are you tired of the same art?
Any regular visitor to Paris will be able to recite the cultural staples of the city off by heart.There’s the Musée d’Orsay with its Impressionist classics, the Comedié Francaise with its lavish Molière productions, an array of quirky little cinemas and, of course, the Mona Lisa smirking mysteriously in the Louvre.
It all adds up to a spectacular- if predictable- testament to the artistic glories of France’s past- but what, ask the critics, of the present? Or the future?
From Saturday 11st october, the answer may just have come in the unlikely form of Centquatre, a former funeral parlour in one of the capital’s grittiest neighbourhoods.
The complex has been entirely renovated to create what its directors are calling Europe’s largest artists’ residency.
Sculptors, designers, painters, comic strip writers, musicians, dancers and even gardeners are all welcome to work and exhibit in a 29,000 square metres space devoted entirely to cutting edge contemporary art. The only catch? They must be prepared for curious members of the public to enter their sanctum and watch them at work.
Here are 10 of the highlights from Paris’s most unexpected artistic treasure.
