African music defined many styles during the last century. Its influence lasts and maintains itself, and carries on causing much interest among the European public, as well as different musicians and producers from all genres. The impact of African sounds, therefore, is incalculable. Tracing a line which defines the ‘African sound’ is also complicated. Let’s say that Afro influence is everywhere, name it blues, jazz, funk, electro… the Afro sound is mixed up in the creation of many genres, partly in a resistance way, and also as the result of a process of colonization or slavery both in America and Europe. The presence of African culture in all continents, and as a counterpart with times of oppression or marginalization, struck a chord in the artistic conscience, it was used as a source for the generation of integrating aesthetics and which have even rocked modern and contemporary art, as well as 20th century music, of course.

Some of the first impressions of this influence are probably in France, in the proposals of the avant-gardes from the beginning of the century. We’re talking about the ‘isms’; cubism and surrealism mainly, both in painting and sculpture. Traditional African sculpture, of tribal nature, of reverence, cult or celebration, was undoubtedly a starting point for the processes of deconstruction made by people like Picasso and Gris, offsetting faces, proportions and perspectives. In the same way, the sacred nature of this work and the primordial spirit, human above all, captivated André Breton and the surrealists; it’s important to highlight that Breton was one of the most exhaustive collectors of African art of the time, and that everyone went to Breton’s house to kiss his hand, for good or bad. This exoticism towards Africa is still maintained today in France. In Belgium, in the same way, a country which also had colonies on that continent, a great African community gathers in a city like Brussels, in some of the most interesting African art shops.

However, from the exoticism and the colonies we move onto action. The influence is a current presence, and that’s how the Africolor festival brings to Paris some of the best Afro musicians from all genres; Amazigh Kateb, Badjé Tounkara Trio, Black Studies, Boubacar Traoré, Christine Salem, Danyel Waro, Debademba, Djeli Moussa Condé, Djéliny Kouyaté, Edmond Mondésir, Ensemble Mtendeni Maulid, Femi Kuti and The Positive Force, Founé Diarra Trio, Hélène Breschand et Ze, Jam Afane, Imidiwen, Imperial Tiger Orchestra, Jacky Molard et Founé Diarra, Jean-Didier Hoareau, L’oeil de Sikasso, Le Bal de l’Afrique enchantée, Le Bal Tamoul, Nicole Slack Jones and Ahmed Fofana just some of the names which will be present at this festival in Paris. If you love African music or its culture in all of its forms, this festival is for you. For more information visit the following webpage:  http://www.africolor.com/

Alexa Ray

Get apartments in Paris and be part of this wonderful music festival. Satisfaction guaranteed.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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There are places that you can remember vividly the first time you visited them. Maybe it was because of their beauty or perhaps because of their solemnity, but they always have in common the indescribable emotions that caused us their vision and left an indelible mark in our memory. The Pantheon is one of those places.

Located in the Latin Quarter, this building was erected as a church on the ruins of the ancient abbey of St. Genevieve, the patroness of the city. It was the homage of King Louis XV to the saint for having recovered from a serious illness. The project was carried out by the architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot in 1758, who sought to combine the brightness and lightness characteristic of Gothic style with classical principles. Soufflot died before his work finished and was one of his disciples who completed his construction in 1790. His plans were not followed with precision and the transparency he had planned for his masterpiece was never achieved. However, it is one of the most important architectural accomplishments of his time and the first great neoclassical monument.

At the time when the Eiffel Tower, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart or the Montparnasse tower had not yet been built, the Pantheon, with its imposing figure and its location on the hill of St. Genevieve, had one of the best views of the city.

When the French Revolution began, the Pantheon became the resting place of famous people of the country. It stopped being church and went through some changes, as the inscription on its façade: “to the great men the grateful homeland”. Over the years, its use as a cemetery or church has been alternating, depending on the current political becomings, until the death of the great playwright Victor Hugo in 1855. One million people followed his coffin to his burial in the Pantheon and definitely marked the fate of the building. Today, the liturgical functions are combined with those of the mausoleum.

