The Paris Fall Festival featuring Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and even Valéria Bruni-Tedeschi as seen by Dominique Païni…
Fall in Paris
The Paris Fall Festival is one way to beat the blues that usually come as summertime draws to a close. When the lazy days of summer holidays are over, cultural restlessness transforms Paris into the artistic capital of the world, a unique position that it has held for the past 20 years. For many decades now the people of Paris have become accustomed to seeing the city taken over by the New York, Berlin and London art scenes. If these three cities are financial spots for the commodification of art, it’s clear that Paris has had little effect on the stock market—quite fortunately.
But there’s no doubt that for an artist to sell well everywhere outside of Paris, they need to have established a name, gained some recognition, and achieved a symbolic Parisian stature. Without a doubt it’s the reason why the path to success now includes stops at the Anticipations Building of Lafayette Galeries in Marais, the Centre Pompidou, the François Pinault collection, located in the former circular stock exchange, the Samaritaine and the block of antique dealers of the Louvre absorbed by Cartier. It also signifies the importance of Paris for those who will come to dominate the world of contemporary art in the future.
While each of these worldwide capitals may only show five or six major exhibitions each season, Paris is able to offer twice as many. Additionally Paris remains the film library to the world since it boasts more than 400 screens where audiences can get to know world cinematography, including those films which are far beyond the realm of the Hollywood “blockbuster”.World cinema is on display in Paris featuring not only young filmmakers from central Europe, Latin America, and even the Middle-East but also those who are part of the “indie” scene from the four corners of the world. In addition to all of that the festival also has theatrical, musical and operatic programming which has seen a tremendous revival since the 2000s.
