallimard, in presence of Christophe Honoré, Xavier Lardoux and Laure Adler.

In cinema, theater, opera and literature, Christophe Honoré has discreetly become one of the most prolific artists of his generation, and has built a body of work of rare eclecticism. First considered as a writer making films, he transformed, over the years, into a filmmaker directing plays and operas, to be today a filmmaker, director and writer at the same time. Whatever form he favors, he always succeeds in questioning, with gentleness, humor and grace, our childhoods, our families, our loves and those who have passed away.

This book, richly illustrated by his works, his archives and working documents, brings together a long-term interview with Christophe Honoré, and unpublished texts from around twenty personalities who work alongside him, in different artistic fields (cinema, literature, opera and theater), including Alex Beaupain, Catherine Deneuve, Marina Foïs, Louis Garrel, Vincent Lacoste, Laurent Lafitte, Chiara Mastroianni and Serge Toubiana.

Edited by Andrei Semenski

photo credits : Gallimard

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architecture | Biennale Architectura 2025: INTELLIGENS. NATURAL. ARTIFICIAL. COLLECTIVE.

Long awaited architectural edition of Venice Biennale will open the doors to the public from Saturday 10 May to Sunday 23 November 2025 (pre-opening May 8 and 9), curated by the architect and engineer Carlo Ratti, quote : “To face a burning world, architecture must harness all the intelligence around us. I am honored and humbled to have the opportunity to curate the Biennale Architettura 2025”.

An architect and engineer by training, Carlo Ratti completed his PhD thesis as a Fulbright Scholar at MIT and now teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and at the Politecnico di Milano. He is the director of the Senseable City Lab and a founding partner of the architecture and innovation office CRA - Carlo Ratti Associati (Torino, New York City, and London).

the awards ceremony and inauguration will be held on Saturday May 10, 2025.

Here below some key quotes from the curators:

«Architecture has always been a response to a hostile climate. From the earliest "primitive hut," human design has been led by the need for shelter and survival, driven by optimism: our creations have always strived to bridge the gap between a harsh environment and the safe, livable spaces we require.» Carlo Ratti stated.

«Today, that dynamic approach is being taken to a new level - as climate becomes less forgiving. In the fires of Los Angeles, in the floods of Valencia and Sherpur, in the droughts of Sicily, we have witnessed first-hand how water and fire are attacking us with unprecedented ferocity. The year 2024 marked a grim milestone as Earth registered its hottest temperatures on record, pushing global averages beyond the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C target. In just two years, climate change has accelerated in ways that defy even the best scientific models.»

«For decades, architecture’s response to the climate crisis has been centered on mitigation—designing to reduce our impact on the climate. But that approach is no longer enough. The time has come for architecture to embrace adaptation: rethinking how we design for an altered world.»

«Adaptation demands a fundamental shift in our practice. This year’s Exhibition Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. invites different types of intelligence to work together to rethink the built environment. The very Latin title Intelligens contains the word gens (“people”) - inviting us to experiment beyond today’s limited focus on AI and digital technologies.»

«In the time of adaptation, architecture is at the center and must lead with optimism. In the time of adaptation, architecture needs to draw on all forms of intelligence – natural, artificial, collective. In the time of adaptation, architecture needs to reach out across generations and across disciplines - from the hard sciences to the arts. In the time of adaptation, architecture must rethink authorship and become more inclusive, learning from science.»

«Architecture must become as flexible and dynamic as the world we are now designing for».

edited by Andrei Semenski

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cinema | Sergei Parajanov screenings at Dover Street Market Paris

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fashion | MIU SHADOW première

Retro-inspired oversized shapes define the bold and refined design of the Miu Ombre sunglasses seen on the catwalk and now available to preview online.

Acetate sunglasses with a sophisticated oval shape. The acetate frame has thin rims and ultra-flat lenses that highlight the extreme lightness.

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architecture | Pavilion of Finland’s exhibition explores architecture as a collaborative endeavour.

Titled The Pavilion – Architecture of Stewardship, the exhibition conceived by curators Ella Kaira and Matti Jänkälä will focus on the diverse labour involved in constructing and maintaining architecture – from design contributions by architectural workers and engineers to the efforts of construction workers, restoration architects, maintenance staff and cleaners, all of whom play vital roles in the creation and upkeep of the built environment.