With its 83 meters high, this ambitious building houses inside the Foucault pendulum since 1851, a demonstration of rotary motion of the earth. The original field of 67 meters is still preserved under the central dome, to the delight of visitors. In the underground chamber is the crypt, where 73 people, like Voltaire, Rousseau, Emile Zola, Marie Curie, Soufflot himself, Marat and Louise Braille are buried.

Visiting this place is very rewarding, but I recommend you to stop by on its surroundings, where the City Hall is located, also designed by Soufflot and built in a similar style to create a set of symmetry with the Pantheon. A few steps away is the impressive library of St. Genevieve, one of the most extraordinary cultural constructions of XIX century. Finally, on the north side, you can see the statue of Pierre Corneille playwright and the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont.

Web: http://www.paris.es/panteon

Address: 4 Boulevard du Palais, 75005

Metro: Cardinal Lemoine

Prices: 7 euros adults, 4.50 euros from 18 to 25 and free for children. Included in the Paris Pass.

Open from 10 to 18 hours every day. Access up to 45 minutes before closing.

Elena Alvarez

The wonderful views of the city from the Pantheon, as well as the magical smell of history within its walls is one of the pleasures that awaits you now if you rent one of our apartments in Paris

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Translated by: Hans
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Until the 31st of December 2011, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris exhibits ‘The Art Freaks’, and exhibition by the Swiss conceptual artist Olaf Breuning. The exhibition in the frame of the museum’s initiative to renovate their space and to pose a revision on creation, inviting innovative artists to rediscover new places and gaps in the building and turn them into exhibition places.

The programme which presents the exhibition ‘The Art Freaks’ has been creating thanks to the sponsoring of the Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent Foundation, whose aim is to contribute so that young artists have the possibility of exhibiting their work in a great museum. Up until today, there are 150 new artists who have exhibited, and their works have totally integrated into the complex and competitive world of art. The room destined to this programme is permanently transformed according the the artistic interventions which are presented.

The exhibition ‘The Art Freaks’ is based on an outlook to the visual codes of contemporary society, strongly influenced by the mass media and how the history of art looks at, symbolically, this lineup which destroys the capacity to imagine, an essential component in art.

His art monsters are shown in painted bodies which are similar to the works by Vincent Van Gogh, Louise Bourgeois, Francis Bacon, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Yves Klein among other painters who shaped the 19th and 20th century. These painted bodies are photographed and hang while two flags hang from the ceiling.

This is an interesting work commitment which breaks with the aesthetically correct and bad taste, which makes us look towards the tensions which are manifested in the field of creation. The question that Breuning seems to be making is: is everything that’s beautiful art, or does it depend on the shape in which that beauty is expressed and the social contents which encompass it, so that they’re constituted into art? An interesting question which has been floating in the air for over a century among artists and philosophers.

Breuning tries to stimulate dialogue with a society which moves with regulated aesthetic standards, on beauty and the ugly, on what’s good and what’s bad, on what should be remembered and what should be forgotten. A society which lives alienated and dehumanized by a system which handles the subject destroying his essence.

That’s where the value of his avant-garde work is, because not only does it demonstrate creation and his skills in body painting, but he also fills his work with contents, plays around with comedy and makes an interesting aesthetic proposal.

Olaf Breuning was born in Switzerland in 1970 and today lives in New York. He’s worked on video, drama techniques in his installations, photography, body painting, and he plays with sound and light to give the desired effects to each and every one of his works.

