Innehållsförteckning för Issue 9 från White Paper by - English

Laure Prouvost, French for her origins (Lille, France 1978), British for the artistic training she received at Goldsmiths and St. Martins and residing in Antwerp, is one of the best-known artists of her generation. Winner of the Turner Prize in 2013, and representing France at the last Venice Biennale in 2019, among other interventions, she is known throughout the art world for her sumptuous films and immersive installations in which she shows stories full of surreal humor in order to offer other fun ways to see the world. Her practice explores an expanded network of elements, including found objects, painting, sound or sculpture, all wrapped in intensely performative layers that result in immersive multisensory spaces. Summoning a familiar world, Prouvost takes a surreal approach to transform it into a fantasy…

BIENAIMÉ PARIS Anyone who has visited the salons of Versailles will have noticed the majestic boudoirs dedicated to the personal care of the nobility. Places of worship to powder their faces, mark their cheeks and cover up their maladies. From the 17th century to the present day, France has remained at the forefront of perfume and cosmetic creation. A luxury reserved for only a few until the 19th century, when fragrances became widespread as a complement to feminine toilette. Before the Industrial Revolution, products were sold by weight under generic labels, but when competition arrived on the market, as well as the need to differentiate from other houses, labeling and packaging became an art influenced by modernism and art deco. On the one hand, the bottle emerged as a symbol…

The Caron de Beaumarchais Hotel is not an ordinary hotel. To stay there is to be willing to let yourself be seduced by a sophisticated, original world, full of small details and good taste. Located in the central Quartier du Marais, the old Jewish quarter of the city of Paris, this emblematic lodging is imbued with the spirit and essence of the French poet and playwright Caron de Beaumarchais, after whom it is named. The hotel is a continuous homage to the figure of Caron Beaumarchais. Known as the author of works such as The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, he is one of the most charismatic French writers of the 18th century. Beaumarchais’ life was full of extraordinary experiences. In addition to his career as a…

He describes himself as a workaholic and one only has to take a look at his work over the last decades, or at his inspiring Instagram account (@marcoguerranyc), to ratify his self-confessed addiction to work. Marco Guerra (Chile, 1965) speaks with the composure of someone who has lived many lives, turning each answer into a lesson of profession and commitment. The photographer who learned from Warhol and Avedon, who lived through the explosion of the fashion industry in New York in the eighties and who later decided that abstraction was the most transparent way to communicate, now lives away from the madding crowd in Marrakech. There, focused full-time on continuing to swell his prestigious oeuvre and on the no less illustrious task of enjoying his ten-year-old son, he admits that…

Since it first revolutionized the fine world of leather goods more than a century and a half ago, the French firm has kept its passion for craftsmanship impeccable. Something that is still tangible today in its workshops in Asnières, where the legacy of its founder remains more alive than ever. Few names in today’s fashion scene generate as much attraction among the public as Louis Vuitton. It is a name that is synonymous with exquisite craftsmanship, the pinnacle of French luxury and more than just a brand. They are a true way of life whose reputation has been forged on the basis of a very specific and recognizable piece: the trunk. For some people, the idea of being the first to explore new territories is something that is programmed into…

“At the end of the 18th century, the pleasure of fine cuisine existed only for the trained palates of the nobility. Each lineage possessed its own cook, hired to feed their pomp and gluttony. The ostentatious banquets were a symbol of power, stages where the powdered characters, in addition to showing off their big wigs and majestic dresses, had to give their opinion on the culinary level of the house menu, strictly established by the feudal lord in coherence with his political ideals” Accompanied by an immense sense of pride, Pierre Manceron (Grégory Gadebois) has spent his entire life dedicated to cooking for the Duke of Chamfort. One day, he decides to deviate from the instructions given and slip a few délicieux among the usual dishes. The potato and truffle…

You blur your works because, being nearsighted, you have lived with that sensation. Do you think that non-vision is another form of vision? What does the feeling of nostalgia bring us? Blurring my work reminds me of not having very good eyesight when I was younger; this meant I would use my imagination to fill in the details of people’s faces. Due to not being able to make out a person’s features I would rely more on their manner or voice to form an idea of what they looked like. This relates to how I paint as I don’t want details to overpower the feelings I’m trying to convey in a piece. Oil painting intrinsically has an abstract quality to it and can transport you to different places in your…

How did you two meet and why decide to open a gallery specialized in Design? We met about 30 years ago. Didier at the time was working for his family business in sportswear, and I was working for the Organisation Committee of the Albertville Olympic Games. Didier had a passion for French and Italian mid-century design, and we began wanting to work with living designers, to promote contemporary creation. We opened a design agency where we began collaborating with a number of the designers we still work with today, and at some point, we decided to expand the nature of the projects we worked on. We wanted to create a space where the designers could create totally freely, without constraints. This was in 1999, when the gallery was born. As…

In the early 1980s, Yves Saint Laurent became the first fashion designer to star in a major retrospective at a museum: the Metropolitan in New York. Forty years and a foundation later, his legacy returns to the official circuit of artistic dissemination with “Yves Saint Laurent Aux Musées”, which will take him to half a dozen Parisian museums. Aurélie Samuel, director of the Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent Foundation and associate curator of the project, unravels the close link between the most exquisite creator of the Rive Gauche and the avant-garde of the 20th century. From her office at the Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent Foundation, Aurélie Samuel is apologetic. The clock is fifteen minutes ahead of our appointment time for Zoom and there is a good reason…

Her work with rope is done with her hands because “I know how to do it, because I have to do it and because I am also asked to do it.” How not to do it then? Véronique de Soultrait works for the world from her studio in Lyon (southeastern France) surrounded by threads and strings of cotton, hemp, cork, silk, leather... There, among all kinds of materials and samples that she brings back or is brought back from her travels as well as containers ready to hold all types of homemade mixtures and dyes, this artist and craftswoman gets down to work. With the memory of her father’s hands, a count with wounded hands like a peasant, De Soultrait gives shape to the pieces that come out of her…

Strolling through the renowned neighborhood of Saint Germain and going back to one of our favorite places, the Café Le Procope, trying to see if something stuck of all the great names that have passed through it, such as Balzac, Rousseau, Franklin and many others, we discovered the Relais Christine, a hotel that although open since 1979, has been under major renovation for two years now. Curious as we are, we went to see what the final result was like because the building is not only a marvel when passing through the gates and seeing all the changes, it also floods us with a good vibe, it is sophisticated, but without being pretentious, with cozy rooms and a garden that is an oasis in the middle of the hustle and…