 

Curators Ella Kaira and Matti Jänkälä will use the iconic architecture of Alvar and Elissa Aalto’s Pavilion of Finland to explore architecture as a collaborative endeavour at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.

The Pavilion, built in Venice’s Giardini della Biennale Park in 1956, is one of only two buildings the legendary modernist Alvar Aalto and his office designed in Italy – and the only one completed during his lifetime. The building carries a mythos that has undoubtedly bolstered its preservation but also obscures the many contributors to its ongoing existence. The Pavilion – Architecture of Stewardship aspires to make the invisible visible by bringing the ongoing work on the Pavilion out of the shadow of Aalto’s legacy.

 

Pavilion of Finland’s response to the theme Intelligens

The exhibition, commissioned by Archinfo, the Information Centre for Finnish Architecture, will challenge us to rethink our relationship with the built environment and the labour that goes into its creation and maintenance by revealing the ongoing process of creation involved in preserving the Pavilion.

“The Pavilion of Finland in the Giardini della Biennale has been celebrated internationally as one of the masterpieces of Finland’s greatest architect, but this perspective has shifted in recent years. Over a period shorter than many people’s careers, scholarship has developed its recognition of the significant contribution made by Aalto’s wives, Aino and Elissa, to his corpus of work. It is no longer accepted that he was a lone genius, creating in isolation,” says Katarina Siltavuori, Director of Archinfo and Commissioner of the Pavilion of Finland.

“Kaira and Jänkälä’s exhibition aims to further re-examine the process of authorship by broadening its enquiry to the myriad workers involved in the design, construction and maintenance of the built environment. As the 19th International Architecture Exhibition asks us to consider the nature of Intelligens, the Pavilion of Finland’s investigation takes on a new significance: challenging widely-held assumptions about the nature of creativity and intelligence – and revealing a broad and nuanced understanding that celebrates the work of individuals as part of collaborative systems,” Siltavuori concludes.

 

Stewardship and authorship

The Pavilion – Architecture of Stewardship delves into the labour required to ensure the longevity of architecture, exploring who shoulders this responsibility and why it matters.

Edited / Andrei Semenski

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art | Dirk Van Saene highlights at “Paris Internationale” art fair

The art world has always been rather suspicious of any form that is purely visual, a form where beauty or emotion prevails. These forms are often labeled as ‘design’ or ‘decoration,’ but Van Saene’s work moves beyond such categorizations. His sculptures focus on conveying emotions, often depicting the human body not in a direct context, but as abstract notions of the human figure. The emotions they represent are as vital as their visual form. His sculptures are the stage-managers of their own story. Not only with regard to their material, colours and shapes but also in the historic value that they carry and that he assigns to them.

His work is in the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (NL), MoMU - Fashion Musuem Antwerp (BE) and the AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam (NL).

Dirk Van Saene is represented by Gallery Sofie Van de Velde.

photo credits / edited : Andrei Semenski

Instagram: @smnskph

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cinéma | DAVID CRONENBERG retrospective at Cinemateque Française ( 20 January - 7 February)

From his beginnings, he impressed with grueling films where the flesh, grafted, contaminated, mutilated, represents contemporary fears. But the habit of master of horror is too narrow: celebrated by critics with Faux-semblants, Cronenberg moves from neighborhood theaters to the biggest festivals in the world, and strings together a series of labyrinthine masterpieces where his obsessions unfold – sexuality, psychoanalysis, violence and technological mutations. A look back in his presence over 55 years of career, on the occasion of his latest release, selected at Cannes 2024

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dance | Festival d'Automne and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker world premiere in Paris.

As part of a special invitation by the Festival d'Automne, choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and director Rabih Mroué shared, over the course of ten months, their thoughts, concerns, doubts, and questions regarding politics, art and life. After numerous exchanges by videoconference, the two artists now come together on the site of the former industrial complex, the new home of the Fiminco Foundation.

A little bit of the moon is an attempt to establish an alternative space between two persons; each belongs to a different medium; trying to find situations in which two threads can form a knot lies on the demarcation line between dance and theatre, where neither medium has the will or even the desire to impose itself on the other. This collaboration revolves around the struggle to find a common territory for sharing, partnership and dialogue in a world that has become full of hatred, revenge and a desperate fight for power. It is an encounter about the meaning of friendship in a world that becomes terrifying to the point of death. Between their ephemeral past(s) and the desperate future, the work will be in the present time, wrapped with short stories, music and poetry and a little bit of dance and theatre.