For more information: http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/fo3/low/programme/index.php?page=nav.inc.php&id_eve=3352

Nancy Guzman

A wonderful idea for this autumn is to take an evening work down the Champs-Elysées, have a coffee in Montmartre and sleep in good company in apartments in Paris So, if you follow these recommendations, don’t forget to visit this great exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Art lovers know that not all exhibitions are equal. Some are modest, discreet, passable, good and spectacular. The latter ones are normally scheduled by some big-name institution on one of those flagship artists who occupy chapters and chapters in the books of art. The Louvre in Paris, probably one the most important museum of the world, (certainly among the top five in the world) and Giorgio Vasa, who is  one of the leaders of the world of arts, almost no one disputed that. With this idea, the great temple of Paris (which itself offers a tour of the ancient civilization of China to the most rabid avant-garde) has organized an ambitious exhibition about the one who is considered to be the first critic of art history: the Italian Giorgio Vasari, taking advantage of this year 2011 marks the fifth centenary of his birth. The place, as we have said, the Louvre, dates: From 10^th of November 2011 to the 8^th of February 2012.

Vasari, born under the sign of Leo, in Arezzo, a town of Tuscany, he was a well-known and renowned architect, painter and writer. Although he made important architectural projects to the Medicis family especially some frescoes. His place in art history books is because his art book: Life of the best Italian architects, painters and sculptors published between 1542 and 1550 and known among connoisseurs and amateurs, simply as the Vasari. Although this contribution has overshadowed much of his work, we cannot forget his memorable projects, such as the Palace of the Uffizi and the original gallery, which connects it with the Palazzo Pitti. But despite these great works, all under the patronage of Duke Cosimo I de ‘Medicis, what Vasari really liked, was the work of researcher and writer. So, as he was able to gather a considerable fortune with “construction works”, he spent much of his life working on that great work of art history, which is the Vasari.

The Louvre Museum, which houses objects, documents and works of virtually all styles, periods and places, has organized this exhibition in which put into communication, as if the narration of a golden age was involved, the work of Vasari with the creations of those quoted by in his writings. For not the ones not proficient in these matters, we must remember that in Life of the best Italian architects, painters… there is an overview of the best period of Italian art, from Donatello, Fra Angelico and Piero della Francesca to Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli going through Mantegna. The significance of his name is such that the Louvre, which is not lavished in information, for this exhibition has published a series of additional documents coming out of specialists and researchers, such luster and shine, that they are the stars of this show. Here you have the link where you can find all the practical information:

http://www.louvre.fr/llv/exposition/detail_exposition.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198674214396&CURRENT_LLV_EXPO%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198674214396&pageId=1

Candela Vizcaíno

Remember to book apartments in Paris before leaving to this exhibition, because the city overlaps one exhibition with another and booking is always requested.

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Translated by: Hans
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From  the 11th until the 13th of  November, the Espace Pierre Cardin in Paris exhibits Fotoforever, a large exhibition with the participation of 35 international galleries that will gather the best of contemporary photography, digital photography and videos of great conceptual artists.

For this special occasion, the designer Stephane Plassier,will convert the Pierre Cardin Space into a temple dedicated to photography, where visitors and exhibitors will find the ideal atmosphere to meet with the beauty that can be seen in each snapshot.

Among the exhibitors there will be Paul Bogar, Mario Giacomelli, Lita Albuquerque and Jean Pomerau, Jacob Aue Sobol, Oleg Dou, and Carlos Enrique Otero Rottemberg, Julia Fullerton-Batten, Ellen Kooi, The mising Part, Franco Fontana, Phil Monk, Davide Bramante, Thomas Duval, Victoria Campillo, Ernesto Bazan, among other great photographers and visual artists.

Mario Giacomelli was born in Italy in 1925,  he began working as a typesetter and became owner of a printing press at the end of World War II. His beginnings in photography were in the early 50′s, when he managed to buy a Comet Bencina camera. His teacher was Giuseppe Cavalli who introduced him to photography, later he joined the MISA group, where he meets Piergiorgio Branzi, Silvio Pellegrini and others that will try new approaches in photography. Then he joined the La Bussola group which will shape the aesthetics of avant-garde Italian photography, imposing  his artistic look over the documentary one. Giacomelli’s works on black and white highly contrasted
paper. His work are one of the most recognized in the Italian photography environament.

Julia Fullerton-Batten belongs to the current generation of photographers from Britain. Her tools are digital photography to build real systems with sequences of images that form a symbolic story about society. With huge photographs being organized in sequences and creating patterns of stories, especially of young people and their lives she presents some of her latest works

Ellen Kooi lives in Holland and her work is focused on childhood and adolescence. Through images that reflect this segmentation, she includes the relationship they have for open space, nature and the imagination to live in remote areas of large cities. She is a photographer who applies her visual poetry performances with passion and full of allegories.

Ernesto Bazan was born in Palermo, Italy in 1958. His photography is breathtaking, sometimes realistic, sometimes surreal or sometimes even closer to that magical realism that  human landscape and nature give, but always full of nostalgia for the places they inhabit. He lived 14 years in Cuba and an important part of his work is referred to the Caribbean island, where it picks its singularity contained in black and white images.

For more information: http://www.fotofeverartfair.com/en-6-fotofever.html

Nancy Guzman

Paris is always worth an autumn adventure, so do not miss it by renting apartments in Paris and enjoying all the beauty that the city has to offer, including this wonderful exhibit, not be missed.

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Translated by: Marc
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In Paris things aren’t like they used to be. However, there are still some options to celebrate and explore this city. The best that you can do being in Paris is to walk, non-stop. Although it doesn’t seem so, Paris can still be explored by foot without the slightest problem. The city is a type of hill which expands. If you get to Montmartre, for example, you can then walk down into the city centre without a problem. A walk around Paris will make you realise how the city has preserved itself and, with everything, it preserves its particular style: old houses, small buildings and a nostalgic and romantic atmosphere. Maybe the best moment to visit Paris is spring or autumn, seasons which the quantity of tourists diminishes, despite the fact that Paris is never really tourist-free, but you can walk around the best known areas without running into so many visitors. Each corner in Paris seems to still preserve all the chains of stories, books and paintings which have been written or made in this legendary city. If you’re a romantic, a trip to Paris with your partner will give you new reasons to love, dream, fly…

However not everything is romance in Paris. The high prices which appear everywhere, from the services which are given at bars and restaurants, turn to be higher than the ones in other European cities. In any case, which city isn’t expensive these days? Every city competes today for a better place in Europe and, for that, the cities go for cultural offerings which are supposedly better than the rest and better organized. The affluence of culture in a city doesn’t guarantee that the city is, necessarily, democratic or willing to learn or to the ‘democratic’ exchange of identity, information, etc. At the moment, some cultural entities  seem to opt for new possibilities of investment in these times of economic recession. THe democratization of entertainment isn’t necessarily an operation which competes to all social sectors. At a time where more unity on certain subjects and problems should be addressed, the wide cultural offering through which public identities compete to position themselves in the international environment, has a consequence that a lot of these discussions are lost. The excess of cultural offering doesn’t guarantee better dialogue. On the contrary. The excess of offerings generates division of discourses, interests, the absence of potential political agents who really intervene in our new processes of action and meanwhile, encourage local economies who, under the etiquette of ‘culture’, benefit public and political powers, who aren’t necessarily involved with the demands of those who they try to ‘allude’ in their ‘cultural’ activities.

In any case, forget about politics and the unrest of today and enjoy this week of partying, alcohol, dance and music proposed by the event Les Nuits Capitles: a week of music and clubbing in Paris. Bars, restaurants and many other places will be at your disposal until the early hours of the morning. Don’t miss it! Visit this website for more information: http://nuitscapitales.com/

Alexa Ray

There’s nothing like getting apartments in Paris and being part of its exceptional cultural life. Explore Paris and get to know the best which is yet to come, or that, maybe, is already disappearing.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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The Jeu de Paume in Paris exhibits, until the 15th of March of 2012, the exhibition ‘Blow-up. Cycle Side Effects’ which is based on the interventions of seven visual artists. The exhibition is commissioned by Christopher Bruno and Daniele Balit.

The exhibition is inspired on the virtual platform Blow-up, analyzing how art can infiltrate itself in the media, exploring the temporary spaces which open themselves in the media, social networks, advertising and other spaces which are more appropriate of infotainment through it.