16-20 dec., world premiere. Festival d'Automne

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fashion | January Sotheby’s auction of private Karl Lagerfeld’s archives

Karl Lagerfeld has fascinated for more than half a century. A key figure in the luxury goods industry that he helped to build and ceaselessly internationalised, he turned his name and his look into a brand.

In the third installment of the Karl Lagerfeld sale series, Sotheby’s is paying tribute to this genius of a designer with the sale of Karl Lagerfeld’s personal belongings from his various residences, presenting an anthology of his personal taste but also of his life and career. The Cologne sale represents his image, multiple and surprising, telling the story of the couturier, the collector, the decorator and the photographer.

An insatiable collector, Karl Lagerfeld created bold interiors throughout his life. He opted for the colourful and playful Italian design of the Memphis group whose humour he had fallen in love with in the 1980s. He then turned to the French decorative arts of the 18th century, which he considered an ideal of elegance and refinement. In the early 1970’s, he was equally passionate about Art Deco, which he described as the roots of “this modernity that I am tirelessly searching for”.

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fashion | Martin Margiela : the early years, 1988-94

Maurice Auction, in partnership with British fashion expert Kerry Taylor, is organizing an exceptional sale in Paris on Monday, January 27, 2025, exclusively dedicated to Martin Margiela. With 276 lots dating from 1988 to 1994, this sale is the largest ever organized around the designer.

All the lots belong to sisters Angela and Elena Picozzi, who have collected them over the decades, inspired by their mother Graziella Picozzi, a key figure in the Italian fashion industry. This collection is a rare testimony to Martin Margiela’s early creations in the late 1980s, supported at the time by Graziella Picozzi, who had perceived the magnitude of his then unrecognized talent.

The Picozzi sisters’ archives are unique in their composition, including many pieces that have never been worn and, in some cases, are still in their original packaging. Angela and Elena, passionate about the house, have often collected the garments in multiples or selected models that were never marketed at the time. Alongside

museum-worthy ensembles, there are also many more versatile garments, offering everyone the opportunity to find the ideal piece.

Live Sale - Monday, January 27, 2025

81, boulevard Voltaire, Paris 75011 France:

- Saturday, January 25 , open to public hours

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cinema | a night with Albert Serra / A Toast to St Martirià - booklaunch

As announced from After8 independent Parisian bookstore: “Hello Weirdos, please welcome weird wondrous filmaker Albert Serra for an evening with Divided’s latest publication: A Toast to St Martirià.”

The concept of fiction, that’s to say, living your life as if it were a novel, as if it were something unreal, which is nothing to do with you – you are living it but you aren’t sure exactly how… In fiction there is no difference between daytime and night-time life; wakefulness, dream, repetitive work, the intimacy of bodies, everything is mixed up together… I knew how much energy it demands and I wanted to embrace it completely.

The book is about Serra’s process as a film director, his tight conceptual frame, the small town where he is from, nighttime and chaos.

Albert Serra will be in conversation with actor/theorician/local celebrity Baptiste Pinteaux. Divided editor Camilla Wills will also join the event.

Photo credits: instagram.com/smnskph

edited by Andrei Semenski

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art | Bjork sound installation for Pompidou

Immersive sound installation by Björk and Aleph, presented in the Centre Pompidou, creates an immersive auditory experience that reflects on current environmental challenges, prompting us to rethink our connection with nature and our role in its preservation.

Photo : Björk & Aleph © Vidar Logi ( press release ).

Conceived as a post-optimistic manifesto on nature, this sound work by Björk and Aleph addresses the unprecedented damage to biodiversity and the collapse of ecosystems. The work fuses Björk’s voice, reading her manifesto, with the cries of extinct or endangered animals, harmonizing them with natural soundscapes. Envisioning a future where the resilience of biology creates new combinations in nature, the work gives voice to silent nature, transforming its silence into sound and resonating in our collective imagination. The sounds were edited and produced by Björk in collaboration with Robin Meier Wiratunga, using software from the Institute for Acoustic/Music Research and Coordination and artificial intelligence models.