This online platform exploits  the potential of the new media of social communication. So that the exhibition is virtual, the artistic devices can be infiltrated both in physical places, companies, art places and urban spaces, or even in information places such as press rooms, television studios and virtual places on the internet, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc.

The artistic proposals are along the same lines of appropriations, interferences or infiltrations. Through them they carry out micro actions and bigger actions to be spread and manage to be visible in the economy of the immaterial. For that, they will integrate gradually the projects of this exhibition to the virtual platform, initiating this process together with the exhibition. The artists will be able to follow each project with the social networks.

What’s interesting is that this will be a database with registers of the interventions which will have appeared in the media which will be amplified by the networks, being permanently fueled and reorganized.

Among the interventions that will be presented, there’ll be ones from Natasha Rosling, Carlo Steiner, Dider Courbot, Doró García, Juan Bautista Bayle and Jimpunk.

Didier Courbot is a French artist who works with an extensive range of media, making videos, photographs and sculptures. His focus of artistic attention is on urban space and the environment. His installations in open spaces and exhibition rooms are striking due to their delicacy and pleasant visual image.

Jimpunk is an artist who works with computers and especially with the complex world of computer programmes. His work keeps a swarm of tiny details dedicating himself completely to appropriationism and the use of commands on javascript to get the spectator to obtain a lot less than what he expects from the navigation and that he complicates himself, because he stops having control for different reasons, like when the windows are programmed for being opened both if you touch the corresponding link as if you touch the one that doesn’t correspond, because wherever you touch it, it will take you to the same place without going anywhere, like a wonderful virtual labyrinth.

Despite the exhibition being a tad hermetic for beginners, it’s well worth getting to know the use that the artists make of new technologies and how they build virtual spaces to infiltrate art in the media.

For more information: http://espacevirtuel.jeudepaume.org/side-effects-957/

Nancy Guzman

Henry IV said that Paris is well worth a Mass, meaning that all good things require sacrifices. So, whichever sacrifice you make for being a few days in apartments in Paris it’s worth it, especially if you go and visit restaurants, cafés and museums, like the Jeu de Paume.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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Though a nation may be secular, this does not mean that people should not be able to practice religion there at all. Whether you are Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Evangelical, Ninja or Teletubby, you have every right to practice your religion anywhere in the world, without exception. If God could be anywhere at all, then one should be free to pray or meditate anywhere at all too.

Recent laws employed in Paris prohibiting demonstrations of religious faith in public spaces are truly alarming. It seems it was not enough for Sarkozy, deporting all the Gypsies last year and banning the burka, now he has made it forbidden to pray in public.

If you walk through parts of New York it is not unusual to see a delivery guy kneeling next to his parked van, praying toward Mecca. Similarly, many Jews pray on the subway while going to work. All this occurs without any problem; no one minds, no one bats an eye. However, it seems that in Paris the horror of Eastern culture is catching on, and this is creating a division between established Parisian society and the growing Muslim community in this city. The law prohibiting the burka in Paris was patently ridiculous. The idea of banning women from wearing burkas under the pretext of women’s rights and freedom, and calling this emancipation, should embarrass any French defender of human rights. The idea that is given – that of the white man saving a woman of colour – is undoubtedly a retrograde and counterproductive one.

A woman has the right to wear the clothes she chooses and women have the right to mount their own revolutions should they feel the need to do so. Similarly, everyone should have the right to pray where they choose, even in Paris, which is proving itself to be a rather conservative city these days. What happened to “Vive la Difference”? Unfortunately, at times of crisis, it seems that the thing to do is blame immigrants for a country’s economic problems. Is this not a familiar scene? Hasn’t the world suffered enough wars on account of religious or cultural suppression brought to bear on people at times of economic crisis?

Alexa Ray

Come and rent apartments in Paris and find ways of promoting activism to improve human rights in this melting pot of a city. Paris needs people with open eyes and minds to come and help the spread of multiculturalism, not hinder it.

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Translated by: Ben Palmer
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In November, Paris abandons its gala gowns and puts on its sports kit to receive one of the most important tennis tournaments of the whole season. From the 5th until the 13th of this month, it’s the BNP Paribas Masters 1000.

This tournament is one of the most important on the men’s circuit because it’s part of the ATP Masters Series. Every year, the best tennis players in the world gather in Paris to compete and define who is the best.

The BNP Paribas Masters 1000 has been taking place since 1968 and, since then, it’s become one of the most popular tournament in terms of attendance and one of the most awaited, both by the crowd and by the players. Every year, it’s carried out in the Palais Omnisports in Paris-Bercy, a beautiful rooftop stadium (indoors) which is located in the 12th Arrondissement in the city of Paris.

The whole sporting world stops for this event, because it’s the last tournament of this season, which will define who are the best eight tennis players in the world, who will then compete in London in the final of the ATP World Tour.

It has been played on hard surface since 2007, which favours that each tennis player brings out the best in them.

The most exciting thing for the crowd who attend this tournament is that they have the chance to see the best tennis players in the world together on one same stage. Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray are the crowd favourites, who will once again enjoy an excellent end to the sporting season this year in Bercy, Paris.

For more information on the tournament, visit this webapge: http://www.bnpparibasopen.com/

d.b

If you want to enjoy the best tennis in the world, rent apartments in Paris and, as well as watching good tennis, you’ll be able to spend a few wonderful days in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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In 1980, due to the desperation caused by the death of his mother and as an explicit tribute the ‘The imagination’ by Jean-Paul Sartre, Roland Barthes published what would be the last book of his life, the great and disturbing ‘Camera Lucida. Notes on photography’, which seemed like an essay at first but was actually no other than “a novel on such a beloved image of a mother” where, in a strange way, more than one musical Proustian note is played in the shape of, naturally, musical ritornello.

Despite being one of the great writings on photography written in the 20th century, Barthes himself warned that it was a book that would probably disappoint photographers, because the French writer was very aware that the appropriation that he did in this book of the field of photography, to talk about a series of things that constituted the essential preoccupations of his final days, particularly and opportunistically death, because when representing the photograph imaginarily, for Barthes it’s the unattainable moment where the subject becomes an object, and we become spectres through it, we live a theatre micro experience of death in its virtue in which, like in ancient theatre, the mask is the meaning. We submerge ourselves abruptly in literal Death (regardless of rituals, religion and symbolism), we enter the plain Death (and the essential horror of death, Barthes suggests, resides in its plainness), in a way which is not that different to how the disturbing Egyptian portraits of Al Fayum make us go into it.

Based on his insecurity towards the existence of a ‘genius’ of photogrpahy itself (in other words, if photography was something ‘in itself’) and on the attraction that he felt towards certain photographs, Barthes coined a new concept which, since then, has become capital for a series of important artists. It’s what he called ‘punctum’ (prick, small hole, small stain, small cut, and also chance), or, in other words, that chance which, in certain photographs, excels us at the same time that it pricks and lacerates us.

We shouldn’t be surprised that ‘Camera Lucida’ came out in France, taking into account that not only it’s in this country that photography, as we know it and conventionally understand it, was born, but also the fact that in no other place on the planet has it been talked and thought about so much, so fruitfully and ‘lucidly’, according to Barthes, about that indissoluble and disturbing mix of reality and past which is the photographic image.

It’s also not by chance that in Paris one of the world’s most important international photographic festivals takes place, the prestigious Paris Photo (http://www.parisphoto.fr), whose 15th edition which gives special attention to African photography, will take place in the unforgettable Grand Palais between the 10th and 13th of November, dates where 135 galleries and editorials from over 23 countries will gather in the French capital.

Paul Oilzum

It’s a great event in the heart of a particularly photogenic and photographic city (can anyone think of the city of the Seine aside from in photographs?) that you would be wrong to miss it if you rent apartments in Paris

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Translated by: aleixgwilliam
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